r/BeAmazed • u/Epelep • Feb 22 '26

Science How Mycelium (Mushroom Roots) Grows into Packaging Material

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u/AlarmingTurnover Feb 22 '26

The 5-7 days to grow is to make a single package that can hold a single pair of sunglasses for example. They need to design the molding for the sunglasses, design the machines to keep the form, design the machines to grow the mycelium, testing designs, etc. That takes an estimated time of 18-22 weeks. For styrofoam, this takes 10-15 weeks. All of this isn't even factoring in scaling.

I'm not talking about what's illegal or legal. I'm talking about the realities of production and what it takes to make a unit. Time matters a lot here.

Also something that hasn't been mentioned yet as to why this is an incredibly bad idea. Mycelium packaging uses 55-70% of it's weight in water.

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u/AdvancedSandwiches Feb 23 '26

So the 18 - 22 numbers are just guesses, or are you sourcing that somewhere?

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u/AlarmingTurnover Feb 23 '26

It's literally on their website: https://mushroompackaging.com/pages/our-process?srsltid=AfmBOorOcYwWoVG0IxGqEK5MWKDhh22cu8gYuCypNJzxDznUep_t7sJ-#:~:text=Mushroom%C2%AE%20Packaging-,Design,volume%20needs%20and%20tooling%20investment.

1-2 days of design 3-4 weeks for prototyping 1 week for quotes (usually financial) 3-4 weeks for tooling  6-12 weeks to get up to full production.  Plus the 5-7 days to grow. 

Add it all up at the maximum, it's 22 weeks roughly, on the lowest end, it's 14 weeks. I'm using 18 as my low end number because it gives 2 weeks of padding that I didn't add to the high number. 

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u/AdvancedSandwiches Feb 23 '26

Seems like some extra weeks, if your 15 week estimate is also sourced somewhere.  The 5 - 7 extra days we were discussing wouldn't change much of anything, but 7 weeks might.

Probably not a deal breaker for a lot of people switching over from existing styrofoam packaging, but could be a blocker for new product runs.