It was a very interesting location for a mushroom conference and doubtless the reason for over 300 people attending from 14 countries between Jan 22nd and 24th just past.
Two Irishman gave presentations; Dermot O’ Morchoe on “Harvesting Organisation and Structure” and Stephen Allen from Monaghan Mushrooms on “Making Marketing Work and how to get an ROI on marketing”.
Other lectures of note were “Meat, Meet Mushrooms” and a very emotive presentation “To the brink and back” by Curtis Jurgensmeyer of JM Farms, somewhere we have all been at one time or another.
Dermot reminded us that mushrooms grow by 10% every 2 hours. The key was to separate out clusters (weak mushrooms) on day 1 and 2, leaving principle ones to grow and to maintain the stagger at all times. He covered techniques for maintaining separation in the mushrooms and adopting methodical patterns for harvesting. On the management side he emphasised the importance of morning meetings, setting pick rate and quality goals, as well as regular audits to monitor progress in the picking rates of individuals. A real gem was letting the harvesters realise that the stem is 10% of their money!
Stephen’s talk was extremely interesting. He shared that the per capita consumption in the USA was only 390g which compared to 2.92 and 1.92kg in UK and Ireland respectively. Holland was quite low at 0.76kg. He talked about the consumer having 3 parts to their buying decision; thinking, choosing and using. Interestingly, 70% of the decision to buy mushrooms comes IN the store. The key to developing more sales is to get existing consumers to buy more, i.e. become more loyal. Another interesting point was that two thirds of mushrooms are consumed by people over 45 years old; so targeting young people should be a key objective. A lot of good work is done with Monaghan and the growers in the UK and Ireland via the Mushroom Bureau, in terms of the PR for increasing consumption – see the website www.justaddmushrooms.com
Last but no means least, the most interesting talk in my opinion was that of “Meat, Meet Mushrooms”. The AMI started work some years ago on a “portobello burger” which met with limited success. It was decided to make a blend of 50:50 meat and mushrooms. After 3 years of testing it is now going to the market aimed at burger chains, food service and school food programs. The blend means that the calories are 50% lower than all meat, the fat level is also 50% lower and they even taste better with the mushroom which imparts a ‘juiciness’ into the texture. There is a lot of interest in the schools because it fits well into ‘calorie’ requirements for main dishes as well as appealing to kids. A win/win for developing a younger age profile of mushroom consumer. It looks very promising for the US industry and has implications for many others as well.
