“Fungi offer enormous opportunities for a sustainable future”

Interview with Nick van Biezen of Bio-aNAlytiX van Biezen

There is no easy way to explain what Nick van Biezen does with his company Bio-aNAlytiX van Biezen, but it comes down to conducting research and consultancy work for various clients with fungi, bacteria and yeasts on an industrial scale. In one of the three labs in BlueCity, the so-called fungi lab, Nick works on cultivating fungi. In short, 'breeding bugs' is what he does, because micro-organisms are the producers of various products that we use in our daily lives. Consider, for example, the production of dyes using fungi, but also the cultivation of meat substitutes such as vegan bacon, which is made entirely with fungi. Nick: “People often find it a strange idea, growing food in a laboratory. But growing food using fungi is not new. In fact, we as humans have been doing this for centuries to give food the right smell and taste, to make it last longer and to make it more digestible. For example, consider tempeh and soy sauce. That is fermented with fungi, we have been doing that since a very long time. Otherwise no one would want to eat it.”