POLAND Champignon de Siedlce
Arriving at the biggest event of the Polish mushroom industry this year, you could hardly believe you were in Poland. This was Pieczarkalia 2016 in Siedlce allright, but with a distinct French flavour.
By Kasia Bieniecka T
he entire trade fair area was decora- ted with posters of famous French actors of the 60’s. Girls in ‘French’ attire walked between the stands, as the smell of crêpes came from the Sylvan stand. The Saint Tropez atmosphere was completed by old French standards being heard from the speakers, and life accordeon music. The weather was coming from the Méditerranée as well, with about 30 degrees Celsius during the day and very warm evenings.
The French style Pieczarkalia 2016 took place as usually in Siedlce and the dates were set for the first week of September instead of June, due to the big Dutch Mushroom Week in spring. There were 58 companies who presented their offer on 52 stands.
French infl uence
The organisers decided to draw inspiration for this year’s Pieczarkalia from France to comme- morate the French roots of the white button mushroom and France as the craddle of mushroom growing in general. The French accent appeared already during the usual welcoming words of the officials from the region of Siedlce and people actively working for and in the Polish mushroom industry. It was the presentation of the President of the Polish- French Chamber of Commerce who expressed his pleasure with the fact that Poland took up musroom growing and developed in such an amazing way to be the number one producer of white button mushrooms for the fresh market in Europe and the third after China and USA worldwide. The President of the Polish Mushroom Growers Assoziation, dr Krzysztof Szudyga took the audience back to the 17th century in France where already 1630 the first mushrooms were supposed to have been picked near Paris, hence the name ‘Champignon de Paris’. The production moved then to caves created after the exploitation of limestone and remained under the earth until the late 90’s.
8 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
Much later, study trips to France allowed Polish mushroom producers to develop the art of mushroom growing in Poland. Years passed and the Polish industry started a long lasting story of technology transfer from other masters of mushroom growing – the Dutch, but the connections with France, especially regarding spawn production are still very alive. Another nice Polish-French accent of the welcoming event was the introduction of Mr Jan Lisek, a Polish grower, born in Normandy, who established one of the first mushroom growing farms in Poland in 1954.
Lectures and workshop This year, Pieczarkalia was divided in a more general trade fair part for exhibitors and visitors who spent as usual two intensive days in the Siedlce sport centre, and a special technology training panel taking place at another venue.
The offi cial opening, with Brigitte Bardot in the background, Krystian Szudyga in the fi rst row of seats.
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