Local Organic Mushroom Farming with Meghan Klotzbach

Liam Dempsey: Welcome to Start Local, where we talk with business owners, leaders of nonprofits, and other members of our community focused on doing business in and around Chester County, Pennsylvania. Each episode will provide insight into the local business scene, and tell you about opportunities to connect with and support businesses and nonprofits in your local area.

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Liam Dempsey: Welcome to Start Local. I’m Liam Dempsey, and I’ve hit the record button today with my co-host, Erik Gudmundson. Greetings to you, Erik.

Erik Gudmundson: Hi, Liam. How are you doing today?

Liam Dempsey: Much better than the last time we recorded. Thank you. I am steadily getting over my cold.

Erik Gudmundson: Definitely sound better. I’m glad we’re on opposite sides of the recording studio today.

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Liam Dempsey: Today, we’re joined in the podcast studio by Meghan Klotzbach. Megan is the Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Operations at Mother Earth Organic Mushrooms. Welcome, Meghan.

Meghan Klotzback: Hi. How are you guys today?

Erik Gudmundson: Doing, doing pretty well. Meghan, it’s nice to see you.

Meghan Klotzback: Oh, it’s good to see you too.

Liam Dempsey: All right. We’re gonna jump right into it today. 

As we mentioned in our previous episode with Nina Kelly of Chester County Tourism, sometimes when we talk with tourists to the area who have come specifically to visit Longwood Gardens, they ask where they can see mushroom fields thinking that mushrooms grow in the bucolic rolling hills of Chester County. And as a transplant to Chester County, I recently thought that as well. Homework is worthwhile in this show. So, now I know to politely inform them that mushrooms are crypt typically grown and controlled indoor in agricultural environments. Around here, mushrooms have traditionally been grown in mushroom doubles. And for those who don’t know, myself included, what is a mushroom double, Meghan, and how do mushrooms grow?

Meghan Klotzback: So we grow all indoors. There are two building materials in this area that are used. The original way was all concrete block, concrete block buildings, and on the inside, we have, wood that creates a shelving system of rows of mushrooms that we grow. 

So, the other newer way is the Dutch style method that is more aluminum style, bed shelving on the inside with more aluminum siding on the outside, as well. 

So, there are two different ways that you may see them in the area, but most of us are still growing in the old Pennsylvania Double way, which is in the concrete block buildings, and that’s how we grow all of our organic mushrooms. 

The way that we grow mushrooms in our Pennsylvania Mushroom Doubles is we input our compost which is all the leftover waste materials of our local farmers in the area, whether that’s corn cobs, cottonseed hulls, hay straw, things like that, that would otherwise be a waste material for them, we are able to pay them for that material and produce the food for our mushrooms. So, that’s about a 3-week process on an outdoor compost wharf. And then that compost comes into our mushroom doubles, comes in on a conveyor, and gets put on the shelves and then we pasteurize it.

So, pasteurizing gets the compost as well as all of the air, the walls, floor, ceiling, and everything inside that building, up over 160 Fahrenheit so that we can, for about 2 hours so that we can pasteurize the room and as a whole. After that, we have successfully made our compost, which is the food source of the mushrooms, and then we are able to introduce the spawn. The spawn is like the mushroom seed, but seeds don’t have mushrooms, don’t have seeds, they have spawn. So, what we do in a laboratory setting is they’ll take a tissue culture of the type of mushroom that we wanna grow, and they attach that to a sterilized grain of sorts. And that sterilized grain will not grow into the grain that it was meant to be, but it will be a carrier for the mushroom spawn so that we can easily plant it in the compost and, allow that mycelium to then leave the mushroom carrier grain and now work its way through the compost. And once it works its way through the compost, we have a great knitted system of spawn through that compost, then we’ll actually shock the system. We put a lot of water down on it, we’ll change the CO2 in the environment, make it a little, and make the temperature different so that we can encourage it to grow vertically instead of horizontally in the compost. Once it grows vertically, mushrooms grow, and they double in size every 24 hours.

