US: Maine farmers tap technology to grow organic mushroom business
“Our target audience is millennials [20- to 30-year-olds], who have different buying habits than baby boomers and Generation Xers,” says John Sharood, chief financial officer, from one of the two barns the company rents near Sanford. “They buy organic and local, and will pay a little more for higher quality.”
John Sharood, a manufacturing automation consultant, and his son, Robert Sharood, an organic farmer, run the company.
They recently started growing mushrooms in the 4,000-square-foot facility, and plan to ship the first harvest to local restaurants and Whole Foods market in Portland at the end of January 2013 under the Mousam Valley Mushrooms brand. Their target market area is a day’s drive from southern Maine, extending from New York and southern New England to northern New England and Montreal.
To get off the ground, Farming Fungi received a $24,990 grant from the Maine Technology Institute, which it matched with $61,087 of private funds, to develop software and control systems to manage the mushrooms’ environment and to trace lots of finished produce. The control system handles the sterile environment required to grow the organic culinary mushrooms by automatically controlling temperature, humidity and airflow. It also helps keeps the mushrooms free from pests and germs, and manage their growth or “fruiting.”
source: mainebiz.biz
