MYFARM
In each edition of “Mushroom Business”, we publish an interview with a grower. The emphasis here is on the farm and cultivation methods. This issue features a portrait of the farm owned by Koert Pleunis, in the village of Stramproy in the south
of the Netherlands. By John Peeters
Pleunis Mushrooms (NL) The grower
“We are standing here on the site of the old farm owned by the Pleunis brothers, one of whom was my father. There was a time, back in the 1970s, when this was the largest mushroom farm in the country. Those days have gone, today the buildings are owned by Oakfield Mush- rooms, and in one of the farms I rent three growing rooms for my activities. Shiitake is reasonably well-known in the Netherlands, but the king
oyster mushroom or pleurotus erengii is not quite as familiar yet. That variety sells better in Germany, and business is good. I started growing mai-take not so long ago, and the market for it really has to be built from scratch. The shiitake and mai- take in particular are associated with health beneficial proper- ties. As a mushroom grower’s son, I also started working with mushrooms here. At my last employer - who also cultivated exotics - my interest in other
mushroom varieties grew to such an extent that I decided to start growing them myself. It’s not as hectic as growing white mushrooms, the margins are slightly larger, although it must be said that pressure is starting to build slowly in the exotic market too. But basi- cally, the pressure is less than with ordinary mushrooms. It’s difficult to say what the future holds. Take the customary grey oyster mushroom. It’s been grown for a long time in this
Koert Pleunis with his wife and son with the exotic mushrooms: “We need to progress to a more professional level.”
44 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
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