Once you see that little button mushroom come up on the bed, 24 hours later, we’ll be double that size and so forth. So, harvesting becomes a very critical step now and we need a lot of harvesters to come in and harvest the 1,000,000 pounds that everybody’s growing in this area.

Erik Gudmundson: So how long does it take mushrooms to typically grow? And I understand from your answer there, you can change the length of time that it takes a mushroom to grow. But, typically, what’s the length of time?

Meghan Klotzback: Typically, we’re anywhere from an 8-week to a 12-week cycle depending on whether we’re growing white mushrooms, the cremini mushrooms, or the portobello mushrooms.

Erik Gudmundson: Wow. And so with that turnaround time, I’m curious, on average, how many pounds of mushrooms are harvested by your farm each week?

Meghan Klotzback: We’re about £300,000 a week, which comes out to about £16,000,000 a year. And we’re not even one of the biggest in the area. We’re one of, the mid-range growers.

Erik Gudmundson: Wow. That’s a very impressive number. That’s a lot of jelly beans in the jar. That’s for sure.

Liam Dempsey: That’s an enormous number. Oh my gosh. I had no idea. I had no idea. We note that most of your marketing is under the Mother Earth organic mushrooms name. Can you walk us through the evolution of your family farm business and its transition to organic?

Meghan Klotzback: Sure. I’d love to. So, we did start growing mushrooms in 1921. We purchased the farm in 1919, but we built our 1st mushroom double in 1921. So, we have been growing mushrooms ever since on our farm right outside of West Grove. And in 1989, we made the transition to organic. My great uncle, Jim Yeatman, helped create the organic program for mushrooms with NOFA-NJ who is a certifier at that time so no one knew how to grow organic mushrooms because it wasn’t being done yet and mushrooms like I just mentioned, are grown all indoors, so many, much different than all the other crops. So, he helped create what an organic system would look like for mushrooms. And we made that transition and it took a little over a year to go through that transition and prepare ourselves to be certified organic.

And in 1990, we started selling organic mushrooms. At the time, we were only about 1% of our sales were being sold organically because the demand for the market just wasn’t there yet. So we started selling that 1%, worked our way through a lot of shows organically and really tried to boost up our brand and boost up the organic mushrooms category in general. And, today, we still grow 100% of our mushrooms organic, and we’re probably about 60% of them get sold organically, whereas about 40% go into the conventional market. So we’re still not at that 100% sales capacity for organic mushrooms, but we do sell both types.

Erik Gudmundson: It’s impressive to hear how popular organic mushrooms are becoming. And in Chester County, we’re spoiled because we’ve been used to fresh mushrooms for a long time. And I’m curious about fresh mushrooms specifically. Are they getting more popular everywhere, or is it limited to Kennett and major metropolitan areas?

Meghan Klotzback: So mushroom demand is definitely growing across the country. We were at our top sales. And I’m not saying we, as our company. I’m saying we, as an industry across the country, we’re at our top sales in 2019. When our unfortunate COVID hit, our sales started to drop as an industry. And, we have not really gotten back to those 2019 sales numbers since. So, the demand is there and we were on track to make records in 2019.

So we are really hoping as an industry to get back to those points. Right now, a lot of things that are making a play in that is inflation. So, you know, it’s tough to go into the grocery store and buy something you absolutely don’t need. But I will say that mushrooms contain a lot of nutritional values that other things in the produce item do not contain. So it is a need. So, we hope that more people start picking them up from the grocery store.

Erik Gudmundson: I can tell you that growing up, mushrooms weren’t in my diet. I just wasn’t exposed to them. I didn’t grow up in Chester County, and now they’re absolutely something I need. They’re absolutely something I incorporate into a lot of my cooking. So, they’re a need for me.

