Business mushrooms for local couple

First shiitake harvest at the Larkns’ new facility. The bottom two shelves are ready for picking, and the top two will be ready in a few days. They stagger loading days, so they have fresh mushrooms available all week long.

Madison and Matt Larkin wanted to offer a unique food to people and the idea popped into their heads — mushrooms! They have now opened Grand River Mushrooms at 105 North Frame Street in Hamilton.
Madison and Matt are row crop farmers in the Grand River bottoms. They got into mushrooms because they wanted to start a company that provided food to people. “We came across somebody on the internet growing mushrooms on a small scale and decided we could do it, too,” Madison says.
They first started growing mushrooms in the garage of their house in Lock Springs. “It was trial and error for about six months,” says Madison. “We wanted to provide fresh, high-quality mushrooms. We picked up our first client in November 2017.”
The business began to take off, selling to restaurants in Kansas City, and soon outgrew their garage. They needed to expand, so they purchased the building in Hamilton a year ago. They had all their equipment moved to the building in January this year and have since been finishing construction on the building. They have grown to five employees.
“To grow mushrooms indoors, you build indoor greenhouses,” says Madison. “That’s over-simplifying a process that is quite complicated.” Basic things needed are mushroom grain spawn; substrate or growing medium, and an environment or chamber to control the light, temperature and humidity. She says there’s a lot more to growing mushrooms than people think.
“All of our mushrooms are wood-loving species,” she says. “They grow on wood substrates, not compost.” They currently have six varieties and are working on three or four more. They grow blue oyster, Italian oyster, lion’s mane, shiitake, and chestnut/cinnamon cap mushrooms.
The quickest mushrooms to grow from planting to harvesting takes about four to six weeks. The longest growing season is about five months. The more common mushrooms are oysters and shiitake. “Our new variety is a huge hit,” says Madison. “It’s called a cinnamon cap. It has an interesting texture and flavor compared to others.” And, no, she regrets to inform, they don’t grow morels.
They continue to sell directly to restaurants in Kansas City, but are adding more venues. “The next phase is preparing the package designs for grocery stores,” says Madison. “We are also getting ready to do a farmers market in the city.”