Mike Stephan, Director of Sales, Monterey Mushrooms<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">We harvest the same mushrooms all year round- White Mushrooms, Baby Bellas, Portabellas, and Oysters. As conventional growers of fresh mushrooms, we grown indoors. But the drought, or the dry weather that we have had this past Summer has greatly affected our wheat straw which is what we use for our composting. Supply is excellent but demand is outpacing supply, a little bit. This is not typical. Consumers of mushrooms don't just like mushrooms, but they love them. So, the easy gains to sales increases for retailers is to promote and merchandise larger packages of mushrooms. In our category we go from eight ounce to twelve ounce to sixteen ounce; if consumers buy a little bit more they will eat them. <hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Pete Wilder, Director of Business Development, To-Jo Mushrooms<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">We are currently harvesting out of Avondale, Pennsylvania, all year round. We are currently harvesting fresh white and Portabella mushrooms. Supply is good and we are currently gearing up for the Fall holiday season with our production runs and anticipating an increase in pounds that will come later this Fall. Our market in general is strong. We have seen an increase in Brown sales driven by Criminis of 7% and an increase in pounds of 5.7 % and we are seeing some nice trends in retail market right now. Retailers should be gearing up for our national promotion in October which is in conjunction with the City of Hope to support breast cancer research. It helps raise awareness and increases consumption. Retailers are getting on board with that. <hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">Joe Salvo, President, Ponderosa Mushrooms<hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">We are harvesting Chanterelles in Northern Saskatchewan, Canada as well as Cape Breton, Canada and as well as Northern British Columbia with Lobster mushrooms as well as Matsutake mushrooms from Northern B.C. as well. Supply is very tight on the Chanterelle. The Lobster mushrooms are coming on right now, so that is not an issue. There is almost oversupply right now. We are looking forward to a strong Sept-Nov sales. They are typically very strong for us in retail and foodservice. We will keep striving forward and getting our specialty mushrooms in mainstream distribution. We look forward to a good Fall and Winter crop. <hr class="legacyRuler"><hr class="invisible minimal-padding">
