Fungi Feud: IP Battles in Mycoprotein

May 10, 2022 | Case Study

Mycoprotein producers Meati Foods and The Better Meat Co. are engaged in an IP battle over production techniques. Though neither producer has made its production techniques public, Meati alleges that former employees left to work for Better Meat and took proprietary techniques with them. Better Meat began as a flavor enhancer company, but it was revealed in 2021, that it had stealthily been developing a mycelium meat substitute. Meati Foods was part of Chain Reaction Innovations at Argonne National Laboratory, where it claims former collaborator Augustus Pattillo had access to its digital laboratory notebooks. Pattillo was named as the inventor on Better Meat’s patent on mycelium production methods. Meati claimed that the content was stolen, and Better Meat claimed that if the technology belonged to Meati, it would already have obtained a patent.