UK mushroom supplies are tight and prices are rising, as the industry’s largest compost supplier battles against disease.
The market is experiencing first hand the consequences of supply-base rationalisation and lack of funds for re-investment that has seen many compost operations go out of business in recent years, leaving the UK’s mushroom growers dangerously exposed with only one major supplier.
On some wholesale markets this week there were no standard UK mushrooms at all, as product from the Netherlands, Ireland and Belgium dominated and prices for brown cap from the UK rose to 850p for 3kg.
According to John Smith at mushroom supplier Greyfriars, the problem has been a severe outbreak of Trichoderma green mould at compost supplier Tunnel Tech North, which has hampered output.
“Production is down by about 40-50 per cent, and that shortfall has to be made up from somewhere else,” he said. “The problem is that product is not readily available from somewhere else, as the euro and zloty are strong, and lofty prices are needed to lure supply away from Ireland, the Netherlands or Poland just for a short time until the compost problem in the UK is sorted out.”
Smith calculates that it will be two to three weeks before mushroom supply from the UK starts to get back on track.
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