In this captivating episode, Doug Hardesty, the Chief Operating Officer of MycoWorks, discusses drawing on his extensive manufacturing experience to establish the diverse team, systems, and processes necessary to transition Fine Mycelium™ from a small garage in San Francisco to opening the world's first commercial-scale mycelium production plant in Union, South Carolina. 

0:03:00 - Scaling up from a garage in SF, CA -> pilot plant in Emeryville, CA-> commercial-scale plant in Union, SC

0:11:09 - Doug's reaction to first seeing Reishi

0:13:39 - Why people take career steps back to join MycoWorks

0:15:19 - Building a passionate team around a shared vision

0:18:01 - The importance of personal interaction in manufacturing

0:22:07 - Building a diverse team from different industries

MycoWorks Talks is a space to feed your wonder and curiosity for a new class of materials. Xevi Gallego, our VP of Brand & Marketing, hosts talks with people in the MycoWorks universe, taking you on a behind-the-scenes journey of unfiltered conversations about our product, technology, our incredible team, and much more.

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes each month and if you have episode ideas or feedback, please review. We love to hear from you! To learn more about MycoWorks, follow our journey on instagram at @MycoWorks.

“Sustainability means to me being authentic to our hearts and who we are.” 
Mehera Blum is the founder and creative director of Blumera, a company that designs exquisite, uplifting collections created with intention using natural sustainable materials and loved by celebrities like Beyoncé and Lady Gaga. We recently collaborated with Mehera to create the Poppies Octagon Wood Clutch made with Reishi™: a unique, hand-carved addition to Blumera’s popular line of wood clutches that features a perfectly fitted hexagonal Reishi™ bag. In this episode, Mehera sits down with Xevi to speak about this collaborative project, her journey to reimagine the paintings of her late mother, world-renowned painter Laurie Blum, the Blumera bag Beyoncé chose to wear for her 40th birthday, and the search for a new material that led her to her collaboration with MycoWorks.

In this episode:
2:02 - The search for a new material that led her to MycoWorks
3:15 - The search for the best carver in Bali
6:50 -  Living in a creation of love: launching Sanctuary Blumera. Creating with an intention of love.
8:09 - Her next endeavor: filming the journey of creation and her inner story of love and spirituality
9:15 - The journey that led to Beyoncé wearing Mehera’s large Anhinga brass bag and then the stylist that she wore it for her 40th birthday.
12:15 - The object Mehera and MycoWorks created together, Poppies Octagon Wood Clutch made with Reishi™
15:00 - Origin of her mother’s paintings in a devotional practice rooted in Persian mysticism
17:20 - What sustainability means to Mehera

MycoWorks Talks is a space to feed your wonder and curiosity for a new class of materials. Xevi Gallego, our VP of Brand & Marketing, hosts talks with people in the MycoWorks universe, taking you on a behind-the-scenes journey of unfiltered conversations about our product, technology, our incredible team, and much more. 

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes each month and if you have episode ideas or feedback, please review. We love to hear from you! To learn more about MycoWorks, follow our journey on instagram at @MycoWorks.

This fall, MycoWorks is celebrating its ten-year anniversary, and to mark the occasion, we invited Sophia Wang, MycoWorks co-founder and Chief of Culture, back to the studio for a recap and a look forward.

In this episode:

1:10 – Collaborating with Phil Ross and learning about everything mycelium can do
3:00 – What Sophia today would tell herself over 15 years ago
4:00 – Attending IndieBio as a young entrepreneur
7:25 – Writing a first set of company values as a young team
15:45 – Leadership and mentorship from MycoWorks COO, Doug Hardesty
18:00 – What does “more Sophia” mean?
23:45 – Her first consumer experience of unboxing Reishi™ products 
28:45 – A new factory in South Carolina

MycoWorks Talks is a space to feed your wonder and curiosity for a new class of materials. Xevi Gallego, our VP of Brand & Marketing, hosts talks with people in the MycoWorks universe, taking you on a behind-the-scenes journey of unfiltered conversations about our product, technology, our incredible team, and much more.

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes each month and if you have episode ideas or feedback, please review. We love to hear from you! To learn more about MycoWorks, follow our journey on instagram at @MycoWorks.

“In the lab, we like to say that our mycelium is a bit capricious; it has its own temper,” says Maud Ohler, Vice President of Technology Development at MycoWorks and fermentation scientist. Maud’s work with mycelium traces back to about 15 years ago when she first heard the word mycelium in a biology class focused on tree/root symbiosis and mycorrhizae, the symbiotic association between roots and fungus. She now finds herself working intimately with mycelium in the MycoWorks tech dev lab on a daily basis. Listen to this episode to hear about Maud’s career in fermentation and biology, the challenges of scaling up our technology, Fine Mycelium™, and the vast opportunity behind mycelium as a material for the future. 

