Planterra Foods, an innovative plant-based protein start-up company based in Colorado, announced recently a Master Collaboration Agreement with MycoTechnology, a food ingredient company focused on moving food forward by infusing human ingenuity with the intelligence of nature. The agreement was designed to strengthen the ingredient partnership between the two Colorado-based companies as they plan to accelerate development technologies to improve the quality of plant-based proteins.
Over the past year, Planterra’s brand of OZO plant-based products have been made with MycoTechnology’s pea and rice protein fermented by Shiitake mycelia, the roots of Shiitake mushrooms. This step of entering a Master Collaboration Agreement will unlock potential for expanded levels of collaboration between an ingredients company and a final consumer goods company. The agreement also allows much closer collaboration between the two company’s Research & Development teams, which could lead to shared ownership of intellectual property.
“We believe that people shouldn’t have to sacrifice delicious flavour to adopt a more sustainable and healthy diet, and we believe in the incredible power of food to transform our shared future and lead people through the delicious world of plant-based proteins,” said Darcey Macken, CEO of Planterra Foods. “Our goal in entering this agreement with MycoTechnology is to foster collaborations between an ingredient manufacturer and consumer packaged goods company to create more quality and best-tasting ingredients, and to accelerate and unlock ingredients specifically designed for final applications and focused on taste improvement.”
“Our work with Planterra Foods is just beginning, and we’re excited to expand the quality of ingredients offered for the plant-based industry at large, beginning with this partnership,” said Alan Hahn, CEO of MycoTechnology.
He added, “We’ve seen great success through our fermented Shiitake blend, providing superior taste in Planterra’s OZO products, and we believe the plant-based industry needs to continue to push the adoption of plant-based alternatives, with taste and quality being a main factor in driving this adoption.”
Technologies developed through this collaboration program are initially intended to be utilised for Planterra Foods, but may also be commercialised to other companies to accelerate the adoption of higher quality Plant-Based meats in general.
