Chefs a couple of fun guys
“HEY mate, do you think there’s any money is mushrooms?”
A simple question over Facebook, albeit unanswered, led to friends Ernesto Sanchez and Rob Scott setting up Geelong Fungi.
The duo, both qualified chefs, began Geelong Fungi about four months ago in Corio.
“I sent Ernesto a message and for four months he didn’t answer it. He didn’t see it,” Rob said. “But in the meantime I researched all the info I needed.”
Rob, who also runs Shellbeez, a beehive hire business, did a mushroom growing trial for about a month.
Sticking to permaculture principles, they now harvest up to 30 kilograms of oyster mushrooms a week.
Ernesto, a permaculture teacher who runs Geelong Worms, said the duo were keen to scale up their enterprise, with a new greenhouse, to turn off 60kg a week and to reach up to 100kg a week next year.
“This will allow us to supply farmers markets and restaurants around Geelong,” Ernesto said.
They estimated they sold up to 26kg a week at the South Geelong and Torquay farmers markets.
“The oyster mushrooms are like magnets. People come over for a look,” Ernesto said.
The fungi are grown in bags filled with old coffee grounds and straw. The bags are inoculated with the oyster mushroom spores and spend the first two weeks in the dark.
“Then they need a shock of temperature, humidity and light and we bring them to the outside greenhouse for about four weeks,” Ernesto said.
He said Corio gives them easy access to coffee grounds from local cafes and consumers at farmers markets.
“It’s 12 hours from picking until we sell them at the markets, 12 hours from paddock to plate,” Ernesto said.
“It takes about one kilogram of coffee grounds to make one kilogram of mushrooms and we estimate we’ve saved 200 kilograms of coffee grounds from landfill.”