Enifer's PEKILO® makes its European debut in HenArt's LEVENDO™ dog food

LEVENDO is a semi-moist, gently baked, complete food for adult and senior dogs built around HenArt’s proprietary blend of complementary fermented proteins, with Enifer’s PEKILO®  at its core, combining highly digestible mycoprotein with everyday nutrition across the EU and UK.

Oosterhout, Netherlands (October 21st, 2026) — Dutch premium pet-food brand HenArt has launched LEVENDO™, a complete dog food built around its proprietary blend of fermented proteins with Finnish biotech company Enifer's PEKILO® mycoprotein at its core. Designed for adult and senior dogs, LEVENDO™ is gently baked rather than extruded and includes highly digestible mycoprotein containing all essential amino acids and naturally occurring beta-glucans. 

LEVENDO™  is available through HenArt’s online store, as well as a network of specialist distribution partners across Europe and the UK. HenArt is also opening LEVENDO™  to national pet-retail chains, online pet retailers and grocery retail partners across Europe. 

LEVENDO™  is formulated to FEDIAF guidelines as a complete and balanced everyday diet. Enifer’s PEKILO® mycoprotein is highly digestible, with a canine feeding study showing strong protein digestibility, and naturally contains nutrients including B vitamins and spermidine. HenArt developed the proprietary fermentation blend and the recipe in-house, with production handled by established European manufacturers. LEVENDO™  is the first in a planned range, with wet-food products already in development using HenArt’s TenderCraft™ technology, together with the fermentation blend. 

“Dog owners are looking for more choice in how they feed their pets, but they do not want to compromise on nutrition, quality or enjoyment. With LEVENDO™ , we wanted to create an everyday food that could meet those expectations in its own right. PEKILO® was a key part of making that possible,” said Henk Verhoeven, founder of HenArt.

The global dog food market was worth an estimated $48.1 billion in 2025, with growth increasingly shaped by premium and nutritionally differentiated products. For alternative proteins, nutritional performance remains critical: in a 2025 international survey of more than 2,600 dog owners, 85% of respondents considering alternative diets said nutritional adequacy was the most important factor influencing whether they would buy one.

For Enifer, LEVENDO™  marks PEKILO®’s first international consumer launch and a shift from ingredient validation into everyday commercial nutrition. The launch follows research, including a 60-day feeding study in which PEKILO® showed high digestibility and palatability, no negative impact on stool quality, and early signs of potential immune-support benefits. At the same time, Enifer is in the commissioning stage of its 3,000-ton PEKILO®  factory, preparing for full-scale production in 2027. LEVENDO™  now brings PEKILO® into a complete everyday diet for dog owners across Europe and the UK. 

“We have spent years showing that PEKILO® can deliver the nutrition, digestibility and palatability pet-food manufacturers need. LEVENDO™  is an important next step: it shows that PEKILO® performs in formulation and production. That is a significant milestone in moving mycoprotein from promising ingredient technology into mainstream pet nutrition,” said Simo Ellilä, CEO of Enifer.

The name LEVENDO™  draws on “leaven”, the starter behind sourdough bread, and the Dutch word “levend”, meaning “alive”. Just as fermentation turns flour into bread and milk into yoghurt, here it grows protein-rich microorganisms that become a highly nutritious ingredient. LEVENDO™  is intended to be the first of several products built around HenArt’s fermentation platform, while Enifer continues to scale PEKILO® into new pet-food applications and markets. Together, the companies see the launch as a strong early example of how fermented proteins can move beyond niche applications and become a core part of premium, everyday pet nutrition.

About Enifer 

Enifer is a Finnish biotech company founded in 2020 as a spin-off from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland to commercialize the proprietary PEKILO® mycoprotein technology. Originally developed and used at industrial scale by the Finnish forest industry in the 1970s, the process converts food and agricultural industry side streams into a highly nutritious, fungi-based ingredient.

To date, Enifer has raised almost €60M, and is scaling production with a commercial-scale facility in Kirkkonummi, Finland, set for completion in 2026. Enifer has recently gained U.S. market access for food-grade PEKILO®. Enifer has also applied for novel food approval in the EU, UK, and Singapore. The company has validated its ingredients with global partners, including Skretting (the aquafeed division of Nutreco), Purina (pet food), and Valio (consumer foods).

For more information, visit www.enifer.com.

About HenArt

HenArt® is a premium pet-food brand and innovation-led developer based in Oosterhout, the Netherlands. Founded in 2012 by Henk Verhoeven, the company develops dog and cat nutrition based on novel and alternative proteins, including plant, insect and fermentation-derived proteins, alongside its proprietary TenderCraft™ meat analogues.

Its portfolio includes PLANTZ® plant-based nutrition for dogs, Pro Life Science® mealworm-based nutrition with eggshell membrane for dogs and cats, and LEVENDO™ nutrition based on fermentation-derived proteins. HenArt develops its concepts, formulations, processing specifications, packaging and brand identity in-house, and retains ownership of its recipes and brand IP. Production is carried out by established European manufacturing partners.

For more information, visit www.henart.com.