WATSONVILLE, CA - Unlike other categories it shares the produce aisle with, mushroom season lasts all year long! Since my eating life revolves around the fungi category, Mike O’Brien, Monterey Mushrooms’ Vice President of Sales and Marketing, shared this simple fact (that I probably should have known already) with me and immediately sent me into a tizzy of toadstool triumph for the 365 possible days and mushroom-recipes to enjoy year-round.
And more good news abounded as I spoke with Mike to find out about the current mushroom season and how retailers can prepare for the onslaught of holiday fungi culinary activities.
“Mushroom quality is quite good right now. We have excellent experienced mushroom growers that pride themselves on the mushrooms they grow,” Mike shared with me. “What we are seeing is a shift from white mushrooms to brown mushrooms. The latest report from the Mushroom Council has whites at 60 percent of total mushroom consumption and browns at 33 percent. And, with the weather cooling down and the holidays coming up, people are changing how they cook and consume mushrooms.”
Seriously, if you ever need a hit of good news, checking in with the mushroom category is a must, as mushrooms are typically immune to Mother Nature’s outbursts thanks to their indoor growing operations. Mike also noted that the Mushroom Council reported the 52-week mushroom category sales increased +6.1 percent in dollars and +6.5 percent in volume.
“However, our challenges are the rising cost of doing business due to lack of labor, high distribution costs, and inflationary input costs,” Mike explained to me.
A Monterey Mushrooms story is incomplete without a note about its popular new product line, Let’s Blend™. I asked Mike what retail can expect from this exciting on-trend line and his answer did not disappoint.
“We continue to be excited about our new product line, Let’s Blend®,” Mike concluded. “We partner with our retail customers in collaborative category management, offer a dedicated in-house team to work with our retail customers to help customize plans for their chain, and collectively develop programs to increase transaction count and market basket size. Let’s Blend is a great item at retail because it has an extended shelf-life, recyclable packaging with cooking instructions on the pack, a visible best-by date, and a cut-out window to see the product.”
Let’s all agree to not judge when we bump into each other in the checkout line and notice carts stacked only with Monterey Mushrooms Let’s Blend.
To stay ahead of the holidays in fresh produce style, stick with us at AndNowUKnow.
