Meati Life Cycle Assessment: Big Flavor, Tiny Footprint

Discover how meati stacks up against beef and chicken in our third-party verified LCA—less water, land, and emissions, with all the flavor you love.

The Challenge We Embrace

Feeding people well – without feeding climate problems – is the challenge of our time. Can we really imagine a world where factory farming continues to release 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions, contributes to 80% of all deforestation, and guzzles up to 33% of all fresh water on the planet? Absolutely not!

Enter meati™ – serving up our cutlets and steaks to deliver Good Energy, great news, and delicious, resource-friendly food that tastes as good as it feels.

Farming with Purpose

Organic and regenerative practices like crop rotation and managed grazing breathe new life into our soil, capture carbon, and keep food clean and nutritious. According to the Regenerative Organic Alliance, regenerative farming can increase biodiversity by up to 50% and improve water retention in soil by 20%!

But our farmer friends can’t tackle this solo. Meati isn’t here to replace animal meat (our CEO did happen to be a bison rancher – true story!), but we are definitely bringing fresh flavors and sustainable changes to the table.

By using minimal land and water, meati frees up space and resources for more regenerative farming practices. Enjoying meati means you and your plate are actively creating a brighter, more sustainable world – now that’s Good Energy worth savoring!

Meati’s Mighty Mycelium

We recently teamed up with PlanetFWD, an independent organization committed to delivering no-nonsense, data-backed Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), comparing our product’s impact to other traditional proteins. Because at meati, when it comes to sustainability, we like our numbers as honest as our ingredients.

PlanetFWD’s LCA for meati dissected everything from our packaging to our Colorado-cold transport, diving deep into all things mycelium. The findings? Delightful, but not surprising.  

Less Gas, More Flavor

Meati emits 1/9^th the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of beef steak.

Like you, we are chefs at heart – picture yourself in a kitchen where GHG emissions are steam from boiling pots of water. Chicken would bubble, and steak would be a full rolling boil. Meati? Barely a simmer. 

In this kitchen, that means meati emits 89% less GHGs than beef, and 66% less than chicken! To match meati’s minimal footprint, you would need to trim over 65% off your chicken and nearly 90% off your steak – talk about leaving you hungry!

Sip, Don’t Guzzle

Meati utilizes almost 2-4x less water than chicken and steak.

Producing a kilogram of beef takes a whopping 2,145 liters of water, chicken clocks in at 832 liters, while meati? A lean 557 liters – saving more water for the trees our mycelium helps to grow.

Imagine faucets filling those same water pots: Beef’s tap would run for a full minute, chicken’s would run for 23.3 seconds. Meati’s mycelium? Just 15 seconds. Talk about an efficient flow! 

With fresh water becoming scarce, every meati meal helps safeguard our precious H2O.

Small Footprint, Big BBQ Energy

Meati requires less than 4% of the land compared to traditional animal proteins.

Meati isn’t just tasty, it’s smart. It was no accident that meati uses 95% less land than beef and 82% less land than chicken, scaling upwards, not outwards. We intentionally expanded our production vertically to utilize as little land as possible, to expand the protein we produce, as well as the impact we have on the planet and its limited “table space”.

We may be biased, but barbeque season is our favorite time of year! At the SXSW Festival, we filled picnic tables with sauce covered smiles, feeding thousands of people our BBQ burnt ends.

So, let’s keep those grills fired up and have a picnic: if there were 100 tables to feed the guests; beef would hog 75 tables, chicken grabs about 20. Meati is truly the “host without the most” – taking up only 4 tables (or 1.2 square meters per year per kg) – leaving ample land for activities. Cornhole, anyone?

Proudly Raising the Fork (and the Bar)

Meati’s sustainability results prove we are not just planting roots – we are shaking branches and elevating the food game for good. But don’t expect to see a food fight – we’re on a mission to support the whole-food community – from organic farmers nourishing the land to shepherds lovingly raising their flocks.

We don’t just talk sustainability – we take it as seriously as our potluck dishes. Whether strolling through the solar garden of our green energy supplier, or optimizing fermentation schedules at our Ranch – you can trust meati is taking fungi-fueled steps to shift the protein paradigm.

Every little orange box of meati in your cart nudges the world towards something bigger: A tastier, smarter food system with less waste, less worry, and more delicious possibilities.

So, pull up a chair – we invite you to join us in eating better, demanding more from the food industry, and making real food the new standard.

We’ll save you a seat at the picnic table.