What happens when you combine mushrooms, circular business models, and a love for snacking? You get Neuro Puffs, a startup emerging from the Yale ecosystem that is reimagining the savory snack industry. Founded by Adam Burgess (YSE MEM '26) and Emma Thornton (MEM/MBA '27), Neuro Puffs utilizes upcycled agricultural waste to grow nutrient-dense mushrooms, transforming them into cheesy snacks. 

Following their win of the Startup Yale Poster Prize in Spring 2025, their participation in the Tsai CITY Launch Pad Program, and their upcoming appearance at StartUp Westport on November 20, Yale Ventures spoke with co-founder Emma Thornton to discuss how the duo is building a brand that bridges the gap between environmental impact and consumer cravings.

What inspired the creation of Neuro Puffs? How did your team first come up with this idea?

NeuroPuffs started as a pretty random late-night idea; Adam realized that cordyceps mushrooms look just like Cheetos, and could be a vehicle for reimagining snacking.

Adam has been growing mushrooms since he was a kid in Oregon, and even studied fungal genetics in college. He later worked in Zambia with the Peace Corps and worked with farmers to grow oyster mushrooms on agricultural waste to bolster food security. I come from the sustainability and business side, leading national and international analysis teams and studying how to make supply chains more regenerative and circular.

We met while working with USAID in the Dominican Republic, helping smallholder coffee farmers design climate-resilient agroforestry systems. Working together in the field each day, we realized that we make a great team and have complementary skillsets. We saw the potential to build something that makes environmental impact tangible. Not just research or reports, but something people could hold, enjoy, and get behind.  

That’s how NeuroPuffs came to life. It’s a cheesy, crunchy snack, just like Cheetos, but made from adaptogenic Cordyceps militaris mushrooms grown on upcycled food waste. It combines Adam’s background in mycology and my focus on circular business design. The goal is simple: create functional foods that are good for people and the planet, and make them taste awesome while we’re at it.

Can you explain, in simple terms, the science or technology that powers Neuro Puffs and what makes it innovative?

Sorry, we can’t divulge our full processing secrets! But we can tell you this: the science behind NeuroPuffs is simple.

Cordyceps mushrooms has been used for millennia in traditional medicine and cooking, known for its energy, endurance, and focus-boosting compounds. We grow our cordyceps on upcycled food waste like spent coffee grounds and brewery grains. These materials would normally end up in landfills, but they’re actually perfect growing substrates for fungi. The mushrooms convert that “waste” into nutrient-dense biomass rich in protein, fiber, and bioactive compounds like cordycepin (anti-cancer) and beta-glucans (cardiovascular health).

After harvesting the mushrooms, we add real cheddar cheese and use a low-temperature drying process that preserves all those nutrients and functional compounds without needing synthetic preservatives. That’s what makes NeuroPuffs different. It’s made from whole mushroom fruiting bodies, not powders or extracts, so you get the full nutritional benefit in every bite.

What specific problem are you addressing, and why is it so important to solve it now?

Most snacks on the market are unhealthy. They’re full of processed starches, oils, and artificial additives. Plus, they come from supply chains that destroy ecosystems through deforestation, really high water usage, and waste.

Alternative “better-for-you" snacks and supplements are popping up as options, but they don’t always live up to their promise. They’re usually made from similar ingredients with similar problems, and don’t taste that great. Natural functional mushroom supplements come in forms like pills or powders that just don’t fit into real life.

People want something better. They want snacks that taste good, make them feel good, and do good for the planet. That intersection doesn’t really exist right now, which is exactly where NeuroPuffs comes in.

We’re addressing a double problem: the lack of nutritious, great-tasting options for consumers and the massive volume of food waste that fuels climate change. By upcycling agricultural byproducts into functional, shelf-stable food, we’re showing that sustainability and flavor don’t have to be in opposition.

How will participating in StartUp Westport shape your approach or accelerated your venture’s growth?

