Demand on mushrooms has taken a turn and supplies are currently much tighter.
“From what I am hearing, everyone is short. I think demand is just increasing faster than any of us anticipated,” says Brenda Barney of Mountain View Mushrooms in Fillmore, UT.
She notes that sales had been slow until roughly Superbowl week. While Mountain View saw its normal increases in demand for that event, things have been different since. “Since then, demand has steadily gotten stronger. Most likely because we are seeing an easing of the COVID-19 restrictions in most of our markets,” she says. This is unlike last year’s fourth quarter where Barney says demand did not increase much for holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s Eve, because everything was closed.
Staying ahead of demand
Until now, anticipating demand had been a bit of a calculated risk with the pandemic. “We had to guess what our sales were going to be and we tried to stay 20 percent ahead of what were selling. However, we had not planned on the increases we are seeing now,” she says. When we increase production, it takes about six-weeks before we see it, so I think it could be tight for awhile. We will continue to add additional growing beds until we get ahead.”
In the U.S., mushroom supplies largely come out of Pennsylvania but in addition, supplies also come out of Canada, the West Coast and Texas.
Also factoring into that tight supply are challenges with raw materials. “Lumber and peat moss have been hard to get. I do not have specifics on why they are short. I am sure it’s related to the pandemic operating situations we have all been dealing with,” says Barney.
Meanwhile pricing on mushrooms not changed much in its markets says Barney, adding that as long as operating costs stay the same, mushroom pricing is likely to stay stable.
For more information:
Brenda Barney
Mountain View Mushrooms
Tel: +1 (435) 767-0050
brenda@mountainviewmushrooms.com
www.mountainviewmushrooms.com