Niche treat market sprouts up

When it comes to mushrooms, there is no in between. Either you like them or you don’t. At ‘Mushrooms & Love’ they have overturned this convention. They are even making coffee from mushrooms. Now that can’t be right. Or can it?

The family-run business from Ardlougher, West-Cavan, has been crafting mushroom-based products since 2020. Their signature products, Seavoury Crisps and Shroom Crisps, were selected as finalists in the prestigious 2024 Irish Quality Food and Drink Awards, with Seavoury being announced Gold Award Winner. Advancing to become the fair’s ‘Product of the Year’ winner was a “significant milestone” for the family business, says Richard Francis. “To be recognised among so many amazing products was truly humbling.”

Originally, growing mushrooms was adopted by the family of three as a way to pass time when Covid hit in March 2020 – a mere month after resettling from Singapore to Cork, recounts Richard of the early endeavours of his wife Sophy, teenage son Daniel and himself. After the neighbours were saturated with the free veg, he and his wife Sarah attended the local markets. But there was still more produce growing than could be sold.

“I don’t like waste,” says Richard. “So that’s when we started experimenting with dehydration-processes.”

They toyed with recipes and added flavours until they came up with “mushroom crackers”.

“At the markets we quickly realised that these were far more popular than the raw mushrooms.”

Just back from featuring a stall for five days at the annual food and drink festival ‘Taste of Dublin’ a “foodie haven” by their own admission, Richard is excited by the feedback: “I always want to hear people’s honest opinion. No point going on with a product that I like, if 20 people say they don’t.”

But the feedback was overwhelmingly positive, measured not only in sales on the day, but also from potential new retailers, he says.

Richard, who as a young man did a stint as a chef, had been a programme manager for global projects for 25 years based outside of Ireland. He had nothing to do with mushrooms, retail or even Cavan, but “I have a great passion for cooking and passion for innovation”.

His affection for the Ballyconnell area and the potential the acquired farmhouse offered, has been growing since 2023.

"The house was almost purpose built for us, we haven’t looked back since moving here, we really love it.”

Here they grow, cook and package the grey oyster mushroom. Between 20-40Kg of organic mushrooms are sourced from Offaly on a weekly basis, trying to keep up with the demand. One kilogramme equates roughly to 100 packages of crisps - currently stocked in eight Supervalu stores across Cavan, Meath and Leitrim.

In traditional marketing fashion, he gleens consumers’ opinions straight from sampling. He knows people are intrigued by the unusual product: “I promise, it doesn’t even taste like mushroom”, he says to passers-by throwing the stall a curious eye.

The mushroom crisps are crunchy, less greasy and have less calories than regular crisps. The naturally flavoured crips are vegan and gluten-free, offering unique benefits for a treat. Mushrooms contain fibre, vitamins and minerals. "A huge selling point for many customers," observes Richard.

Excited to keep pushing boundaries of what mushroom-based foods can be, the road from mushroom crisps and mushroom coffee has led to the creation of capsules made from the Lion’s Mane mushroom, said to have specific health benefits. Having nearly sold out on their Lion’s Mane Capsules at the recent fair in Dublin, Richard and his family will be reverting to the drawing board – or rather the cooking board now.

“We are currently experimenting with Lion’s Mane mushroom gummies, flavoured with black current.”

That might not be for everyone, but there’s no accounting for taste.