The patent-pending cuisine bags offer a plant-based, clean-label alternative to traditional powdered soup stocks. They also make a convenient quick-fix solution for preparing sophisticated cuisine that demands minimal expertise and that can readily conform to the time constraints of modern life, turning home cooking into a gourmet experience in just fifteen minutes of infusion in boiling water.
How it works
Each sachet contains a complex balance of mushroom goodness, infusing natural, full-bodied flavours of umami and additional herbs to enrich home-cooked dishes. The Mushroom Benefit selected a choice mix of exotic mushrooms, principally shiitake and black truffle, to deliver maximum taste. The shiitake mushroom was chosen as a base due to its rich umami characteristic that imparts a meaty, savoury sensation to foods.
The rich mushroom flavours in each portion are easily incorporated into any stock. Combining food technology and advanced product design, the equivalent of a meal portion of fresh mushrooms is condensed into a small sachet. Immersing just one sachet, directly or after steeping in hot water, yields enough flavour to enrich more than a litre of product, which is sufficient for 7-8 servings.
Each Mushroom Benefit Cuisine Bag package contains five sachets. The bags themselves are made of 100% natural and wholly biodegradable corn fibre, demonstrating the company’s commitment to careful utilisation of natural resources and reducing packaging footprint.
“Preparing a sophisticated and healthy meal requires effort, knowledge, and time spent pre-planning, cutting, soaking, filtering, spicing, and preparing a stock,” adds Tal Leizer. CEO of Practical Innovations Ltd., a key innovation engine behind the development of the Mushroom Benefit Cuisine Bag. “That’s too much trouble and time consuming for many of us in a life that is overly crowded with other demands. These small sachets are designed to bring the mushrooms’ essence to the dining table with minimal effort and maximum indulgence.”
According to Weigensberg, health-conscious consumers are placing a higher value on more naturally processed, 'free-from' food, which is propelling the abandonment of one of the cornerstones of the traditional kitchen: soup powders and ready-made sauces which often contain MSG, artificial ingredients, and sugars.
“Our product is vegan-friendly, contains zero sugar and sodium, and no added MSG or artificial colouring or flavouring—it only contains natural ingredients,” Weigensberg explains. “Moreover, the mushrooms’ umami factor significantly lowers the need to enhance savoury flavor with salt.”
The cuisine bags are available in three flavours: Asian, Italian, and 'classic.' These infusions were formulated to include a blend of herbs such as basil or lemongrass to satisfy both Western and Eastern taste buds, each with its own distinct aromas and flavours.
Consumer demand for culinary adventure
The launch of the Mushroom Benefit Cuisine Bags coincides with a report just released by Innova Market Insights that noted a burgeoning zest amongst consumers for culinary adventure. Consumers are exploring new cultural flavours and seeking multisensory food experiences as more ethnic flavours appear in western snacks and ready-to-eat meals. Innova also reports expanding western familiarity with, and perceptions of, umami (coined the 'fifth flavour'). At the same time, consumers in the East are demanding more natural sources of umami.
The Mushroom Benefit started as a family-run business. Oren Kessler, the company’s R&D VP, together with his lifelong partner, Weigensberg, dedicated their activities to the research, cultivation, and marketing of exotic mushrooms in Israel. Today, the startup focuses on the innovation and development of novel functional food products based on exotic mushrooms and other natural ingredients within the international specialty food marketplace.
“We are ‘The Mushroom People’,” says Kessler. “For many years we have focused on mushrooms and worked tirelessly to introduce these once unfamiliar yet tremendously unique and healthful niche ingredients to the mainstream kitchen.