Mushroom business is growing A fungi-loving organic farmer in Maine has created a viable agricultural venture in Newport tht’s reaching for greater markets

Just 18 months ago, Andrew Smith stood in a wind-blown lot at the Newport Business Park. It didn’t look like much – he had just broken ground for three greenhouses for his new business, Mineral Spring Mushroom Farm. An existing building was being renovated as a lab and production center.

The young organic farmer, who also raises beef, talked about his vision of selling mushrooms to gourmet stores and markets from Boston to Bangor and, as comments around town reflected at the time, he was doubted. “Mushrooms? In the business park? Are you kidding me?” commented one local leader.

Less than two years later, Mineral Spring is one of Maine’s most successful new agricultural ventures and is poised to purchase two more lots in the business park for expansion.

It is Maine’s only commercial mushroom farm and more than 40,000 pounds of mushrooms were harvested this first full year in business. Not only is Smith marketing to more than 65 Maine restaurants and markets, but he has a refrigerated locker in Chelsea, Mass., from which he serves 60 restaurants in a 15-block section of Boston.

“We can do the same thing in New York and Chicago,” Smith said recently. “We have everything in place.” Looking beyond the United States, Smith is currently setting up a direct market in Japan for matsutake mushrooms. In Japan, matsutakes are prized as aphrodisiacs and the supply has been depleted due to overharvesting. During the fall, Maine is the only place in the world where matsutakes are being harvested, Smith said.

Smith is a mycologist, a person who studies mushrooms, and he first became intrigued with edible fungi while majoring in biology and chemistry at Evergreen State College in Washington. After establishing a successful organic farm, marrying and starting a family, Smith turned back to mushrooms.

“They are really amazing, magical and so efficient,” Smith said. “They take cellulose matter and convert it to an edible, nutritious food product.”

Basically, Mineral Spring grows three foundation mushrooms: shiitake, lions’ mane and oyster. Because these mushrooms have a short shelf life, they cannot be trucked fresh from great distances. Smith’s closest competition for the Boston market is in Connecticut.

“The Maine name is a great marketing tool,” Smith said. “Many restaurants put our name and state right on the menu.”

Smith also hires local foragers who bring in locally grown varieties such as chantrelles and hen-of-the-woods. A forager can easily harvest 200 to 400 pounds of the wild mushrooms each season, he said. “When you put on your menu that the mushrooms were hand-harvested in the woods of Maine, well, that is a very posh thing,” Smith said.

Smith also recently returned from Shanghai with 30 new mushroom varieties.

Smith’s biggest and most popular crop are the oysters. In a greenhouse with light-blocking walls and humidity at 99 percent that causes the ceiling to drip continuously, the oyster mushrooms push themselves out through growing bags.

Harvesting takes place daily and the mushrooms are immediately flash-cooled, boxed and shipped.

Business has been so successful that Smith just spun off his third venture, M-Power Products, which creates functional food products, such as tempe, a tofulike food, and mushroom jerky, as well as extracts, health supplements and a mushroom soda (“It tastes like Coke,” Smith promised).

Smith said the key to his first year was getting the distribution system set up. “Now, we have a lot of innovative ideas on deck and we can pursue them,” he said.

Currently, Smith is generating all his own mushroom spawn and his own production material. “The real direction I see us headed in is fresh mushrooms, but we can also focus on selling spawn to other growers, even as home-growing kits.”

His first year in business, Smith said, has been “more three-dimensional growth rather than linear. I learned so much, not just about cultivation, but about marketing. Over the last year, I have been so busy not only writing all the protocols but networking. Still, I could never have anticipated where I am today.”