Liam Dempsey: Meghan, sometimes folks who have never tried mushrooms confuse the sometimes pungent smell of compost soil with the actual aroma of mushrooms. Other folks say that they won’t eat mushrooms because of the texture. Seems like these are very dated stereotypes. What would you say to someone who raises these objections? And maybe I’ll clarify to an adult who raises these versus children.

Meghan Klotzback: Yeah. So that’s definitely a thought process that is in some people’s heads for sure. And, I will say that mushrooms are a category where you love them or hate them. We don’t tend to get snuck into foods and people be okay with that. People either search us out and need mushrooms and want mushrooms in their meals or, they want nothing to do with them. So, with that being said, it’s tough to change their mindsets, change people’s mindsets on that but, the texture one can be taken away if you chop it up and mix it in with things like meat.

One of the best things that the industry has really put out in a while is the blend. And the blend is a mixture of ground meat and chopped-up mushrooms. And you could do any ratio of that, but the recommended is about 70% meat and 30% mushrooms. It adds great flavor to your meal because mushrooms have an umami feature to them which takes on the flavor of other meats or other meals, other foods in general, and enhances that flavor. It also takes away some of the fat and calories because you’re taking out some of the meat. And it also makes it a more sustainable food because mushrooms are the most sustainable crop. So, there is a way to hide them, and that’s usually my answer.

Liam Dempsey: And it’s a good answer. And I’ll share with you that as a practicing Catholic, I can’t eat meat on Fridays or in Lent or I choose not to. And I love sausage pizza. I make homemade pizza every Friday. And so what I ended up doing is taking a mix of chopped fresh mushrooms and black olives, and it kind of mimics enough for my taste anyway, a sausage taste, and it makes for a really good pizza. So I’ll just share that.

Meghan Klotzback: Amazing. Thank you for sharing that. The other thing I was going to mention when you mentioned not eating meat on certain days, we just promoted a new thing called Mushroom Monday and it’s Taco Tuesday’s next-door neighbor. So, we really want to get that out and promote it and promote that everybody should be eating mushrooms on Monday. And it doesn’t have to be a meatless dish, but just, you know, incorporating mushrooms into the meal. Somebody else mentioned fungi Friday. So, if you can’t do it on Monday, we can always do it on Friday and have fungi Friday instead.

Erik Gudmundson: And to put you on the spot, Meghan, I’ve known you for many years, and one suggestion you gave me years ago, particularly when the price of crab meat started getting very high because I love to make like a creamy crab soup, was using lion’s mane mushrooms. And that’s a great substitution there, particularly the cost of crab was astronomical there for a while. So, thank you for that. 

Meghan Klotzback: That’s right. And lion’s mane mushrooms have become increasingly present in the marketplace. They have a lot of great nutritional benefits for brain health. So lion’s mane mushrooms are definitely an up-and-coming exotic variety of mushrooms that are getting a lot of press and are a great replacement for crab. And you can also do a great lion’s mane steak that I’ve been watching a video of online a lot lately. So check that one out as well.

Erik Gudmundson: All good tips here. I didn’t know we were turning into a cooking podcast, Liam, but I think that’s where we are. What’s next for mushrooms in the food industry? Are there any trends we should be looking for as we go to our favorite restaurants or watch the culinary, you know, adventures of our favorite chefs?

Meghan Klotzback: Yeah. So exotic mushrooms are definitely getting their spotlight right now, between lion’s mane mushrooms for replacements for crab. We have royal trumpets that can be a replacement for different meats as well, like scallops. So, there are so many different ways to use exotic mushrooms in many different dishes, and I think that’s the trend that we’re gonna start to see is moving away from that white button mushroom and moving into the more exotic flavors.

