PEI Gourmet Mushrooms
Six years ago, in Fortune, Prince Edward Island, Peter Peters began growing certified organic shiitake mushrooms on a year-round basis.
Deciding to farm organically was not a difficult choice for Peters. “There are enough pesticides and herbicides in the world,” he says. PEI Gourmet Mushrooms has now been certified for about three years. The production plant is certified with Organic Crop Improvement Association of New Brunswick, and Peters believes that it is the only organically certified mushroom plant in North America.
Some of PEI Gourmet Mushrooms shiitakes are sold to the five star restaurants on Prince Edward Island; however, much of their product is transported to New Hampshire, Boston, and Rhode Island to be sold. And for Peters, the distance makes transporting and marketing two of his biggest challenges.
In being certified organic, Peters believes it gives his business a chance to go further in the market. Due to the distance between the place of production and the market, Peters doesn’t want to sell “just your average mushroom”. Rather, these shiitakes are a health food product, where the organic designation adds to the health benefits and increases people’s interest in the product. In Peters opinion, being certified organic will become even more beneficial when the baby boom generation becomes increasingly concerned with their health and in consuming healthier, organic products.
At PEI Gourmet Mushrooms, the shiitake mushrooms are produced in the most modern facilities available, and European growing methods and cultivating techniques are used. These mushrooms are grown indoors using two buildings, of about 7,500 square feet each, and processed in a manufacturing building of 25,000 square feet. This ensures that they can produce a product that is of superior quality.
The mushrooms are hand-picked, and then packaged in one of two unique and innovative ways: The first is a retail pack “six pack”, in which the mushrooms are packed in clear, vented plastic 100 gram containers, which are labeled and bar coded. Six of these containers make up one retail pack, giving it its name. The other method of packaging is in three pound bulk boxes with a labeled, vented cover sheet. PEI Gourmet Mushrooms always guarantees that their shiitake mushrooms will be delivered fresh.
Peters is now looking to the market to determine his future plans, “I’d like to see the continued market growth of organics over the next several years, as people learn more about the health benefits of organic food and develop a stronger interest in these products”.
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