For its mushroom production, the company Champicarde has been using a vacuum cooling system for a year, which is proposed by Weber Cooling, a Dutch company. “It is a cooling system that helps cool the merchandise all the way to the heart of the pallet by drawing a vacuum in a very short time. Thanks to this system, we have a homogeneous treatment of the product as a whole mass,” explains Philippe Marès, director of Champicarde.
“This cooling system consists of a large cube which is 2 meters high and 1.5 meter wide. The surroundings are designed with a very thick metal, in order to be able to maintain the merchandise in a vacuum. To cool the product, we place a few pallets in this box and leave them there for 15 to 30 minutes. This way, we avoid maintaining hot spots in the middle of the pallet which could lead to the accelerated aging of the product while it cools down with a conventional cooling system.”
Today, not all companies of the sector have this technology. Philippe Marès has adopted it completely and had already had the opportunity to use it in the past. “We were familiar with this technology because we had already used it on endives. We therefore knew its advantages and decided to use it for our mushrooms. We built adapted facilities where the machine could be set up.”
Growing demand for organic mushrooms
The company Champicarde produces only organic mushrooms. In recent years, Philippe Marès has observed a positive evolution of the demand for organic products. “When we took over the company, we chose to continue with an organic production. This mode of production fit our values and there was also a high demand from consumers for this type of product.”
With the sanitary crisis, the demand has accelerated. “There was an interesting boost in sales due to our position on the market. As the catering and industrial sectors slowed down, consumption increased in supermarkets.”
About Champicarde
In 2017, Philippe Marès took over the company Champicarde created in 2012. Today, Champicarde is a key player in the production of organic mushrooms in France. The company produces locally and sells its mushrooms in bulk, in wooden crates everywhere in France through supermarkets, networks of specialized stores and wholesalers.
For more information:
Philippe Marès
Champicarde
54, rue du Point du Jour
02 270 Crecy sur Serre
France
Mobile: +33 6 18 40 22 04
pmares@champicarde.fr