Liam Dempsey: Well, I look forward to that. But I want I wanna talk about mushrooms outside of the kitchen away from the table. And we understand that mushrooms are being found more and more in packaging materials. They’re being used in homeopathic medicines and more. And read an article maybe a year or so ago about how mushrooms were being used to make the framing of a house even. Can you share any kind of information that you have or knowledge you have about how mushrooms are you are growing or used in industries outside of food?

Meghan Klotzback: So what we are growing, we are not using outside of food. What they are using to produce the material…

Erik Gudmundson: Sorry about that, gang. We’re currently…I have some excited dogs. Yeah.

Meghan Klotzback: Well, we all love dogs. So, guys, what I can say about the mushrooms that are being used to make packaging materials or houses like you mentioned, it’s the mycelium. So, companies are actually growing out the mycelium into a mycelium slab of sorts and it’s a very thick, dense, white, material that can then take on and replace things like plastics and stuff like that. So, they are using it a lot in thing in different they’re using mushroom mycelium to create a lot of things that aren’t just food and that’s what’s increasing the demand for mushrooms overall as well as tinctures and, homeopathic type kinds of things, powders. Now, powders usually come from fresh mushrooms but, they can also come from mycelium as well. So it is a combination of both of those, but a slightly different industry.

Liam Dempsey: Would I be correct in understanding that the mushrooms used to make those housing frames? I think you said mycelium. Did I say that word correctly?

Meghan Klotzback: Correct. Yes.

Liam Dempsey: Is that an edible mushroom? Like, might not have the flavor of the lion’s mane, but it could be edible or it may not be depending on how they make it?

Meghan Klotzback: It could be. Yeah. So mycelium is the root system of mushrooms. So they’re basically doing what we’re doing when we grow it out in the compost and getting that vertical, or sorry, that horizontal growth, but not telling it to produce pins and actually fruit. So they’re just growing out a dense root system, and that’s what they’re using. So it could be different varieties.

Liam Dempsey: That’s so cool. Thanks.

Erik Gudmundson: To go in another non-food direction, as medical and publicly acceptable recreational use of marijuana increases, As a mushroom grower, are you hearing about expanded medical or even recreational uses of psychedelic mushrooms?

Meghan Klotzback: So, yes, I have heard about this. I don’t believe that we are at the legal point in Pennsylvania yet, to my knowledge, but I also haven’t been following up on it. But I know in Canada as well as some places in the Western US, they are starting to grow those in different mushroom doubles that were growing agrarian mushrooms. So it is possible to make that switch into that world. And I do know some farms, especially in Canada, who have made that switch.

Liam Dempsey: We’re gonna stick with health for a little bit here and talk a little bit about how the health benefits of a plant-based diet have become increasingly well-documented and publicly embraced in recent years. 

One way that we’ve seen this play out in the marketplace is the increased availability of vegan options at local restaurants and cafes and even in the grocery stores, and the big chain stores too. We see on the Mother Earth Organic Mushroom website that you sell mushroom powder. I was intrigued by that more specifically that they are the only source, the only plant-based source of Vitamin D. Can you talk to us about how folks are using mushroom powder? That was interesting.

Meghan Klotzback: Yes. And I also wanna, speak a little bit to what you said at the beginning of that question. So I wanted to speak on the fact that you mentioned plant-based and vegan options are really increasing in the marketplace. And mushrooms are the original, the OG vegan option to replace meat. So, we’re really trying to promote that and promote the whole food option to replace meat because seeing things like the impossible Burger and things like that beyond meat, that’s all processed. You can’t even read the ingredient list of what’s in that, but instead of having that, if you could grill a portobello on the grill, you’re giving yourself a very nutrient-dense whole food option to replace that meat. So, that’s what I would highly recommend there. And we are actually seeing a trend of people moving away from those manufactured vegan meats, and more towards whole foods like mushrooms and blending mushrooms with beans and other things like that. So, I just wanted to touch on that because I thought it was a great topic that’s been coming up recently.

