Province helps mushroom farm expansion

Monday, July 4, 2011

by BETTER FARMING STAFF

A mushroom grower with several facilities across Ontario is spending $9.9 million to expand production.

Greenwood Mushroom Farm began construction of a new processing plant on property near Port Perry in the spring. October is the target for completion. The 115,000 square foot plant is an addition to existing processing capacity.

“We’re running on a very tight construction schedule,” says Clay Taylor, the company’s managing partner.

Improvements include adding European technology to help expand the company’s line of value-added products, such as triple-washed sliced mushrooms ready to use, organic varieties, cremini and Portabella mushrooms.

The new equipment and plant will increase production by eight to 10 million pounds and introduce labour and energy efficiencies. “This will increase sales by about $15 million a year,” Taylor says. He declines to reveal the company’s current sales volume for competitive reasons.

Taylor says there is a “significant” increase in demand for mushroom products within recent years. “I’m just out of room. I need more production and processing capacity in order to meet what’s going on.”

With their high vitamin D content, mushrooms are now viewed as a super food. “That’s really spurred consumption,” he says. So has the fact that they are locally available year-round and can be used many different ways in food preparation.

On Tuesday, the province announced that it would grant $3.1 million to the expansion under the Rural Economic Development Program.

Taylor says the company is also introducing new technology to stabilize and control the preparation of the compost in which the mushrooms grow. Ultimately, the improvement means, “we can maximize the yield results,” he says.

The company supplies mushrooms to the Ontario and Eastern Canada markets under the Windmill Farms brand. “We deal with all the major chains; we do private labels for several as well,” Taylor says. BF