For centuries the nation of Belgium has had a reputation for producing beer. Now, mushrooms nourished on a byproduct from the brew are a booming business. The high-end fungi grown by Brussels firm Eclo are finding their way to gourmet customers, while boosting the circular economy at the same time.
The seven mushroom varieties produced by Eclo are mostly exotic types usually found in Asia, including shiitake, maitake and pom pom mushrooms. They all fetch premium prices on the firm’s website and the substrate on which they grow is easy to come by in Belgium. It is a mix of spent grain left over from the mashing process to make beer, combined with discarded baguettes and dried bread.
Quentin Declerck, one of Eclo’s founders: “The beer and the bread don’t have any effect on the mushrooms’ taste, but we get better yields from them in terms of quantity and quality.”
Declerck’s company has for several years been collecting the brewers’ grain from Belgian beermaker Cantillon and leftover bread from Colruyt Group supermarkets and the Bon Pain chain of bakery and sandwich shops. This collaboration enables Eclo to recycle 5 tons of brewers’ discarded grain and 18 tons of bread annually. That castoff material then goes into Eclo’s cold rooms, where the mushrooms grow in the moist air.
Each week, the company sells between 8 and 10 tons of its mushrooms.
Source: taipeitimes.com
