On November 14th, Texans gained access to a new realm of the mushroom kingdom with the arrival of Smallhold’s specialty mushrooms on Central Market store shelves and the opening of their first Texas urban farm. Breaking up a wall of brown button and portobello mushrooms with bursts of color and flavor, Smallhold’s locally grown, organic mushrooms introduce a world of previously unavailable flavors and textures to the produce aisle. For the first time, Texans will have the chance to pick up rich and nutty lion’s mane, deep cerulean oyster mushrooms and meaty royal trumpets – all grown down the road, rather than on the other side of the globe.
Image credit: Zeph Colombatto.
“Central Market customers love eating delicious fresh mushrooms,” said Marty Mika, produce business development manager at Central Market. “We are excited to expand the assortment of unique mushrooms, in select locations, to meet the increasing demand from home-based and professional chefs.”
The secret to growing these mushrooms is a distributed farming model – a hyper-local solution to global food supply chain issues. Using Smallhold’s proprietary technology, they’re able to pop-up a mushroom farm up anywhere, with the variables (such as humidity and temperature) controlled and customized from shelf to shelf via Smallhold’s centralized system. This model allows a large variety of mushroom types to be grown, harvested and sold in meaningful quantities directly where the consumers are.
Image credit: Smallhold.
By locating the farm in proximity to where the mushrooms are sold (including mini-farms inside of all 10 Central Market stores by 2021), they ensure the freshest produce is available, reduce plastic waste, emissions and spoilage. A scalable approach to local, organic farming, Smallhold is excited to turn people on to the kingdom of flavors and textures it encompasses.
Image credit: Smallhold.
For more information:
Sophia Yablon
Email: smallhold@careofchan.com
www.smallhold.com