WATCH: What started as a search for an ideal food for space travellers may offer a path away from unsustainable meat production on Earth. Video for What Works by Kahani Pictures.

On a quest to invent the next best astronaut food, Gavin Schneider developed a mushroom-based protein that could change the way we eat on Earth. 

In April, Schneider’s company, Maia Farms, was part of the winning team in the Canadian Space Agency’s Deep Space Food Challenge, alongside ag-tech company Ecoation. The two firms designed an extremely efficient and compact food production system, as well as a versatile mushroom-based protein product that could aid future space travel. 

But back on Earth, Schneider said Maia Farms’ protein product — made from mycelium, a rootlike structure within fungi — could have a tangible impact here too, significantly decreasing the amount of resources and emissions required to satisfy our protein needs.

“It’s arguably the most efficient form of agriculture that will ever exist,” Schneider said.

The mass production of meat, such as beef or chicken, is resource-intensive, emits harmful greenhouse gases and contributes to deforestation. According to the David Suzuki Foundation, meat and dairy production take up 30 per cent of the planet’s surface and account for 18 per cent of greenhouse gases. However, without a comparable plant-based alternative, meat consumption is hardly wavering. Between 2000 and 2019, global demand for beef and other ruminant meats grew by 25 per cent, according to the World Resources Institute.

To Schneider, and the rest of Maia Farms’ eight-person team, these statistics spell out an opportunity to innovate.

While a cow takes 18 months to grow before being harvested, Maia Farms can harvest its mushroom mycelium protein after only seven days. “From just a pure efficiency standpoint, that’s what we’re going for,” Schneider said.

At a lab that somewhat resembles a brewery, Schneider said Maia Farms uses a biomass fermentation process to grow mycelium inside bioreactors, which should reach a capacity of 15,000 litres in 2025. Maia Farms’ growing process emits 84 per cent less carbon dioxide than chicken, per unit of production, he added.

“That’s a huge factor as to what’s driving us down this path,” Schneider said.

The potential for mycelium to become a global source of nutritional, sustainable protein is rooted in a firm foundation of research and investments thus far, according to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. While the ingredient still requires significant scaling up of production capacity, the study states that it could become on par with beef or even chicken production if this is achieved.

The study adds that further research is needed on the potential health impacts of mycelium intake, and its scaling up needs to be accompanied by consumer education campaigns that teach consumers what the ingredient is and how to use it.

To turn a profit, Maia Farms is focused on ramping up its sales as an ingredient supplier, selling to food manufacturers who can take the mycelium and add it to their own products.

“You won’t see Maia Farms products on shelves. But what we’re really focused on is being the foundational food ingredient that other, smarter people, who can put products on shelves, can use to create something else,” Schneider said.

From granola bars to ice cream to burgers to sushi rolls, the possibilities are growing, Schneider said. Maia Farms has partnered with several notable Canadian plant-based food manufacturers, whose products are for sale in places like Costco.

Maia Farms’ mycelium product is still more expensive than traditional animal or other plant proteins, but Schneider said current modelling shows that when produced at scale, it will be comparable in price to chicken production.

“I grew up tending to cattle with my father, and so it’s not that I don’t see that we will continue to produce animal proteins,” Schneider said. 

“It’s that we can’t produce that amount of animal protein while also feeding a 10-billion-person population, without completely destroying our environment.”

By 2030, Maia Farms aims to have five mycelium farms on five continents, proving its versatility and suitability for everyone — from astronauts to Costco shoppers to international palates.

“We truly want to bring forward a global solution,” Schneider said.