AUSTRIA Growing in Tyrol
Tyrol, the mountainous region of Austria, is usually associated with skiing or hiking. But if you do mention Tyrol in the same sentence as mushrooms, everyone thinks of chanterelles and porcini, not white button mushrooms. However, Cornelia Plank from Tiroler Biopilze,
intends to change all that. By John Peeters
I
Cornelia Plank: “It’s not easy to stand out, but it’s our only chance. And we’re going to seize that opportunity!”
n Thaur, in the Inntal region, Plank Gemüse has been growing mushrooms for a few months now in six growing rooms on a farm set up specifically for that purpose. Plank Gemüse is a family-run company with a history dating back three generations. It mainly grows horticultural produce. Cornelia Plank and her husband Walter run the farm. She explained the potential in the Tyrol. “We are a relatively small farm, certainly if you compared us with the large German farmers we compete with. In Germany, farmers have 40 hectares or more on which to grow a single crop. We grow 40 varieties of crop on an area of 40 hectares. The price of
land in Tyrol is astronomical, certainly here in the valley. The slopes are cheaper to buy, but you can’t cultivate vegetables there. The goodwill factor plays a huge role with our customers, so although we are sometimes more expensive than our German colleagues, the fact that we grow produce locally here, and that we are a true Tyro- lean company, is becoming more significant. We mainly serve local customers, but also from other parts of Austria. These include companies such as MPreis, Rewe, Hofer and Lidl.”
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According to Plank, button mushrooms have never been grown on a large scale before in Tyrol. “We asked our existing customers what they thought of us growing fresh mushrooms, and found out that they had never come across mushrooms grown in Tyrol. According to the retailers, our main chance of success was to come up with a product that really stood out from the rest, hence ‘Tiroler Biopilze’ (Tyroler Organic Mushrooms). We use 100% organic production methods.” Construction was contracted out to JF McKenna, in Northern Ireland. “Why we chose McKenna? We wanted a compact farm, for a reasonable price, with maximum insulation. We also wanted to work with a partner that could supply a complete package. Building in Tyrol is a different matter altogether than in Ireland, you have to take the snow load into account, for example. We visited a number of farms, and McKenna offered us the best package for agreeable conditions.” The cultivation of this entirely new produce for the Planks is now six months on. During the completion of the building project, and the start-up phase of the farm they were assisted by John de Gier, a former teacher at the Dutch mushroom school and now active as
20 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
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