Florin Teslari did not plan to be a mushroom farmer. He has an engineering degree. And yet, here he is: 24 years of education behind him, a limestone mine as his workplace, and 16 species of exotic fungi under his care. His father started farming Pleurotus over 25 years ago, almost on a dare, after a conversation with friends. Florin grew up preparing mushroom bags as a child and collecting harvests on weekends. Mushrooms were just the background of his childhood. He never imagined they would later become a big part of his life or that he would one day build a social enterprise around them, a journey that grew with the support of the EU4Youth programme.
From a pandemic to a product
It was COVID-19 that changed the equation. When markets closed, the family was forced to approach supermarkets directly, and suddenly, the business needed labels, packaging, and structure. He saw, for the first time, that there was real demand. From there, the idea of home growing kits followed quickly. The first kits were made in eight days from idea to finished product. The first three were never sold – they were tests. He made 15 more kits the next night, barely slept, and sold all of them.
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What surprised him most was not the sales. It was the feedback from people – parents and children. He received lots of feedback saying they found it fun, interesting, and a great idea. That response was unexpected and shaped the direction of everything that followed. A home kit that costs the price of a restaurant meal teaches a child that food can be grown, not just bought. That shift in mindset, multiplied across hundreds of families, is not nothing. "People don't understand that it's not just about eating the mushrooms from the box – it's about growing them." This distinction matters more than it might seem: it's the difference between a product and an experience.
A mine and 16 mushroom species
Florin grows his mushrooms in a repurposed limestone mine in Făurești village – a practical choice that happens to be beautiful. The natural humidity and temperature underground create ideal conditions that would cost a fortune to replicate artificially. It's exactly the kind of solution that comes from thinking like an engineer: Florin holds a degree in electrical engineering and has spent the last two years running Teslari ORIGINS as its chief engineer and founder simultaneously. "I saw this being done in the United States, but the technology there was built for specific conditions – it only worked for exotic species. Nothing like it existed here. So I had no choice but to develop the production technology myself, from scratch," says Florin.
Currently, Florin Teslari produces 16 species of exotic mushrooms, including Lion's Mane,
© EU NeighoboursEast Shiitake, and Enoki varieties that are nearly absent from Moldovan markets. The home kits, fresh mushrooms, dried products, and upcoming food supplements made from medicinal fungi are all part of a vision that Florin is building piece by piece. He lists future plans without a pause: biodegradable packaging from mycelium, certified organic substrates, educational workshops for children, and mine excursions where kids prepare substrate themselves and take a kit home.
In 2024, he applied to the programme and received his first grant of €2,000 through the 'Building Back Better Through Social Entrepreneurship' project, implemented by Junior Achievement Moldova under the EU4Youth programme, and used every cent on laboratory equipment.
The social part is still being built
Teslari ORIGINS' social mission focuses on hiring people from vulnerable backgrounds, and the entrepreneur has already started doing so. He is open about the reality: while the business is still moving past its start-up phase, building the social side depends on first strengthening the commercial one. This honesty is, in itself, a form of integrity. Social enterprises that overclaim do a disservice to the people they intend to serve. "If something doesn't work, try again" – that's what Florin's father taught him. It is also, quietly, the logic of every social enterprise that refuses to give up.
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What Florin wants Moldova to know
Florin wants people to be less afraid of mushrooms and not just literally. He means something more powerful: that unfamiliar things can be safe, nourishing, or even extraordinary if you give them the chance to grow.
His advice to young people with a business idea: "Start to gain experience. Then see where you went wrong. The most important thing is to start. Either get a job in the field where you want to open a business, or find a mentor who can teach you the basics." Florin followed that advice himself, more or less by accident, having grown up inside an industry he could easily have walked away from. The engineering degree turned out not to be a wrong turn. It was the tool that let him honour what his father started, and push it somewhere entirely of his own.
In a limestone mine in the village of Făurești, Moldova, the Lion's Mane grows slowly and steadily in conditions most people wouldn't expect. So does Florin Teslari's business. So does the community forming quietly around it.
Source: EU NeighboursEast
