What Is Prime Roots Koji Bacon?
Prime Roots is a California-based company (founded in 2017 as Terramino Foods) that builds its entire product line — bacon, deli slices, chicken, even a foie gras substitute — around a single ingredient: koji. Koji is the mold (Aspergillus oryzae) that's been used for centuries to ferment soybeans into miso and soy sauce, and to convert rice starch into sake. Prime Roots grows it into dense mats of mycoprotein, then presses, smokes, and slices the result into something meant to stand in for pork bacon.
The company has raised more than $30 million in funding, partnered with mycoprotein maker Quorn, and picked up a Whole Foods distribution deal along the way, so this isn't a garage-scale operation. Its flagship bacon — sold as Hickory Koji Bacon or Applewood Koji Bacon depending on the batch — ships direct-to-consumer from primeroots.com and shows up in select grocery and foodservice channels. This review looks at whether the koji gimmick actually produces bacon worth buying, and whether it holds up next to seitan- and soy-based competitors like Upton's Naturals-style products and Sweet Earth's Benevolent Bacon.
Ingredients
The full ingredient list on Prime Roots' sliced bacon reads: Whole Food Clean Protein Blend (mycoprotein, yeast, koji), water, coconut oil, konjac root flour, natural flavor, and then, at under 2% each: pea fiber, baking soda, sodium ascorbate (vitamin C, used as an antioxidant), natural lycopene for color, hydrated lime, natural smoke flavor, rice bran oil, and sea salt.
A few things stand out. There's no soy, no wheat gluten, and no isolated pea protein — the three ingredients that dominate most vegan bacon on the market. The protein base is whole-food mycoprotein rather than an extracted isolate, which is the core of Prime Roots' marketing pitch: a "clean label" bacon built from fermentation instead of protein extraction and additive stacking. The company also states its products are non-GMO, gluten-free, and soy-free, which matters if you're avoiding those allergens specifically (most seitan-based bacon, including Upton's, is loaded with wheat gluten and therefore off-limits). If you want to double-check any of these ingredients against a master list of animal-derived additives, the spvegan.com ingredient checker is a fast way to do it.
Is Prime Roots Koji Bacon Vegan?
Yes — Prime Roots Koji Bacon is vegan. Every ingredient on the label is plant- or fermentation-derived: mycoprotein, yeast, and koji are all fungal/microbial, not animal. There's no gelatin, no casein, no honey, no animal-derived smoke flavoring, and no shared-line contamination claims that would complicate that.
Here's the wrinkle worth knowing about: Prime Roots itself is cagey about the word "vegan." In its own FAQ, the company states plainly that its products "do not contain any animal products," but adds that it tries "to separate ourselves from the vegan label," preferring to market the line as "koji-meat" aimed at flexitarians and meat-eaters rather than as a vegan product per se. That's a branding decision, not an ingredients one — the product is fully free of animal inputs, the company just doesn't want the word "vegan" narrowing its audience on the package. For anyone shopping strictly by ingredients rather than marketing copy, this is as unambiguously vegan as tofu.
Nutrition Facts: How It Compares
Nutrition claims for meat alternatives vary a lot by serving size, so treat gram-for-gram comparisons as directional rather than exact. Here's how Prime Roots stacks up against two other vegan bacons already covered on this site, using each brand's own labeled serving size.
| Product | Serving Size | Calories | Total Fat | Sat. Fat | Sodium | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime Roots Koji Bacon | 2 oz (57g) | 100 | 6g | 4g | 150mg | 6g |
| Sweet Earth Benevolent Bacon | 2 slices (38g) | 90 | 3.5g | 0.5g | 160mg | 10g |
| Upton's Naturals Bacon Seitan | 2 oz (57g) | 80 | 0.5g | 0g | 400mg | 15g |
| Conventional pork bacon (USDA avg, 2 cooked slices) | ~16g | ~85 | ~6.5g | ~2g | ~180mg | ~6g |
The takeaway: Prime Roots is not a high-protein pick relative to its wheat-gluten competitors — Upton's more than doubles its protein per equivalent serving, since seitan is essentially pure gluten. Where Prime Roots wins is sodium (well below Upton's 400mg) and ingredient simplicity, plus it's one of the few soy-free, gluten-free options in the category. If your priority is maximizing protein per bite, seitan-based bacon still wins on paper; if you're avoiding gluten and soy while wanting whole-food mycoprotein, Prime Roots is the more realistic option.
