In writing this small article for your website about the using of more than one supplier for spawn, it struck me that exactly the same reasons apply to any buying decision that you make, both in your business and at a personal level.


The biggest reason for having more than one supplier for anything is to create competition. Competition maintains a healthy market place

- Stabilizes prices, resisting increases on a regular basis
- Stops companies taking shortcuts in process with cost saving
- Ensures better customer support (Technical)
- Ensures correct handling of situations in event of product problems
- Ensures new and continuous innovation of product development


Competition within suppliers ensures that growers are kept at the cutting edge in terms of knowledge and information, which in turn means that you the grower can maintain your competitiveness.


Information is a major key in business to being successful i.e. knowing what is happening around you and how it is changing allows you to adapt to the changes. The mushroom industry is constantly changing and will always continue to do so, so adapting to change is vitally important, if you don’t ....well, we all know what happened to the dinosaur.


Competition means that you have more people to access to develop your information, knowledge and ideas.


The second reason for choosing more than one supplier in our industry would be product comparison. Many of us like to compare or benchmark one variable or in this case, spawn against another for the following reasons.


- Security against potential problems, although this is minimal nowadays with modern spawn production techniques.
- Eliminate the effect of one variable i.e. if same issue is seen on two different spawns, then it prompts looking more closely at other factors.


The third reason for choosing more than one supplier is product performance. This can be measured in a number of different ways depending on your own priority of criteria.


- Total Yield
- Percentage Prime Grade
- Percentage Opens
- Timing of 1st flush
- Shape of mushroom
- Sensitivity of scaling on 1st flush
- Percentage breakdown of yield by flush


Although we all grow mainly mid range hybrids, which are similar in growing characteristics, there are small subtle differences between the varieties in different companies due to the differences in manufacturing processes. Discussions on what criteria are important to you and how you select the correct strain for you must be made with you spawn rep.


An important point with any trial that a grower makes, whether spawn or any other variable, the results need to be evaluated over a number of crops to get the true picture. One-off trials can be distorted by many factors in any one single crop.


We can talk about many other reasons for using more than one supplier and some of these I have detailed below based on what we as a company focus on.


Some reasons you may want to choose “IPP” as your spawn supplier  


1. A: a company which growers can trust
            B: honesty and integrity
2. Reliable and consistent product
2. Good performing strains in terms of yield and quality
4. Good technical knowledge and skills in all aspects of the crop
5. Competitively priced product range
6. Our knowledge of the industry means we can give growers advice on strategies (how they can move forward)
7. Up to date knowledge of current and future trends in the industry, both locally and globally and implications to them.
8. Ability to resolve problems quickly, efficiently and with empathy.
9. Reliable transport and tracking system (QA) for all our products
10. As a private company we will always try harder to help our customers.
11. Independent, unbiased and non political
12. Established over 30 years in the industry



So in summary, if anyone asked me why we should have more than one supplier, then I could simply reverse the question and say back to you:


Would you prefer one or two composters or casing suppliers in the whole country or would you prefer more choice. I suspect the answer would be a unanimous one!


IPP Limited represents the two independent European spawn brands “Le Lion” and Italspawn.