It’s a time in Canada when shoppers continue to scan store shelves in search of a maple leaf on their packaging, or are filtering their online order by “Shop Canadian.” It’s also a sentiment that the Canadian exotic mushroom industry would like to see be applied to them.

Producing compost in Canada
In exotic mushrooms, however, it gets tricky. “For us, we take byproducts from other ag industries, such as ground flax, wheat bran and more, we pasteurize it and then inoculate it with some seeds–the mushroom mycelium,” says Rotiroti, noting its farm produces about 150 tons of compost weekly. That compost then sits for about 14 weeks to let the mycelium grow, and after that time, it’s taken into a fruiting room. Over the course of seven days, mushrooms are grown.

While that product is grown in Canada, there are concerns over foreign compost coming from countries such as China. “About 99 percent of imported compost is from there. So they produce the compost and then wait 14 weeks for the mycelium to finish colonizing the compost. Then, they flash freeze the compost and ship them globally and they land in Canada and go to partner farms where mushrooms are produced from them,” he says. “Those farms then market those mushrooms as a product of Canada. Technically they are grown in Canada–however, 95 percent of their ‘life’ has been in another country and then finished in Canada and it’s not right.”

He’s concerned as well over the volume of compost coming into North America and says it’s flooding the market. “They’re mass producing it at volumes that our population would never be able to absorb and it’s driving prices down. It’s making it harder for Canadian producers to compete, and it’s bankrupted a few companies in Pennsylvania,” as Rotiroti says, noting that Pennsylvania is where the majority of mushrooms sold in North America come from.

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