For shiitake, the ideal point for harvest is when the gills have just cracked away from the stem, but not yet begun to spread out. During warm summer months, a shiitake mushroom that was unopened in the morning can be half opened by evening, hence farms often sweep fruiting rooms more often in the summer (and due to the summer slump in demand, are generally running fewer fruiting rooms in that time as well). The second key point is the harvesting method itself. In Japan, harvesters systematically work through each shelf, using one hand to grab a single shiitake block at a time, and then carefully examining that block. Harvesters then use their free hand to pluck the shiitake from the base of the stem, picking them directly from the block and placing the shiitake into adjacent tubs. There are generally four different general categories that harvesters are sorting the shiitake into: A, B, C, and reject grades, though further grading (between 9~12 grades) is done in the packaging room. In the packaging rooms, workers work to trim any excessive amounts of substrate (in Japan, sawdust, which is the ideal shiitake substrate), while minimizing cuts to the stem. After harvest, and then again after packaging, the shiitake are kept, as much as possible, in refrigerated cold rooms (around 2 degrees Celsius), and then transported to supermarkets in cold storage trucks and kept in low-temperature displays with other vegetables such as leafy greens. While I have seen many pictures of shiitake being sold in insufficiently chilled displays, this is not a problem of the growers, but rather food distributors and retailers. This method of harvesting is quite demanding, and I found it to be quite taxing on the wrists and mentally tiring, however more veteran workers could scan a shiitake block with their eyes and pick all the harvestable shiitake in a third or less the time as I could. I’ve even seen the hourly averages for workers at one large shiitake farm, and saw even older workers in their late 60s and 70s who averaged between 50-60 kg an hour. Between this and Japan’s hourly wages that range between 7.60~10.00 euros an hour, and on the whole Japanese farms are able to utilize this system because of their labor efficiency and low labor costs.
Benefits of this harvesting system Obviously, if there were no benefits, fewer growers in Japan would bother with such a time-consuming and tedious system. While, to some degree, the harvesting methods in Japan reflect high demands from Japanese consumers as to the aesthetics of supermarket produce, there are a number of reasons behind this system. For one, growers are paid by net weight. Shiitake rapidly begin to lose weight as they open, and fully open shiitake can
weigh as much as 33% less than a similarly sized shiitake that was harvested at the ideal point. For farmers who have a lax attitude about speedy harvest and packaging plus proper storage, this can mean literally leaving 33% of the value of a harvest on the table. The same logic is behind the tendency to pluck shiitake from the base of the block, rather than clip them. While the necessity for doing a second and third flush to make a profit in Japan also plays a role here, plucking the shiitake from the base and then trim- ming only as much as necessary in the packaging room plays two big roles. One, this maximizes the net weight the grower is able to sell their product for by removing as little of the stem as possible. Two, in combination with picking the shiitake right as the seal around the gills has broken, keeping as much of the stem intact, and even a small amount of substrate/mycelium attached, is the optimal configuration for shelf-life. In Japan, general supermarkets simply won’t buy shiitake whose caps are opened because the shelf-life is too poor. This is in addition to strong consumer preference for unopened shiitake, but that preference is because Japanese consumers also know unopened shiitake are fresher and will last longer in the fridge. Open shiitake may also quickly begin to rot, as seen by black or red splotches on the gills, and the flavor and texture decline as well. Especially for growers who market their locally grown shiitake as a premium domestic product grown according to high food safety standards, it is important to consider these aspects of shiitake harvest.
Conclusions The Japanese standards for harvesting shiitake are obviously somewhat a reflection of the local market and standards. Each market, even with the EU common market and even within the same country, has differing restraints and pressures. However, I also believe there is a general logic to the Japanese standards here, and that given how tight the margins are for Japanese mushroom growers, few elements of the system here are wasteful. In the case that farmers have to decide between severe labor constraints, high turnover, or a combination of low efficiency and high wages, I can see a case for maximizing the simplicity of the harvest at the expense of quality, fresh weight, and shelf-life. On the whole though, I think that many farmers could benefit from studying this and other aspects of Japanese growing systems.
By Jake Waalk, Salai International Japan
MUSHROOM BUSINESS 49
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