On the Vitamin D, I wanted to mention that mushrooms are the only item on the produce aisle that can give you Vitamin D, naturally, now that Vitamin D can be enhanced by putting it under UV light. So some, producers of mushrooms are treated with UV light over the mushrooms to give them enhanced vitamin D, but many are not. There are ways to get that enhanced vitamin D on your own like setting it in the sun for a little bit when you get home, but don’t do that for too long because it will degrade the quality of the mushrooms. But, yes, vitamin D has been great in the powders, because it’s easier to get that nutrition level that we need without eating so many mushrooms or without treating it with UV as well. So, the powders are becoming a big hit. We do sell powders. It’s not a large part of our business though. It’s a very small part. Fresh mushrooms are really where we all thrive in this industry.

Erik Gudmundson: Oh, let’s get under the hood of the industry for a little bit. The mushroom industry is very dependent on labor like most agricultural industries are, and that includes migrant labor. But unlike most agricultural migrant labor, mushrooms are grown year-round, so migrant worker demand is not seasonal. Challenges at our country’s southern border seem to always be in the news. How is your labor supply impacted by political events, and what is the mushroom industry doing about it?

Meghan Klotzback: So, yes, to answer your question, I’ll first start by saying that because we are year-round agricultural and we are not seasonal, we do not qualify for H2A along with the dairy industry. So that means that we cannot bring in temporary workforce from other countries through the H2A program. Because of that, our labor is all a word-of-mouth way of bringing people in. And, because there are so many of us in this area of Kennett Square, it is known for people to live here who would wanna work in the industry. So because of that, we’re able to get the labor that we need for the most part. But, like you said, the impact of political events definitely does put a strain on that labor pool. So, throughout the past, whenever we’ve had different things like in the news with the border or other things like that, it definitely can increase thoughts of people not wanting to either work in the industry or people leaving and going to other areas, people returning to their home countries. 

One of the biggest issues for us in this generation is that the families that we have working for us, their kids had grown up in this county. So they all went through our school system. They wanna go to college and they wanna get a different job. They don’t wanna pick mushrooms, you know, for their career. So that next generation is what’s becoming a real struggle for us to get that labor. And I think, you know, we’ve been spending a lot of time as an industry looking at robotics for how to, for harvesting mushrooms. But it is tough because you know, they are very easily damaged, so they need to be handled with care and picked very quickly. And there’s a lot of knowledge that goes into harvesting a mushroom. So the robots would have to really be able to do that well in a tight tight closed area as well.

So, it’s not as easy as we would hope it to be to switch to robotics, but we still have the labor that we need for now, but we definitely see that going up and down. Whenever there’s a political event in the news, our labor starts to go up and down.

Liam Dempsey: Since mushroom growers know so much about the science of indoor agriculture, I wonder if you’ve ever considered using that knowledge to grow fruits or vegetables, maybe in light of, you know, the American diet changes or the palate expands and weather growing conditions become less predictable and farmland becomes harder to find. Have you thought about that?

Meghan Klotzback: So, yes. We have dappled in doing other types of vegetables in our growing rooms, but the biggest issue is light because we are growing inside. Mushrooms do not need light to grow, so we grow in the dark, whereas all other plants do need light to grow. So, we would have to put in a lot of artificial lighting into our facilities to help promote that growth. That would probably be done or be better done in a greenhouse-type situation, something where you can get the light in a little more naturally. But that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t work. I just think it would probably be a different facility that would be growing those crops.

Erik Gudmundson: And I would expect that because of all the food sanitation laws and safety requirements around maintaining a working mushroom farm, tours of your facilities are not really practical these days, at least not for the general public. And so we do know that, you know, maybe even after this episode, general people will be interested in buying mushrooms directly from your farms and from, you know, truly organic, you know, places to get that full experience. Where can people do that?

