GEPC started in 1979. At the
beginning it included France, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. Now 9 (10 in
2015) countries are represented : France, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy,
Spain, Ireland, Poland, Belgium, Denmark and soon we will count Bulgaria among
us. England are also invited to join in the near future.

 The  headquarters and Secretariat were always in
Paris. Now they are located 44 rue d’Alésia, 75014 Paris

  Examples of achievements of
the GEPC : the Chinese  quotas, the
marketing standards, the specific mushroom rate applied for the VMC (70%), the
specific mushroom PO in the 1996 EU legislation, the classification as
sensitive product of the mushroom, etc.

 General aims : to protect,
organize and promote the mushroom sector through the European growers and
cooperatives.

 Interesting facts : the GEPC
is a sub-group of the Fruits and vegetables group of the Copa-Cogeca ; it
represents 90% of the European mushroom production. The GEPC work is recognized
by the EU and every year al the members of the GEPC can meet one or several
representatives of the EU Commission. The GEPC hosts a technical Committee ;
many scientific and promotion projects started among the members of the GEPC.

 Irish Representation

Michael McGovern,(chairman CMP) represents CMP , whilst Gerry Reilly
(vice Chair CMP ) represents Ireland under the IFA umbrella.

Meetings are held twice a year, once in Brussels  and then each member country will host  the meeting on different years in their
country. Ireland hosted the meeting 3 years ago and this year it was held in
Poland.

All of the above named countries send their representatives and each
one reports on the current issues and states of affairs in their own country.

For example:

Currently there are 1,104,000 recorded tons of mushrooms produced in
Europe annually.

 France and Spain produce 102,000
tons and 100,000.

Italy, Germany and Ireland produce 62,000, 64,000, and 68,000 tons
respectively. Ireland peaked at 72,700 in 2002,Belgium 28,000 tons ,Austria 700
tons, Bulgaria 12,000 tons and Denmark 2,500.

The English market produced 46,000 tons in 2013 -(produced 110,000 tons
peaked in 1998).

But the two big leaders are the Dutch producing 270,000 tons (160,000
for processing and 110,000 for the fresh Market.)

And leading the field and growing at an enormous rate are the Polish
growing some 335,000 tons (85,000 for processing and 250,000 fresh).

The polish have increased by 50,000 tons in 2014 alone and currently
they have an extra  1800 tons of phase
III  compost per week in the system with
an estimated extra total of 4,700 tons /week due by September this year. They
exported 17,700 tons of Mushroom to the UK in 2013. In 2006 they sent 3,500
tons to the UK.

At the moment there are huge 
investments  in Poland in the
mushroom business mostly 50% funded from Brussels. There are farms from 10,000
sqm to 100,000 sqm. There are still hundreds of small farms. One farm we
visited was increasing from 220 tons of phase III compost weekly to 370
tons/week. 50% of the mushrooms from that particular farm end up in the UK.

However the Polish main market is Russia. They report that the Chinese
are no longer a major threat as they need the mushroom they grow for
themselves. When GEPC was first set up they were responsible for putting quotas
on the Chinese and managed to significantly reduce the imports. The Dutch
export processed mushroom to China and to the USA.

Overall outside of the Polish most countries report little or no change
on 2013 with regards to production, some even slightly less.

GEPC also hold a technical meeting each year to carefully monitor
reports on residues , mprl tests etc. They liaise closely with the European
Commission on any issues requiring attention.

The next GEPC meeting will be the Technical, which is  being held this September,  followed at the end of the year with a meeting
to be held in Brussels.