Behind the Scenes with Fungtn
Lisa talks to Zoey Henderson about how she turned her love for functional mushrooms into a thriving craft-ale business, and answers the two questions on everyone’s mind when they hear about a beer made from fungus: does it taste like mushrooms, and will it get you high?!
Not many people would know that you can make beer from mushrooms, but we’re not talking about the ‘magic’ variety are we?
Ha! Indeed, our beers won’t get you high; they are a completely different genius of fungi and actually they don’t taste like mushrooms! We use a super food class of fungi known as functional or medicinal mushrooms. They have been used in traditional medicine and wellness for thousands of years and now we have the science to back up this ancient wisdom. Identifying high levels of compounds such as Beta Glucans and polysaccharides that go beyond standard mushroom micronutrient benefits and act as powerful adaptogens.
Fun fact: The grandaddy of symbiotic fungi, Yeast, is what makes beer, well, beer. So, all beers are in fact fungi based!
Fungtn is not just a craft beer, it’s a vegan, gluten-free, and alcohol-free craft beer! How important was it to make such an inclusive product?
Our aim was to make a more mindful beer that acted as vehicle to integrate functional herbs and fungi into our diets. As a vegan, making any product with animal derivatives seemed outdated from a manufacturing point of view not to mention the ethical reasons. We developed a gluten-free product because one of the more undesirable side effects of beer drinking, especially craft beers, can be bloating and gas, usually caused by the high gluten levels of traditional recipes. This is one reason why I feel women have historically drunk less beer. From a production point of view this could be easily eradicated via a natural enzyme to break down the gluten. We want to bring ancient wisdom and positive wellness into a well-loved social ceremony. The functional benefits to be gained by introducing adaptogens such as immune support, aiding focus, sleep and blood sugar regulation are the exact functions toxic overload from excess alcohol can affect. So, making an adaptogenic product that contained alcohol would have cancelled out any potential benefits.
Can you still call a product a craft beer when its alcohol free? What made you decide to leave the alcohol out?
The process of making alcohol free beer is step by step the exact same process as with a full alcohol brew. The product is then dealcoholized or fermentation capped by a natural enzyme to essentially kill the yeast. We use the latter for a more natural process, so unlike so other genres of alcohol free products, we still make beer, we just don’t let it over ferment past 0.5%. I would argue the defining feature of beer making is the yeast; without the fermentation you have a hop infused beverage, which is not technically a beer.
I think as producers and entrepreneurs of the present and future, sustainability and health should really be at forefront of new product development. Sure, people like a treat and the world we are in makes it very difficult to avoid tasty, bad for you products, but there needs to be more choice. Alcohol is a toxin, cleverly delivered in years of marketing rhetoric to be the party starter and occasion creator; but we as humans are starting to see it’s the ceremony and occasions themselves that are special, not the alcohol infused experience. Creating products that give consumers more choice enables better decisions to be made now that we are becoming increasingly informed about the dangers of over consumption of alcohol.
A lot of people still don’t understand that many beers, spirits and wines are not actually vegan because of how they are refined or filtered using animal derivatives. Was it easy to create a vegan beer, or did you really have to educate your suppliers and manufacturers?
Thankfully we are moving out of the days when ‘sterile filtering’ of your favourite tipple was done through a cat or fish gut. Times are changing and outdated methods are being seen as just that. However, the most widely used animal product still used in beers is lactose. This is seen to give body and sweetness to the beer as the protein sugars break down, but again it’s not the only way to get body into a beer. Alcohol free beer can suffer from a thinness due to reduced fermentation causing less sugars and starches, which usually give beer body. Our little mushrooms thankfully give back that body being 90% polysaccharide / starch based. We never had any issues as most brewers are super flexible and especially in the craft space, up for doing weird and wonderful things!
"Thankfully we are moving out of the days when ‘sterile filtering’ of your favourite tipple was done through a cat or fish gut. Times are changing and outdated methods are being seen as just that. However, the most widely used animal product still used in beers is lactose."
Fungtn is growing as a brand really quickly. How long did it take from going from having the idea to getting the first bottle in your hand to try?
I had wanted to create a product integrating mushrooms for a long time but did not have the mental capacity or time to do so; but 2020 was the year of ‘ time’ and this is when the product started to come together. Born in lockdown, I started the business in May 2020 after finalising the idea in my head from the new year onwards. We spent a few months on new product development and perfecting the recipe and after a few hiccups in production due to the big C (aka Covid-19) we launched in November 2020.
With many pubs having been closed due to coronavirus restrictions you would think that was bad timing for launching a new beer. How has that affected Fungtn?
It has been a super interesting process, flipped on its head from the traditional launch strategy in beverage: launch into on trade venues, do the trade show and festival circuit and build your brand ambassadors in bar teams and their customers. We don’t expect to launch into venues until the end of the year, which (as hospitality was my background) leaving until the end has been strange!
However, there have been benefits launching direct to consumer first. We have had closer more intimate communication with our early adapters, selling in direct delivers better margins (which is crucial for any start up), and we have been able to build a community through the end user. We have also launched into retail much sooner than usual and this I hope will extend our reach much quicker. I think there are always challenges in launching a brand; you overcome these with innovations and ideas that you had never thought of and this can develop your brand in ways that you had not expected, for good and for bad. For us, selling direct to consumer is now our key channel and as consumer shopping habits have changed over the past 12 months in ways that I think will remain, the direct link to your consumer is more important than ever.
Has this journey of launching your own vegan business been as easy as you thought? Or has there been a lot you’ve had to learn along the way?
Deciding to launch a vegan business was the easiest decision I ever made. To align my ethos on life and moral compass to a brand and product that I hope will go on to benefit others has been the best feeling. However, the challenges and steep learnings I think are felt by all entrepreneurs. Production and operations have been the most interesting for me and the areas in which I have been learning new skills and knowledge; I understand that getting these right, along with the partners that help you, is such an important foundation.
Getting a concept out of your head and onto paper and then into a tangible product comes with difficult decisions affected by your financial, social and cultural environment. The vegan decision is driven by a deep unshakeable purpose in my experience and is non-negotiable. However, there are still compromises on other factors that I have learnt you will have to make. It could be your dream sustainable packaging, using all organic ingredients or how much budget you have to spend on marketing or events. My advice would be to set your non-negotiables and build a purpose around that; if they become your brand anchor it’s much more difficult to go off course.
Learn more about Fungtn, and also buy online, at their website: www.fungtn.com
Lisa Fox says:
Fungtn was very much a pandemic lock-down business, but Zoey has taken her passion and combined it with a market trend to create something that has grown really quickly. Getting an idea to market quickly was crucial to create momentum, but Zoey has also combined traditional ways of selling (through retailers) with modern ‘direct-to-consumer’ selling to create multiple routes to her customer base.
