This month, our 'start-up spotlight' is on Fable Food Co. The company's founders drew on their extensive mushroom expertise to develop a plant-based food brand based on shiitake, appealing to consumers with its natural, whole-food positioning and sustainability credentials. We spoke to Michael Fox, CEO and co-founder, to find out about Fable's journey so far.

Can you tell us a bit about the story behind Fable’s establishment and long-term mission?

Fable started with a unique founding team: fine-dining chef, mycologist and chemical engineer

Jim Fuller, organic mushroom farmer Chris McLoghlin, and me. Driven by a passion for

sustainability and home farming, I became obsessed with the question of how to make it easy

and enjoyable for billions of people to eat less meat without asking them to compromise on

taste.

Jim had spent decades cooking in fine dining kitchens while deeply studying the science

of mushrooms; Chris was already growing some of Australia's best organic mushrooms.

We knew we wanted to work with mushrooms, so we looked at the two most commonly grown in the world: white button and shiitake. We quickly realised the retail and foodservice market only really want the softer, prettier caps of the shiitake, leaving tonnes of stems on every farm getting thrown away as waste. When we started experimenting, the stem was actually the ideal part for what we wanted to build: an all-natural, whole-food protein, denser and more fibrous, with a meatier bite.

That's still the heart of Fable today. We're upcycling an ingredient and turning it into food that chefs put their name to. Our mission is to make food healthier and more sustainable, by making delicious food from mushrooms.

Why shiitake mushrooms in particular? Do you have any plans to expand into using other mushroom types in future?

The savoury, satisfying flavour we read as 'meaty' comes from umami. Umami is triggered by two specific groups of compounds: free glutamates and nucleotides. When the two hit your taste receptors at the same time, they amplify each other, and the combined umami signal is many times stronger than either compound alone.

Shiitake is exceptionally rich in both – some of the highest natural concentrations of any mushroom and any other food for that matter. It stacks up extremely well against meat itself. So when you cook with shiitake, you're working with one of nature's most concentrated umami ingredients. Layer the dense, fibrous texture on top and it's hard to find another single ingredient that does as much heavy lifting.

We play with other mushroom varieties in the kitchen, but the hero is shiitake and we don't see that changing. There's enough to do reimagining one mushroom properly without diluting the focus.

How have you observed consumer interest in plant-based proteins (and plant-based foods, generally) evolve in recent years?

There have been three pretty distinct waves. 2019-2021 was the peak of it: anything plant-based got a listing, most of it ultra-processed. 2022-2024 was the backlash: consumers looked at the ingredient deck and walked away, and 'plant-based' became almost a dirty word in some retailers' aisles.

From 2025, we've seen a whole-food correction: flexitarians are still buying, but they want to

recognise every ingredient on the back of pack. That's the wave Fable is built for.

The other shift is who is buying. It's not vegans driving this anymore, it's flexitarians who eat

meat four nights a week and want a brilliant non-meat option for the other three. That's a

much bigger market and a far more pragmatic conversation.

How does Fable differentiate itself within what has now become a crowded market?

By not really being in the same category. Most plant-based brands are trying to imitate meat, but we're not. We really are in a category of one: pulled shiitake – all natural, clean label, versatile and easy to use.

We're also deeply consumer-insights led, and we've done years of research on menu naming. Our data shows dishes that include 'shiitake' or 'mushroom' in their name outsell the same dish with a generic plant-based name by up to eight times. Think 'shiitake carnitas' over 'plant-based meat' on a Mexican menu for example.

We don't position against other plant-based brands. We're simply a mushroom company.

Are there any key trends you’re noticing in plant-based, and food and beverage more broadly, currently? How do these vary across foodservice and retail markets, and by region?

The biggest shift is the whole-food correction: the question has moved from 'is it plant-based?' to 'is it real food?'. In foodservice we're seeing strong pull on hybrid and blended formats (part beef, part mushroom) and in retail the cheap end of the aisle is contracting while the premium, recognisable-ingredient end is growing. Fibre is also catching up to protein as the health story consumers care about, from gut health, prebiotics and micronutrients. Shiitake are one of nature’s best sources of fibre.

How does Fable approach collaboration with other businesses in the F&B industry? Any notable partnerships you can mention?

We think of ourselves as a partner, not a vendor. We'll happily sit in a development kitchen with a chef for a day to nail one menu item, because that one item, done well, will outsell ten compromises.

Notable partners include Compass Group across Australia, the UK and US; Holland & Barrett, Planet Organic and Waitrose in UK retail; Central Market and Little Spoon in the US; Mexican QSR chains Guzman y Gomez and Zambrero in Australia; and major meal-kit partners like Gousto, HelloFresh and Grubby.

In the UK, you can find Fable on the menu at Wagamama, Bill’s, Yo! Sushi, Drake & Morgan,

Côte, O’Neill’s Irish Pubs and more.

What has been the biggest challenge on Fable’s journey so far and how have you navigated it?

The plant-based category contraction in 2023-24 was a very tough stretch where capital dried up, retailers rationalised shelves, and a lot of brands that had been growing fast suddenly weren't.

Our response was probably counter-intuitive: rather than pivot away, we doubled down on consumer research which helped establish our positioning in a crowded market. We leaned harder into foodservice, where chef-led innovation kept moving, and into blended meat formats that would help manufacturers achieve their carbon emission targets.

What has been the company’s biggest achievement to date?

Landing in Waitrose in May 2026. Waitrose is arguably the most discerning grocer in the world, and getting on those shelves with a whole-food, mushroom-led product is an enormous validation of the position we've held for the last seven years. A close second is the chef side of the business, having worked with Michelin-starred chefs like Heston Blumenthal and seeing pulled shiitake on menus from QSR through to fine dining. Chefs are the toughest critics in food, and the fact that they pick Fable on taste alone is the thing we’re proudest of.

Do you have any exciting expansion or innovation plans in the pipeline that you can reveal?

The product I'm most excited about right now is our Shiitake Infusion ingredient which is designed to be blended into beef. It's our take on the blended meat format that has a lot of appeal in foodservice right now: operators get a burger or a meatball that is meaningfully tastier, better in nutrition and sustainability and offers better value. And it doesn’t ask the consumer to make a binary plant-based call.

The early response has been incredible. It's absolutely crushing it in early retail trials, with huge customer opportunities in the UK, Europe, US and Australia which I can’t reveal just yet. It’s the format that finally bridges the meat and plant-based aisles in a way that actually works for operators and the consumer.

If you could offer one piece of advice to aspiring start-ups in the plant-based food and beverage industry to help them navigate the sector’s challenges and opportunities, what would it be?

Lead with taste, not mission. Every founder in this space, including us, got into it to change how the world eats, but consumers don't buy missions, they buy meals. If your product doesn't make a chef smile or make a customer come back for seconds, the mission doesn't get to do its job. Pick an ingredient you love, understand it deeply, and let it be the hero.