Harnessing fungi to boost Finnish bioeconomy and sustainable growth

Filamentous fungi are metabolically diverse microorganisms that are robust against changing growth conditions. They can metabolize nutrients even from complex organic matrices, including hemicellulosic sugars that most microorganisms cannot utilize. Fungi are used to produce various valuable compounds, such as industrial enzymes, proteins for food and materials applications, or valuable extracts. Fungi are expected to play a significant role in the bioeconomy, as they enable valorization of organic side and waste streams from industry. When exploiting fungi in future biorefineries, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus will be better retained in the value chain instead of ending in waste disposal.
The Fantastic Fungi project addresses bottlenecks in the efficient utilization of organic industrial side and waste streams and develops novel routes for valorization of various side and waste streams from food production and biorefineries, as well as include residual fungal biomass from precision fermentation in the up-cycling pipeline. The project sets to tackle the challenge of utilizing waste streams as substrates as they often contain inhibitors and nutrients and carbon that are difficult to release and recycle. This also includes waste streams from pulp and paper industries that are abundant and today commonly burned. Such waste streams will be used for production of fungal enzymes or materials. Moreover, byproducts from milling industry and from the rapidly growing oat drink production will be up cycled, aiming at fungal products for human consumption. Fantastic Fungi will analyse how these novel value chains may be realized. The project will also gain insight in how the processes could be scaled up and create understanding of the ethical and safety issues related to the new technologies.
We expect that by 2035, the Finnish Circular Bioeconomy will strongly rely on fungal bioprocesses to transform current organic waste streams to valuable products while retaining carbon, nitrogen and phosphorous within the value chain.
The Fantastic Fungi consortium comprises VTT as a research partner and seven companies: Biomush, enifer, Kääpä, Raisio, AB Enzymes, Synbio Powerlabs and UPM. It covers the entire value chain having partners from producers of industrial side and waste streams to producers of fungal biomass, enzymes, or other fungal derived products, to companies focused on scale-up capacity. Through Fantastic Fungi results and collaborations, the companies will be able to create value from their current waste streams, increase their competitiveness and develop more sustainable business.
The technologies developed in the Fantastic Fungi project are targeted to be commercialised within 5-10 years after the end of the project, and the consortium expects an export potential of approximately 600M€ for Finland through related technologies and products in 2035.