CULTIVATIONTIPS ADVISIE Keep it cool
By Jos Hilkens AdVisie ‘the mushroom growing consultants’, Herkenbosch
hilkens@mushroomconsulting.nl
If they are harvested at a higher temperature, mushrooms will continue to grow afterwards. The stems will lengthen, the cap starts to mature or open and the mushroom shrinks in weight as it softens and loses moisture. The ideal temperature to keep mushrooms is between 0-2°C. The sooner the mushrooms are cooled to this temperature, the better. Use a blast chiller after harvest to rapidly cool the mushrooms to 4°C in about 45 minutes or a vacuum cooler that chills them quickly in 20 minutes. Rapid cooling is ideal for mushrooms, but the interval between harvest and entering the cooler must also be short. It makes good sense to regularly check this. The mushrooms must be kept cool not only at the actual farm but also in the other links in the supply chain: transport, any intermediaries and at the point of sale. Especially during the summer with high outdoor temperatures, a completely closed cold chain is vital to maintain quality and reduce food waste caused by unsaleable products being thrown away at the supermarket. In many European supermarkets, mushrooms are still not placed in chiller cabinets but presented on the shelf at temperatures of between 17 to 23°C. This is not a great advertisement for the sector. If consumers make one bad purchase and have to throw away some of the mushrooms, they may be dissuaded from making a repeat purchase which will have a negative knock-on effect on consumption. With good quality mushrooms, kept in a short and properly controlled cold chain, consumers can enjoy mushrooms for another three to five days, which is the ideal situation.
Picking instructions
The bed is filled with plenty of good quality mushrooms but at the end of the day you notice bare patches on the bed. So what has happened? The cause is usually inexperienced pickers and too little supervision and inspection.
By Jos Hilkens AdVisie ‘the mushroom growing consultants’, Herkenbosch
hilkens@mushroomconsulting.nl
Pictures: AdVisie
This is more likely to occur in systems where mushrooms are automatically removed from the growing room and especially when the picking platform or shelf is stationary and the picker is able to fill the transport belt, chain or disc. The picker should selectively pick the mushrooms and not remove everything from the bed in one go. This is detrimental to the final yield as too many mushrooms are harvested too small while on another part of the bed they are not thinned out properly so quality suffers too. Good supervision will identify this sooner so corrective measures can be taken in time. This problem occurs more frequently with new, inexperienced pickers and can be avoided with good training and picking instructions. It is also sensible to check new pickers every hour and give them just one clear instruction at a time. The picking manger, or an experienced picker, can also work alongside them and give the occasional instruction. A new picker can also learn by watching or shadowing an experienced+ picker. This approach can help speed up their progress toward achieving a good picking performance and picking quality.
de champignonteel tadviseurs Jos Hilkens
+31(0)653 31 6204
hilkens@champignonadvies.nl
(advert) Co Hermans
31(0)653 29 9396
hermans@champignonadvies.nl
the mushroom growing consultants
Jos Hilkens +31(0)653 31 6204
hilkens@mushroomconsulting.nl
6 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
Con Hermans +31(0)653 29 9396
hermans@mushroomconsulting.nl
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