more than 25% before this holiday period. This has far-reaching impacts on a new, modern farm like IGS Agro. The company also produces phase III compost for its own use and for sale to other mushroom producers. The low mushroom price in Russia has had a knock-on effect on compost prices, which have fallen by as much as 50%.


United States – Ray Samp, 20 April The degree of infection and number of deaths (85.000 mid May) in the US has been very large. And the fallout of the Corona virus has hit the economy very, very hard. Edible mushrooms are a part of that economy, and although things are bad in our industry, they could be worse., said consultant Ray Samp. Read the full story by Ray on our website: www.mushroombusiness.com


Picking with masks at CesenaFungi in Cesena, Italy.


come from Poland, and a number of them have returned to their home country. To solve this shortage, a temporary workforce has been draf- ted in and the working days are longer. Restau- rants are also closed in Switzerland. They bought mainly white mushrooms. At the same time, the market for brown mushrooms in Swiss super- markets is clearly growing. There is a higher demand for brown mushrooms as so many more people are eating at home and not dining out, so currently more brown mushrooms are being pro- duced at Wauwiler. Supermarkets in Switzerland are noticing a higher demand for mushrooms anyway. Prior to the crisis, many Swiss consu- mers crossed the border to do their shopping but are now forced to shop in their own more expen- sive country. This is having a very positive effect on sales and prices in the Swiss mushroom trade!


Russia, IGS Agro, Jelaboega, 13 April


IGS Agro is also being affected by coronavirus. Hygiene measures have been tightened up here to keep corona outside the farm and compost yard. For example, personnel are temperature checked before being allowed to enter the premi- ses to work. The picking equipment, corridors and canteen are disinfected four to five times a day, and the 1.5 metre distancing rule is enforced as far as possible. The biggest problem in Russia is that the many people who cannot work due to the corona measures are left with hardly any money to buy food, simply because they are not receiving any form of support from the Russian government. The economy in Russia seems to be threatened with a total collapse. So, it’s not sur- prising that people have more important things to worry about than buying mushrooms. Conse- quently, the prices of mushrooms have fallen sharply. Whereas prices were very good around Easter in previous years, they now plummeted by


Belarus – Maksym Yenchenko, 12 May


With the beginning of quarantine measures in the Russian Federation (their main customer), Belarusian champignon producers were in an exceedingly difficult situation. In April, the over- all decline in mushroom production amounted to about 30 or even more percent. And prices are 30-40% lower than expected.


Read the full story by Maksym Yenchenko on our website: www.mushroombusiness.com


Positive forecast


Finally, Amycel and Sylvan were largely positive on the future for the mushroom industry begin- ning of May. They estimate decline in production around 10-20% in Europe, but they expect strong recovery later in the year (Read more on their view, also on the Polish situation, on our website as well). Iwan Brandsma, Commercial Director of Sylvan has noticed a problem, which has become more visible due to the crisis. “The sector has a lack of transparency and analysis at consumer level. What happens at the point of sale? Many actors are still in the dark, which jeopardises continuity”. We need to take a more data driven approach and collectively purchase (expensive) data from Nielsen, for example. He refers to an e-mail recently sent by Arpad Mutsy of BioFungi in Hungary, which urgently called for greater cooperation in the field of promotion, among other things: “The intentions are good, but when there isn't a crisis, a sense of togetherness and collaboration is hard to find and every producer/ producing country operates with their own pro- fits foremost. The AMI in the USA is a prime example of how this can, and must, be done", says Brandsma. “We are too small as a category to deploy large-scale promotion, but we could certainly tactically improve our leverage of social media channels (pull) and ‘in Store’ (push) to generate more attention for our product."


'When there isn't a crisis, a sense


of cooperation is hard to find'


MUSHROOM BUSINESS 57


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