Farmer mills profits from mushrooms

Coffee and tea are the main cash crops grown here, but farmers are also embracing pineapples and potatoes. With its bulging population, Alice Wamboi has found a perfect place to run her mushroom value addition start up.

Named Mycellia and Foods Limited, Wamboi processes and packages dried mushrooms for sale.

Planting mushrooms

“I dry and mill two varieties of mushrooms namely button and oyster. I sell to families and traders who blend with other composite flours such as wheat or sorghum,” says the agripreneur, who also owns three mushroom houses at her rural home, each measuring 30 by 15 metres. While the value addition enterprise is her latest, she has been growing the crop since 2019. “After spawning (planting), one must ensure that the relative humidity in the house is higher than 90 percent and 200C temperature is kept constant,” she explains.

“This is achieved by misting the mushroom house. After a month of incubation, the mushroom pinheads begin to appear, then harvesting follows soon after,” she adds.

Value addition

Alice Wamboi began the value addition business in January after realising that she was making losses by selling fresh produce through an 80-member self-help group she was part of. “Mushrooms are highly perishable, they cannot last for more than five days. Sadly, once harvested, only 45 percent make it to the market,” she claims.

To better her value addition business, she enrolled for a six-month product development course, which she is completing in two months’ time.

“Dry mushrooms can stay for long as long as they are not in contact with moisture, and that is why they are becoming a popular delicacy when prepared in soups, roasted, grilled or fried,” she explains.

Capital

She pumped into the project more than Shs30m, a grant from Kenya Climate Innovation Centre and her savings.

The money went on purchasing two solar panels and building the drying chamber, a milling machine and renting a premises where she processes and packages her products. From her three mushroom units, Wamboi harvests about 200 punnets every day, which translates to 50 kilogrammes. She buys more from Mushroom Farmers Self-Help Group at Shs5,400 for a 250g pack of button variety and oyster at Shs4,320 for the same pack.

Process

She dries the mushrooms for three days, with 800 kilogrammes of fresh produce giving some 80 kilogrammes of dried produce.

“When the produce is received from farmers, we first sort it, then weigh. Then it is sliced uniformly and spread in the two storey solar dryers. Air is actively extracted from centrifugal fan and redirected to the mushrooms to speed up the drying,” she explains.

After three days, Wamboi normally tests the mushroom for moisture content that is determined by their crunchiness.

Milling

She mills some of the product to make mushroom powder and packages the rest for sale under her brand name Mycellia Foods.

“Lactating mothers, toddlers and the elderly are the biggest consumers of the products as well as traders who go to blend other flours. Mushroom has 60 per cent protein, no cholesterol and is a good source of vitamin B2 and iron,” says Wamboi, who before getting into the mushroom business worked as a utensils hawker. She sells 100 grammes of dried mushrooms at Shs14,400, and 40 grammes of mushroom powder at Shs7,200.

Other mushroom products

Margaret Kavindu, a food scientist, says one can prepare various products from mushrooms such as jam, sauce and preservatives, hence one is assured of higher income. According to her, value addition of mushroom is ideal as it reduces the bulkiness of the produce especially in commercial production. “Dried mushrooms fetch more in the market compared to fresh produce. But for one to succeed, appropriate training is necessary as this is significant in establishing the right skills on cultivation and marketing strategies,” she says.

Kavindu advises agripreneurs in sector to maintain high standards of hygiene during the value addition process, from drying, chopping, milling to packaging to ensure that their products are fit for human consumption.