One inherently sustainable process Premier practices is recycling its organic mushroom waste back into the growing process. During harvesting, mushroom stems are discarded and the fruiting body is put into a box for processing. Any mushrooms that don’t pass through quality assurance will be recycled back into the composting process. The upside to all this is that spent mushrooms are kept out of the landfill and more importantly, being used as a nutritious input to the phase 1 composting process.
Now on the surface, this clearly appears to be the highest and best use. However, if we dig a bit deeper, one could ask why perfectly nutritious mushrooms are being recycled back into the composting process and not being consumed? Well, firstly, because retailers have a high focus on visual appearances. Secondly, if we’re not able to sell them, we’d prefer to divert them sustainably and avoid the landfill at all costs.
Clearly this makes logical sense and is a great way to re-capture value from spent organics. However, we decided to take it a step further and begin donating a portion of our left-over mushrooms to a local shelter. As was mentioned before, these mushrooms are perfectly nutritious, but simply have a few blemishes that make them less attractive in appearance. These blemishes have absolutely no bearing on nutrition and that is why we’ve chosen to donate them locally and have them remain in the food value chain.
We still believe there is value to composting the spent mushrooms, however we’re going to begin exploring alternative uses for our leftover product that can still provide value and nutrition to our mushroom community. Stay tuned in the coming months as our program evolves.
Now on the surface, this clearly appears to be the highest and best use. However, if we dig a bit deeper, one could ask why perfectly nutritious mushrooms are being recycled back into the composting process and not being consumed? Well, firstly, because retailers have a high focus on visual appearances. Secondly, if we’re not able to sell them, we’d prefer to divert them sustainably and avoid the landfill at all costs.
Clearly this makes logical sense and is a great way to re-capture value from spent organics. However, we decided to take it a step further and begin donating a portion of our left-over mushrooms to a local shelter. As was mentioned before, these mushrooms are perfectly nutritious, but simply have a few blemishes that make them less attractive in appearance. These blemishes have absolutely no bearing on nutrition and that is why we’ve chosen to donate them locally and have them remain in the food value chain.
We still believe there is value to composting the spent mushrooms, however we’re going to begin exploring alternative uses for our leftover product that can still provide value and nutrition to our mushroom community. Stay tuned in the coming months as our program evolves.
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