Why are mushrooms grown differently in Europe and the US?
Agro-Projects’ Daniel Dajewski talks about how the US and European mushroom markets differ and what big improvements the US industry needs to make to get current.
In France, the first mushrooms were planted in Europe about 1650, while in Pennsylvania, the United States had its first harvest of mushrooms in 1892.1. Although mushroom-growing techniques vary by continent, these disparities are narrowing as American cultivators seek out Agro-Projects and other European collaborators to support their modernization efforts.
The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service for 2020–2021 estimates that the US sells approximately 340,000 tons of mushrooms yearly.2. This amount is almost same to Poland’s3, but it looks like the US will have far larger numbers in 2022—up to 500,000 tons.
Ten EU member states comprise the European Mushroom Growers Group (GEPC), which produced 1,095,000 tons of mushrooms in 2020.4 These volumes are constantly growing according to new facilities in Europe that were constructed with the help of the Polish contractor Agro-Projects; three farms have already opened in France, and there are also some in Poland, Romania, Belarus, and other nations. Experts from Europe predict that in 2022, production from EU countries will total about 1,160,200 tons.5.
Variations and alterations
The US has very tiny margins and a high yield of mushrooms per square meter of cultivated land due to the high cost of labor, energy, and raw materials, as well as tight customer policies and fierce pricing competition among producers. Therefore, the only way to thrive is to maintain the same quality of mushrooms while growing more of them on the same plot of land.
The US system is quantity driven, whereas the European system is quality orientated. This is the primary distinction between the two regions.Six The biggest exporters of mushrooms in Europe, Poland and the Netherlands, have contemporary, technologically sophisticated farms and customers accustomed to premium .
Improvements in the US are delayed since Europeans were already driven to increase the efficiency of their mushroom production (because to factors including labor scarcity, land availability, and quality standards). David Iaconi of Mushroom Supply & Services,7, Agro-Project’s agent in America, reports that after 55 years in the mushroom sector, producers are starting to show more interest in modernizing their mushroom farms.
Generally speaking, growers must switch from using Phase 2 compost—whereby mushroom spawn colonizes compost on the mushroom farm—to Phase 3 compost—which comes from the compost yard already fully colonized by mushroom spawn—in order to be competitive and improve the quality of mushrooms in the US. Phase 3 compost offers higher yields and lowers the risk of diseases. Even while this kind of compost is more common in Europe, it is regrettably hard to find in the US market, and many older farms are unable to use it for technological reasons. For certain investors, it is still a feasible choice, nevertheless.
There must be change.
Other adjustments that need to be made by the US mushroom growing sector include installing climate control systems, more effective cooling systems, and steel racks in place of wooden ones. By adopting such racks, mushroom picking might be done with contemporary picking lorries8 rather than bulky, labor-intensive, and occasionally dangerous picking platforms. This simplifies and expedites tasks while requiring less labor.
Using machines to fill and empty cultivation chambers rather than doing it by hand is another problem. Some farms are thinking about replacing manual watering with underbed watering systems, which automatically water plants and allow the user to adjust the watering quantity, saving money on both labor and water.
For the American mushroom business, which is beset by one of its biggest issues—a shortage of labor on farms—new solutions must be put into place.
It is important to remember that modernizing the compost yard to create Phase 3 compost rather than Phase 2 is the first step towards worldwide transformation; all mushroom farm buildings must be used for this purpose. These new projects need to be built with the latest machinery, climate control units, shelves, and trolleys to handle Phase 3 compost.
“The European mushroom business still far outpaces ours. We still have a lot of old farms that use wooden trays or beds,” an American farmer who was thinking about investing with Agro-Projects said.
“We’re looking into how much modernization will cost right now. Farms with outdated infrastructure may not survive for very long if they are surrounded by businesses that are either building new farms or already own contemporary ones. particularly in light of the price of raw commodities.