Stuck at home during the pandemic, Gareth Griffith-Swain started growing mushrooms from grow bags in the bedroom of his house share in London. Now he has turned his bedroom hobby into a thriving business from the family sheep farm in north Wales selling to restaurants, local markets and online.
On Tuesday, Gareth, from Waunfawr in Gwynedd, is appearing on Channel 4's Aldi's Next Big Thing to find out whether he has secured a lucrative deal to supply the supermarket nationwide. The 33-year-old, who was picked to appear on the show out of hundreds of applicants competing for a contract to stock Aldi stores, says he developed his business through "trial and error" and was self taught watching YouTube videos.
He said: "I was working for Nando's and started growing oyster mushrooms for fun in my bedroom during lockdown. It was a lockdown hobby but soon I knew I wanted to develop a product and I've always wanted to work for myself."
On the Channel 4 show Gareth will present his specially created dried mushrooms which can be used for cooking, which he developed with help from Coleg Llandrillo's food technology centre in Llangefni. The entrepreneur moved his budding business to north Wales in 2021 when his grandfather died leaving the family sheep farm Tyn-yr-Onnen to Gareth's parents.
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