The London restaurant, which is led by chef founder Douglas McMaster, has, at the time of writing, raised £11,127 from 88 backers, with five days of the campaign still left to run.
In an Instagram post, the restaurant thanked backers for their support.
McMaster says the Silo team want to share the fruits of its labour by making their fresh koji accessible business-to-business, ‘facilitating other restaurants, bakeries, breweries, bars and home cooks with their journeys to reduce waste’.
Headed up by Ryan Walker, ‘fermentation guru’ and frontrunner in Silo’s research and development, the project aims to upscale what has previously been an in-house venture, ‘transforming challenging ingredients into exceptional, high-value products’ that can be used in mainstream kitchens and bars.
The crowdfund allows participants to choose between DIY Miso pledges for just £25pp to group tours of the factory led by McMaster and Walker once it opens its doors in September for £100pp.
The DIY Miso backers will have the opportunity to make their own misos using pearl barley dried koji and organic dried fava beans, supplied with a PDF of step-by-step instructions to kickstart their own fermentation journey.
Silo was founded by chef Douglas McMaster in 2014 in Brighton and relocated to London in 2019. Following time spent in the world’s top kitchens such as St. John, The Fat Duck and Noma, McMaster tested his zero-waste concept, originally titled Wasted, in Sydney in 2011, before returning to the UK.
To view Silo’s Fermentation Factory crowdfund, click here.
