New: Banken mushroom kebab. Easy to cook, eye-catching and tasty.


products that from their nature are sustainable, local, authentic, healthy as well as EU-suppor- ted. To decide whether to ‘surf or to sink’ in that sea of problematic issues the experts of the Forum recommended for every player of this industry to confront themselves with the three questions: ‘Are we really thinking the market’ (and not e.g., the wholesaler perspective); ‘Have we got enough muscles’ (do we have all the neces- sary resources or can we make advantage of subsi- dies; and ‘Are we looking far enough’ (can we get more sustainable, make use of digital solutions, do we communicate the ‘earth connection’and last but not least can we tell stories about our products to our clients and make them enjoy them?) The next speaker, David von Laskovski, the founder and owner of a successful start-up Pica- deli offering healthy fast food, convinced the audience that the future belongs to food that is preferably plant-based, accessible, affordable and connected with enjoyment. Curious whether the issues and trends will be recognized and followed by the mushroom sector players present on the trade floor, we set off to interview a few of them and find out. First, we wanted to enquire whether the three factors - Brexit, Corona and Ukraine - that have hit global industries in the last three years, also had an impact on the these companies. What changed for them? Then we wanted to know what makes events like FL still an attractive place for them to visit and what would they like to show and communicate their clients this year. The last question we put before them was how to survive in the still changing, volatile business environment. How to stay sane in this kind of insane world we all experience and keep the business running?


Banken: ‘We learned to be more assertive’


According to Bart van Reus representing Banken Champignons both the Brexit and the pandemic did not really have the negative long-term effect everyone expected at the beginning. The com- pany noticed even a rise in retail volume. “Obvi- ously, the energy prices are a bit of a headache


Banken Champignons is always present with a great stand at Fruit Logistica.


and resulted in uplift in the cost price, but the company learnt how to manage that.” There are no long-term contract prices anymore and Ban- ken had to learn to be more assertive on the cost price, recalculating their contracts every 2-3 months. As many other companies, Banken had to replace their Russian and Belarussian sup- pliers in the wild mushroom sector. The com- pany also observes a constant rise in the brown varieties which in their opinion are longer attractive on the shelves and have more taste. Banken stays close to the market trends and reacts quickly to them. It is worth remembering their Vitamine D-enhanced mushrooms and a pioneering variety of non-meat dishes. This year the company prepared something special for consumers going more and more vegan. “The three ready to cook dishes representing the most popular meat dishes - shawarma, kebab, gyros are not only eye-catching but also easy to cook and tasty!” To keep alive and going in this chal- lenging time Banken are watching the market, constantly adding value to their products, and accepting that people are spending less money on food so the producers have to stay as cost- effective as possible.


GL Group: ‘We can’t stop’ GL Group - represented in their stand by Urszula Leinert (management), and Rafał Onopiuk (sales) welcome us with the statement ‘We are still developing and cannot stop’. An optimistic sta- tement regarding the market situation. The company is selling about 500 tons of fresh mushrooms weekly and recently invested in con- structing their own cooling facility, which helped them to diversify their business and attract new clients. Apart from using the new facility for cooling fresh mushrooms (white button, chest- nut, oyster mushroom and shiitake) the com- pany started to provide this service to other fresh produce companies. Another investment of the last 3 years is their in-company production of paper packaging which helped the company to get independent from the previous outsourcing. The own car fleet got also expanded and counts now 12 lorries. According to Onopiuk the Brexit


With 63.470


visitors and 2.610 exhibitors, FL 2023 numbers neared pre-


pandemic levels.


 MUSHROOM BUSINESS 39


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