Meghan Klotzback: So, we have two locations, our farm and our packing room, where you can come stop by Monday through Friday, 8-5, and get your fresh mushrooms straight from our farm or our packing room. And people love doing that in this area. We get a lot of people that stop by to do that. And there are some other farms in the area as well where you can just stop in and purchase them locally. And I think that’s the best part about living in this area is that we can get those fresh mushrooms on our table every day. So we don’t have to go to the grocery store and buy mushrooms that have gone through that supply chain. And it’s a great benefit to everyone in this area.

Liam Dempsey: Yeah. It sure is. It sure is. I wanna ask you about how the public can support your work in organics. You said that your great uncle was instrumental in putting together the original structure of how to even grow mushrooms organically and that your family has been working hard over generations to let the public know about the value of organic. And I think we’re seeing the benefits in health and transitioning to plant-based diets and the like. And how can the local public help you with that mission? How can we give back to you for all the work that you and your family have been doing for so long?

Meghan Klotzback: So the best way is to just, you know, buy organic mushrooms, buy more mushrooms in general. When the category sells well, you know, we all do well. So, you know, being able to support our industry is supporting us on the end of sales and purchasing mushrooms, as well as, you know, just being a good voice in for the industry in this area. There’s a lot of local media out there. So, just being a good voice for this area and promoting that mushroom farms are great, and that, you know, we help support the economy. So we want people to just, you know, think highly of us.

Erik Gudmundson: Some of us already do. That’s for sure. That’s great.

Meghan Klotzback: Thank you.

Erik Gudmundson: Are you hiring right now?

Meghan Klotzback: I believe, yes. We are hiring. We should, I believe we’re hiring harvesters. We, I think we are actually hiring for a Quality Assurance position right now as well at our farm. So, that’s more in the food safety realm. Yeah. We have a few positions open, and our HR department is eager to meet with people.

Liam Dempsey: We’ll be sure to link to the employment page on the organic mushrooms.com site so folks can learn more about those available positions and apply if they’re interested. So, I have a question for you that sometimes our guests struggle with because there’s so many wonderful options to so many wonderful ways to answer this. So the question is this. Is there a nonprofit or local business in our corner of the world that you think deserves more attention?

Meghan Klotzback: So I read this question, and I wanted to take a moment to think about it, and I did. And there is a cat rescue in Kennett called, Tree Tops, and it is a fantastic organization that brings in cats that are tough to home and it goes through a very in-depth process to match cats with potential owners. And I think it’s just fantastic what they do. And I think that they’re, well, I see that they are always struggling for donations and always struggling to stay open. So, I just think that that would be a fantastic organization for people to give back to and really help support all the cats in the area. And I know this has nothing to do with mushrooms, but, you know, that’s just something that I find near and dear to my heart, and they are doing a fantastic job in the Kennet area and could definitely see some more press for it.

Erik Gudmundson: That’s a great answer, and that’s definitely an exciting another exciting jewel to have in Chester County. So, thank you for highlighting it.

Meghan Klotzback: You’re welcome.

Erik Gudmundson: Thank you also for appearing on our show today. Meghan Klotzbach, Vice President of Sales, Marketing, and Operations at Mother Earth Organic Mushrooms. Where can listeners connect with you and learn more about the delicious mushrooms you’re growing?

Meghan Klotzback: So, check out our website, [organicmushrooms.com]. It’s really easy to remember. We have a lot of information on there. We just recently updated it at the end of last year. So, we got some fresh images on there and fresh information. We also have some social pages as well, Instagram, Facebook, and the likes. So, be sure to check us out.

Liam Dempsey: Meghan, thank you so much for joining us today. I’ve learned a ton about mushrooms. I feel like I could keep talking to you for another hour or 2 at least. I’m sure your schedule wouldn’t allow that, but this is really interesting. Thanks for making the time for us and for our audience.

Meghan Klotzback: You’re welcome. Thank you very much for having me on.

Erik Gudmundson: Thank you to my co-host, Liam Dempsey. I’m Erik Gudmundson. 

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