Korean mushroom exporter grows year by year

he Asian financial crisis in 1997 hit Korea hard and business was down, companies were looking for ways to survive the crisis.

Mr. Hee-Joo Park, president of Green Co. Ltd. - GreenPeace Mushroom Farm took his chance to start exporting mushrooms to Canada after a friend introduced the idea.

Park did not waste time and thought it was the right time to export mushrooms. He simply believed that there is a big future waiting for him in the mushroom industry and he was ready.

"My first mushrooms were exported to Toronto, Canada where the demand was visible in just a short period of time," says Park.

Today the Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm is certainly becoming the leading producer and supplier of mushrooms worldwide. It has been successfully supplying its customers a wide range of mushroom such as enoki, erynggi, golden enoki, flower enoki, shimeji and oyster mushrooms.

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The enoki and the king oyster mushrooms are the two main varieties for export. Last year, USD$6,096,028 of enoki and USD$4,938,319 of king oyster were exported.

Annual sales are posted at around US$32 million.

Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm has a capacity to produce 45 tons/day of mushrooms or an estimated 16,260 tons/year. The main export countries are Canada, US, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Hongkong, Taiwan, China and Europe.

Nowadays, Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm is busy participating food trades and exhibitions worldwide especially in Canada and the US.

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Consumers from these countries prefer enoki mushroom rather than the king oyster especially in Canada. "There is a huge number of Asian people in Canada and enoki mushroom is popular amongst them for preparing soup," says Park.

"This is completly opposite to the Netherlands where Dutch consumers enjoy the king oyster mushroom," he added.

The Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm is also focusing nowadays on offering their products to retailers like Tesco and Metro Group. "I want to be able to supply the supermarkets directly. I would like to introduce our mushroom more to the retailers worldwide," says Park.

He also added that he aims to export more varieties of mushroom to the European countries.

Exporting to countries like Australia, Germany and Canada are quite challenging for Green Co.- GreenPeace Farm due to the documents and certifications required by these countries. On the other hand, countries like Canada, Singapore and Malaysia require less paper work which enables them to proceed without further hassles.

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Moreover, Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm has nine company-owned farms and are involved with fifteen cooperative farms. The company also expanded by purchasing and investing in Canada, Netherlands, China and Germany.

The company owned farms produce 100% of enoki mushroom for export while and 20% of king oyster for export.

The remaining 80% of king oyster mushrooms for export come from the 15 cooperative farms in order to meet the increasing demand.

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In November 2003, the company bought 499,633m² of land in Canada for farming. It was 2008 when Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm ventured to another investment, this time in the Netherlands and the Green Mushroom Farm was created.

The Green Mushroom Farm is becoming one of the largest suppliers of fresh wild forest and cultivated mushrooms in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm owns 41% of the Green Mushroom while 39.5 % belongs to Sofiprim of France. The remaining 19.5% belongs to Sami Bahtiri and Agim Bahtiri of the Netherlands.

Green Co.- GreenPeace Mushroom Farm has two other farms, the Mussun Farm in China which has just opened and the Unmun Farm in South Korea, which will be completed in October.

The company is ISO 9001 and 2000 approved with GlobalGAP and HACCP certificates.

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For more information:
Ms. Han

Tel: 0082-54-371-633/9

Fax: 0082-54-373-6083

[email protected]