In the old days, Holland may have been stuck with the plain old white mushroom. Nowadays, things are quite different. We are living in a market where mushrooms come in all shapes and sizes, a market with unique issues and unique challenges.
Wild mushrooms
According to grower Harold Schuurmans the supply of wild mushrooms has been meagre. “Nature really let us down,” he complains. “Early this year it was too warm in Portugal and there was no rain, causing the growth of chanterelles to diminish. That never happened to me before. In the Baltic, the situation was exactly reversed: there was too much snow! Even the usually reliable US let us down. The only places able to deliver are Poland and Lithuania.”
Organic mushrooms
The advent of organically produced mushrooms remains steady, says grower Paul Verhoeckx. “We are in fact offering organic mushrooms, but as now, there is no real progress in that market.” Grower Arno van den Oord agrees. “Organic is doing fine, but it isn’t really expanding either.” Tonny Hooijmans of Oké Trading has established a sister company that focusses exclusively on organic produce: “That market is growing a few inches a year. More and more retailers want organic, and we see an increase in demand by other sectors as well.”
Sliced/Composite products
The demand for mushrooms is getting more specific, signals Paul Verhoeckx. “Normally we supply sliced mushrooms in 150 gram-packages, but the other day, a retailer asked if we did a 100 grams.” Arno van den Oord of Champoord is doing sliced mushrooms as well, but it no longer does composite packages. “We got a little weary of that. If people want mushrooms in their food, they’ll buy them anyway.”
Annelotte Crena de Iongh of The Greenery is a little more upbeat about packages. “The demand is growing,” she says, “and we expect this increase to last. We’d like to play a part in meeting these demands.”