Nathanael Engen hopes to grow green mushrooms in downtown Everett. By green, Engen, the founder of Black Forest Mushrooms, means locally grown gourmet mushrooms. With his venture, he hopes to take a bite out of the mushroom industry’s carbon footprint.
He hopes to turn a 3,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown Everett into a combination mushroom farm, retail store and demonstration kitchen. Savory blue oyster mushrooms, sweet, nutty-flavored chestnut mushrooms, and lion’s mane, a mushroom that can taste like seafood, are some of the varieties he hopes to cultivate.
He’s just getting started. The building must first undergo an extensive renovation, he said. He hopes to hire staff and get growing by mid-year. In the meantime, Engen has leased an office at Think Tank Co-Work, a new co-working space in Everett at 2817 Wetmore Ave. in Everett.
Downtown Everett is the right place for an indoor mushroom farm, Engen said. “We could have easily gotten property way out in the middle of nowhere, but we purposefully chose this location to be close to the community,” Engen said. “We want people to stop in and pick up their mushrooms for dinner that night.”
The Downtown Everett Association has given Engen’s venture a very green thumbs up. “Nathanael has been selling high quality, culinary mushrooms at local farmers markets — and selling out,” said Liz Stenning, the association’s executive director.
Read the entire article at Herald Net