Taste and Texture
Koji-based products live or die on whether the fermentation actually delivers a meat-like bite, and this is where Prime Roots earns its reputation. The mycoprotein structure has a genuine fibrous quality under the knife — it doesn't shred apart into mush the way some pea-protein bacon does, and it doesn't have the springy, slightly rubbery chew that gives seitan bacon away as wheat gluten. Reviewers and early testers have consistently flagged the smoky, salty flavor as close to the real thing, with the caveat that it cooks fast and can go from perfectly crisp to overly hard within a minute or two in a hot pan — thinner slices plus high heat is a combination that punishes inattention.
It won't render out a pool of bacon fat the way pork does, since the fat content here comes from coconut and rice bran oil rather than animal fat, so expect a drier finish than a diner breakfast. That's a fair trade for most people crumbling it onto a salad, folding it into a sandwich, or using it as a smoky topping — the applications where texture and smoke flavor matter more than rendered fat.
Price and Availability
Prime Roots sells its bacon direct-to-consumer through primeroots.com, historically around $9.99 for an 8-ounce package, and has expanded into select Whole Foods locations and foodservice/bulk channels since its 2023 Series B raise. That direct-to-consumer price puts it in line with — sometimes slightly above — refrigerated competitors like Sweet Earth, which is more widely available in mainstream grocery chains. If you can't find it locally, ordering online is currently the most reliable route, though availability is expanding as the company scales past its early sell-out launches.
Prime Roots has also leaned into bulk and foodservice distribution, with cased sizes showing up through restaurant supply channels — a sign the company is chasing wider institutional adoption rather than staying a niche direct-to-consumer brand. That matters for long-term availability: brands that only sell direct to consumers tend to be more fragile than ones building out grocery and foodservice accounts, so the expansion is a reasonable signal that this isn't a fad product likely to disappear off shelves next year.
How to Cook It
Because the fat in Prime Roots bacon comes from coconut and rice bran oil rather than rendered animal fat, it behaves a little differently in the pan than pork. Medium-low heat with a light coating of oil in a non-stick pan gets the best results — the slices crisp up quickly, and pushing the heat too high is the single most common way to end up with an overly hard, snappy bite instead of a tender-crisp one. A couple of minutes per side is usually enough. It also microwaves and air-fries reasonably well for a faster weekday breakfast, though stovetop cooking gives the most control over crispness.
How It Compares to Other Vegan Bacon
| Product | Base Ingredient | Gluten-Free? | Soy-Free? | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime Roots Koji Bacon | Mycoprotein (koji fermentation) | Yes | Yes | Allergen-conscious shoppers wanting whole-food protein |
| Sweet Earth Benevolent Bacon | Seitan (wheat gluten) | No | No | Widest grocery availability, high protein |
| Upton's Naturals Bacon Seitan | Seitan (wheat gluten) | No | No | Maximum protein per serving, budget-friendly |
Who Should Buy This
Prime Roots Koji Bacon makes the most sense for people who are gluten- or soy-avoidant and have been stuck choosing between seitan-based bacon (off-limits) and thinner pea-protein strips that fall apart in the pan. It's also a good pick for anyone specifically curious about fermentation-based meat alternatives rather than the more common soy/pea/wheat trio, or who wants a "clean label" product without a long list of gums and isolates. Households cooking for a mix of vegans and omnivores may also find it an easier sell precisely because the company doesn't lead with the word "vegan" on the package.
It's a weaker fit if you're optimizing strictly for protein-per-dollar, in which case Upton's seitan bacon remains hard to beat, or if you want something available on every grocery run rather than ordered online. Anyone expecting rendered bacon fat for cooking eggs or greens in the drippings will also be disappointed — there isn't any to render.
Final Verdict
Prime Roots backs up its koji pitch with a genuinely different texture and a shorter, cleaner ingredient list than most of the category, and the fact that it's soy-free and gluten-free opens it up to shoppers other vegan bacons exclude. It loses some ground on protein density compared to seitan competitors, availability is still more limited than mainstream grocery brands, and the "we don't love the vegan label" branding is worth knowing about even though the ingredients are unambiguously animal-free. Judged purely on taste, texture, and ingredient quality rather than marketing, it's one of the more interesting entries in the vegan bacon category and a legitimate option worth seeking out — not just a novelty because of the fermentation story behind it.
Rating: 7.8/10
