When Will Fake Meat Taste Like Real Meat (Part 2)? A Conversation with Tyler Huggins, CEO/Co-Founder, Meati

Tyler Huggins is not a man of many surprises. Rather, he is a study of consistency. The things that matter to him most today are the same things he cared about as a child, as a teenager, and as a young adult. For one, he loves nature. And second, he wants to devote his life to preserving it. Tyler feels a kinship with land, trees, air, and water that feels core to who he is and it drives what he does. As a student, he studied ecology, biology, and engineering - marrying his love for the outdoors and living things with his passion for solving problems. Tyler also studied grizzly bears when he took up a side-hustle as a forest ranger....and also worked on water issues. After college, he started a land restoration company .. and later, as a PhD student, he landed on mycelium as a sustainable way to make structures from battery components to leathers and even building materials. After a brief flirtation with air filtration, Tyler realized that ultimately, he could have the biggest impact on the world by making food sustainably. And that's how Meati was born. Today, Meati - which makes plant-based meat from mushrooms - appears to be a raging success...it's backed by celebrity chefs, it just entered a partnership with Sprouts and it's building a mega-ranch to meet insatiable demand for its products. But for Tyler - the man of few surprises - none of these endeavors are far flung from his childhood growing up next to a national forest…