Mushrooming sales online helping local grower
Mark Wilson marketing to individuals to help with restaurant downturn
When restaurants were ordered closed in March due to the COVID-19 crisis, the mushroom effect was widespread, but none more literal than for one local entrepreneur.
Mark Wilson’s Newfoundland Gourmet Mushrooms had a lot of restaurant clients and since that time he’s been putting a massive amount of work into keeping the business going, marketing a weekly mushroom club and website sales.
“It’s been OK. It hasn’t quite replaced the restaurant sales,” said Wilson of the individual sales versus supplying a chef. But he’s built up some 200 individual clients now.
“It’s getting better.”
The mushroom club offers a weekly standing order of gourmet mushrooms for $15.
He also has a few restaurants doing takeout orders that he still supplies to, as well as having his products carried in Colemans grocery store, but the restaurant sales are down to roughly a quarter of what they were before.
“Obviously, I didn’t see this happening,” said Wilson, who also has a day job and a farm that he is prepping for summer. Wilson owns NL Organics Ltd. and is certified in the province and in the U.S. as a wild mushroom expert.
The online sales are picking up.
“Digital interest is definitely on the rise and more people are getting used to it, and people have been really, really great with dealing with pickups and delivery options as well,” he said.
Most of those pickups and deliveries happen on Saturdays and Wilson said customers are being really good about the social distancing.
Any mushrooms that had been grown already when the demand fell off in March were dried. It takes about a month and a half to grow a batch.
Scaling production to demand has been fairly easy, Wilson said.
“What has been difficult is trying to increase the individual sales. It’s a non-stop effort with the website — trying to learn that has been tricky,” he said.
Wilson has been doing the majority of it himself, and lab supplies such as alcohol can be hard to get.
His operation is firmly based in environmental sustainability, including recycling the air in the greenhouse to supply carbon dioxide to the plants and oxygen to the mushrooms.
One of Wilson’s customers is Matthew Swift, co-owner and head chef at Terre restaurant & Café at the Alt Hotel in downtown St. John’s.
The restaurant is obviously closed and takeout wasn’t originally on the menu but Swift has been doing it a couple times a week to keep a customer base and marketing to new ones — basically so people remember the restaurant is there for when things open up again. Deliveries are made through 7th Wave Craft Roasted Coffee.
Swift wants to use Newfoundland and Labrador ingredients and finding the right people who can provide a steady supply can be challenging, but he wants to buy and support local.
Swift, who moved to Newfoundland and Labrador from Montreal last summer, is able to do that with the gourmet mushrooms — he generally uses the oysters and shiitakes.
Wild mushrooms are good, but they are very seasonal, Swift said.
“It’s nice to have something good and a local supplier who is always available,” he said. ‘Honestly, they are much fresher and ….. Obviously what comes first and foremost is to have good stuff to cook with.”
He uses them in sauces and for gnocchi and soup.
It’s hard for restaurants to commit to suppliers right now as their future is unpredictable — when will they open again, how will social distancing affect capacity and customer turnover and will people’s habits for dining out be drastically altered or will they return relatively quickly to their favourite restos. And how will the restrictions on out of province and out of country travel and the tourism fallout affect them — will staycationers dine out?
While restaurants don’t make huge profits, Swift they are economic engines for so many other things from staff to farmers and other suppliers.
“The whole system depends on each other to get back.. We’re all kind of looking at each other and saying ‘So are you going to need me when this is done?’”
Swift, who with his girlfriend fell in love with the province over the Easter weekend a few years ago, is optimistic.
“There is a lot here to celebrate…. I am hoping the positive is people will spend more time exploring what is her,” he said.