How to solve a global problem at a local level....

There isn't mushroom left in the alley....

There isn't mushroom left in the alley....

We started Hoole Food Market to raise awareness and fix some of the problems posed to the environment in the global food supply chain, and yet it’s proving so difficult to change the world, without also being part of the problem.

One of the biggest problems from a production and packaging point of view at the moment, to my mind at least, is mushrooms.

As a land mass of England, Wales and Scotland, we have very few commercial mushroom producers - around 280 farms. This compared to other neighbouring countries such as Northern Ireland, which is tiny by comparison who have over 300. This means that almost all mushrooms (excluding the more exotic varieties) available to food retailers in Great Britain are either Irish or Polish. Poland is the largest grower in Europe, in 2018 producing 236,000 tonnes, with a market share of over 50% in 2019 throughout the 27 EU member state area.

This means that due to the quantity of mushrooms we sell per week, nearly all the closed cup, chestnut, field and portobello mushrooms we procure are from Poland.

The more exotic varieties we sell are sourced from Scarisbrick in Lancashire, although in order for supply to meet demand, some of these are supplemented by Smithy Mushrooms in imports from as far away as South Korea, which unfortunately means air freight.

The biggest problem at the moment though, beyond food security and food miles, is the packaging.

Every single variety of mushroom we procure is transported in what (in the wrong hands) is a single use plastic crate.

We had an average sort of week last week in terms of levels of trade, but this over the course of a week produced 91 plastic crates from the 136kg of mushrooms sold.

We could procure mushrooms in individually cling wrapped plastic punnets which are then transported in cardboard boxes, but this adds extra weight and volume in transit, and therefore increases CO2 emissions. It would also mean that we were supplying extra single use packaging to the end customer, which isn’t really our schtick.

We always try to lead by example, so will take unwanted crates away after delivery from both homes and business addresses, endeavouring to leave our customers with just food and no unnecessary packaging. But we are very limited in terms of what we can return to importers. Logistics companies and food businesses run on very tight margins, so neither sector would want to transport empty, non-collapsible containers between nations if they can be transporting goods which will pay for the journey, it simply wouldn’t make economic sense to do so.

Thankfully, many of the local producers we work with can, and do make use of these crates and contribute to a circular re-use of resources, which is what in my opinion needs to happen with the vast swathes of the food supply chain.

After all, it works for bakeries. Bread, or good quality locally baked bread at least, such as that from Kookaburra Bakehouse and The Bear Bakery is baked and delivered without packaging in a returnable tray. Some of it even being delivered by Paul at iPedal Cargo, a chap very much on the same wavelength as us - it all goes back to the EconomoLogical principle I discussed in my last post.

It goes without saying, that if you can re-use any of these crates, you’re very welcome to collect as many as you can use. They aren’t the prettiest of ornaments, but are a very utilitarian storage solution - I see them utilised in lots of the commercial kitchens I deliver to, used as everything from utensil storage to unusual filing systems!

This problem also presents a potential opportunity for a manufacturer with the relevant design skill set - surely a collapsible and returnable crate that works for commercial mushroom producers and logistics companies isn’t too much to ask?

If you’re able to use any of these crates, whether in the home, allotment, or as a business, just give us a shout at the HFM shop, or drop us a line. If we can make it work the EconomoLogical way, we may even be able to factor a drop off into our deliveries, we go through close to a hundred of these every week….

Thanks for reading.

Jason

Disclaimer - all quoted figures except those in the table which were directly exported from the HFM ePOS system have been pulled from the internet.