When we first applied to StartUp Westport, our video was honestly a bit all over the place. Literally – Adam filmed his from Saudi Arabia and I filmed mine from Brazil, where we were doing field work for our YSE summer experiences. We knew we had a great idea, but we didn’t know how best to communicate it.

Fast forward just a few months, and that’s completely changed. The program pushed us to articulate why NeuroPuffs matters, not just what it is. Through regular mentorship sessions and one-on-one meetings with Shobana Mani and Peter Propp, plus progressive rounds of pitch competitions, we learned how to think like founders. We learned step-by-step how to frame product–market fit, define our differentiation, refine our business model, and refine our customer acquisition strategy.

StartUp Westport gave us the structure and mentorship to take this from an exciting idea to a viable business, plus the confidence to stand up and tell that story with clarity. Please come see us pitch on November 20!

How has Yale’s innovation ecosystem supported your development as a startup?

Yale’s programming has been catalytic for NeuroPuffs at every stage since day one. We unlocked the funds needed for our first prototype phase by winning the 10th Anniversary Startup Yale Poster Prize in Spring 2025, just a month before applying to Startup Westport. The $2,000 we won might sound small, but it was game-changing. It allowed us to buy the equipment we needed to move from idea to actual product development.

From there, Tsai CITY became our home base. Through the Launch Pad program, we’ve refined our business model, connected with mentors, and even partnered with other students for support building our business model and backing it with solid research.  

We’ve also had amazing guidance from Yale’s broader ecosystem. Working with communications coach Julie Vance completely transformed how we pitch. She’s helped us find the right balance of technical, honest, and professional.

Yale’s innovation ecosystem has afforded us tons of amazing resources and a network of people who believe in our vision, and that’s what’s kept us moving forward.

What’s next for Neuro Puffs after this competition? Where do you see the company in the next year?

This competition marks a turning point for us. Our immediate goal is to purchase the equipment we need to scale production to a level that’s sales-ready and develop sustainable, compostable packaging that actually maintains freshness. That’s one of the toughest challenges in food manufacturing, and it’s core to our circular mission.

From there, we’re moving into small-batch local sales. We hope to partner with the local cafés and breweries that already supply our upcycled inputs and keep it community-driven. Those relationships are what makes NeuroPuffs so special: they close the loop between waste and food.

Within the next year, we plan to expand production into a dedicated warehouse space, hire a few key part-time team members, and prepare for broader distribution through local grocers and online channels. We’re also developing new flavor lines, including our white cheddar made from albino cordyceps and globally inspired variations, to bring more variety and cultural storytelling into our brand.

We want to prove that circular, functional foods can compete head-to-head with legacy snacks. We want to be at the helm of the new normal.  

In the future, we’ll use NeuroPuffs as a platform for impact. Just this past summer, we won a $10,000 State Department grant to design and implement another sustainable economic development program with students and smallholder farmers in Zambia. Most US-funded development work has been discontinued, so once NeuroPuffs is off the ground, we plan to use part of our profits to support the networks of family farmers we’ve worked with across the world to build small-scale mushroom cultivation systems in their own communities – our small part in helping to fill the gap left by USAID’s dismantled food security programs. Our long-term goal is to make regenerative, nutrient-dense foods accessible in every community.

What advice would you give to other Yale founders looking to translate their research or ideas into real-world impact?

Our biggest advice: just start. Don’t wait for the perfect plan or the perfect moment. You’ll keep figuring it out as you go. Every prototype we’ve tested, every pitch we’ve presented, every meeting we’ve had has taught us something new, especially when it doesn’t go as we planned.

Speaking of, there’s so much support at Yale. Tsai CITY is a great place to start, and you’ll find that the more you talk about your venture, the more you'll find connections to potential mentors and collaborators.  

If you have something to share with the world, turn it into something real. We’re stoked to see what everyone else is up to at the next Startup Yale!