 In this episode:

• 2:20 - Hearing mycelium for the first time in biology class
• 4:00 - The versatility and unique properties of mycelium
• 5:45 - What makes the Reishi strain unique
• 9:20 - Universe in a tray
• 15:40 - Challenges of scaling at the South Carolina plant
• 18:00 - The mycelium industry in 10 years
• 20:30 - Durability in relation to sustainability

MycoWorks Talks is a space to feed your wonder and curiosity for a new class of materials. Xevi Gallego, our VP of Brand & Marketing, hosts talks with people in the MycoWorks universe, taking you on a behind-the-scenes journey of unfiltered conversations about our product, technology, our incredible team, and much more. 

“Biology is the new frontier. It’s still the great unknown,” shares Matt Scullin, materials scientist and MycoWorks CEO. In this episode, Matt dives into the enormous opportunity in the materials industry, how mycelium is a uniquely positioned organism to unlock this new frontier, and the challenges of scaling up our technology as we build the new plant in South Carolina. 

In this episode:

• 2:00 - Why mycelium?
• 9:10 - Biology and brand new tools - a combination of science and creativity
• 17:40 - Fine tuning our product and technology 
• 29:40 - Hermès as the north star-  "the partner that has helped us understand what quality means.” 

MycoWorks Talks is a space to feed your wonder and curiosity for a new class of materials. Xevi Gallego, our VP of Brand & Marketing, hosts talks with people in the MycoWorks universe, taking you on a behind-the-scenes journey of unfiltered conversations about our product, technology, our incredible team, and much more. 

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes each month and if you have episode ideas or feedback, please leave a review. We love to hear from you! To learn more about MycoWorks, follow our journey on instagram at @MycoWorks.

“I hate the word luxury. I think we should replace it with the search for excellence and quality,” shares Patrick Thomas, industry legend, previous CEO of Hermès, and MycoWorks’ board member. In this episode, Patrick shares what true luxury is for him, how connected luxury is to sustainability, and his thoughts on the future of alternative materials and Reishi™ for the luxury industry.

 In this episode:

• 1:30 Becoming the CEO of Hermès: “An encounter”
• 5:00 The definition of true luxury
• 8:10 Luxury and sustainability
• 10:00 Alternative materials, Reishi™ and the future of the luxury world 
• 19:20 Anecdote from the luxury world: The story of a 70 year-old Hermès saddle
• 23:15 Sustainability: “Going back to common sense.” 

MycoWorks Talks is a space to feed your wonder and curiosity for a new class of materials. Xevi Gallego, our VP of Brand & Marketing, hosts talks with people in the MycoWorks universe, taking you on a behind-the-scenes journey of unfiltered conversations about our product, technology, our incredible team, and much more. 

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes each month and if you have episode ideas or feedback, please review. We love to hear from you! To learn more about MycoWorks, follow our journey on instagram at @MycoWorks.

"It feels new; I've never felt something like this before. It's totally different," wondered Antoine Roset, CEO of Roset SAS, when he felt a sheet of Reishi™ for the first time. In this episode, Antoine shares the importance of design and durability for the high-end French furniture manufacturer Ligne Roset, his thoughts on new materials, what sustainability means to him, and why this fifth-generational company decided to work with Reishi™. 

In this episode:

• 3:30 Ligne Roset's motivation to partner with MycoWorks 
• 6:25 New materials and the furniture industry 
• 7:05 Innovation, design, and sustainability
• 12:00 Reishi™: A new category of material 
• 14:30 "Luxury is excellence."
• 20:00 Ligne Roset big come back to Salone del Mobile 

MycoWorks Talks is a space to feed your wonder and curiosity for a new class of materials. Xevi Gallego, our VP of Brand Marketing, hosts talks with people in the MycoWorks universe, taking you on a behind-the-scenes journey of unfiltered conversations about our product, technology, our incredible team, and much more. 

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes each month and if you have episode ideas or feedback, please review. We love to hear from you!To learn more about MycoWorks, follow our journey on instagram at @MycoWorks.

"You only have one chance to make a first impression, so it better be great," shares Elettra Wiedemann, fashion icon, food writer, and Executive Director of Mama Farm, about her learnings from a successful career in the fashion industry. In this episode, Elettra shares her long-life passion for environmentalism and food, why she changed Fashion Weeks to farms and her story with MycoWorks. 

In this episode:
• Elettra’s story with MycoWorks and friendship with Matt
• A plate of oatmeal: her path to understanding biomedicine, biotechnology, and bio society
• From fashion to agriculture: “it’s a very long, tangled road.”
• The future of fashion: getting more connected to the source of what you’re wearing.
“Fashion is a lot like farming.”
• “To me, sustainability means walking through the places I hike now with my kids and doing those same hikes with my grandchildren.”

Learn more about MycoWorks: https://www.mycoworks.com
Get closer to Reishi™: https://www.madewithreishi.com
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mycoworks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MycoWorksInc
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/mycoworks

If you haven’t already, make sure to subscribe to get the latest episodes each month and if you have episode ideas or feedback, please review. We love to hear from you!To learn more about MycoWorks, follow our journey on instagram at @MycoWorks.