Mushroom® Packaging

What is Mushroom® Packaging?

 

Mushroom® Packaging is an entirely home-compostable alternative for the plastic foams used in protective packaging. Grown in just 6 days from mycelium (mushroom roots) and biomass, Mushroom® Packaging is a cost and performance competitive solution for custom molded products. 

 

We grow materials! Our compostable packaging for our protein bars and plant based snacks is grown, not manufactured. We offer a unique, sustainable packaging technology that offers superior protection, is fully home-compostable, and is grown in just 6 days using the roots of mushrooms (mycelium) as a natural glue. 

 

Our Mushroom® Packaging is an open-loop technology that can accept a wide variety of raw material inputs with nearly 100% efficiency and no material waste in the production process.

 

Mushroom® Packaging is simply made with 2 ingredients: hemp hurds and mycelium.

 

A high-performing packaging solution, cost competitive, thermally insulating, and water resistant. Add to the soil to compost in 45 days.

 

 

Mushroom® Packaging is:

1. Grown to shape in only 6 days, no post-processing required

2. C2C Gold Certified, the highest certification for sustainable goods

3. Custom molded at a fraction of the cost of foam packaging

4. Flame resistant, due to inherent properties of mycelium

5. Biodegradable and fully home-compostable, returning nutrients back to the earth

6. Naturally water resistant (hydrophobic), making it suitable for thermal applications and shipping with ice packs that are subject to melting

7. An active soil amendment, strengthens the growth of plants

 

Feedstock/Raw Materials:
Mushroom® Packaging contains hemp hurd (or hemp hurds, both appropriate). We typically refer to it as hemp hurd, as "hurds" indicates multiple internal portions of the hemp plant.

 

Our hemp hurd is a waste stream from the fiber hemp industry. In a process called decortication, the fiber is stripped from the plants for us in other industries like textiles or for ropes. What's left is the interior spongy part of the hemp plant called the hurd (or pith). Hemp sequesters more carbon per acre than any other commercial crop. 

 

Compostability:

The Mushroom® Packaging we use for our protein bars and plant based snacks is fully home compostable. Mushroom® Packaging does not require industrial composting conditions (heat, processing) like many products that claim they are compostable require. When broken up into small pieces, Mushroom® Packaging will return to the earth in just 45 days. 

 

Mushroom Packaging is Cradle to Cradle Gold Certified and home compostable. While you can dispose of Mushroom® Packaging in an industrial compost bin or the trash, we recommend home composting.

Mushroom® Packaging is a fully home-compostable, circular economy product that does not require unique conditions to break down, as industrially compostable items do (e.g., PLA). We work to create value from agricultural waste by producing a self-assembled product that is positive for our planet and nourishes the earth at the end of its useful life.

 

Basic Terminology:

Compostable:adds nutrients back into the earth. Compostable products are biodegradable materials that break down quickly under defined conditions that support plant growth. 

 

Degradable:just means that an item breaks down. Something that is degradable doesn’t require living organisms to break it down. Something harmful could also degrade.

 

Biodegradable: can be broken down by living things like bacteria and fungi.

 

Industry Recognized Certifications:

• Biodegradable Product Institute (ASTM D6400, soil toxicology)
• USDA Biobased Preferred (ASTM D6866)
• Cradle to Cradle Gold Certified
• International Living Future Institute, Declare Red-List Free
• VOC (ASTM D1333) and Aldehyde Free (ASTM D6007)

 

GHG Reduction

Annually there are 900,000 metric tons of plastic foam protective packaging used domestically. Each metric ton of plastic foam is equivalent to 1.78 metric tons of petroleum due to these materials’ high embodied energy and fossil fuel composition. Fully displacing foams would save 1.45 million metric tons annually.

 

A comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment found that Mushroom® Packaging consumes a tenth the energy while emitting an eight of the GHGs as an equivalent volume of foam.