In a shop just outside Minneapolis, Kan., a pair of agriculture entrepreneurs cultivate dozens of pounds of mushrooms each week, ranging from the cloud-like Lion's Mane to the flavorful Shitake.
Rachel and Casey Andre began Shroom-Mates in 2022 after noticing a "mushroom-sized gap" in the Saline County food industry. "We had already talked about starting a farm and what we'd like to do, but the conventional way was kind of out of our means as far as land," Casey Andre said. "So we just said, 'Okay, what can we grow here and start here and expand — what's not available in the community?' So I went to the farmers market and saw nobody was doing mushrooms."
From there, the couple started small with a homemade cultivating tent, a special enclosure to grow mushrooms on a larger scale. The makeshift tent first filled their entire basement, but after demand grew, they moved to a shop with an upgraded cultivating tent.
Rachel Andre has worked as a chef most of her life. As she sought to create more delicious recipes at the Rennaisance Cafe, she encountered a challenge in finding varying types of mushrooms beyond Portobello or Button mushrooms. She and Casey Andre then found a solution — growing their mushrooms in their basement to sell and use for recipes. This also aligned with the couple's goal of starting an agriculture business.
Read the entire article at Salina Post