Agro-Project is a Polish engineering company which builds mushroom farms and compost yards worldwide turnkey, as well as supply wide range of equipment such as machines, climate control, ventilation, shelves, gates, nets and other products. As company works in different parts of the world – the team of Agro-Projects visited mushroom event in India.
That is what Andrzej Bielicz, Sales Director of Agro-Projects tells UMDIS readers about it.
“This fall took place India Mushroom Summit 2023, the first event of this type in a large country with a population of 1.4 billion.
Agro-Project is an exhibitor at the fair, as well as a speaker during this event.
The Indian mushroom market can be characterized as a developing market with great potential.
The Indian mushroom market is currently in a growth phase with significant potential. While more than 95% of farms currently grow button mushrooms using the outdated “bagging” technology (involving phase 2 compost loaded into plastic bags manually placed on a simple shelf structure), a technology long obsolete in Europe, the prospect of moving to phase 3 compost remains a dream. However, there is a strong possibility that the Indian market is at the threshold of a transformation.
And that is why:
– India is the most populous country in the world, with a population of more than 1.4 billion.
– Fast-growing economy. Today, India is already in the top five by GDP (GDP in 2023 over $3.5 trillion), according to expert estimates, by 2027 India may get into the top 3
– The largest vegetarian community in the world
– According to local entrepreneurs, the demand for mushrooms is already 4 times bigger than the supply. Every mushroom grower we had a chance to talk to clearly stated that if they doubled their production today, they would have no problem with selling this quantity.
Of course, the market faces many challenges, such as achieving stable compost quality and increasing yields (today, the market standard is yields of 15-20%, which is definitely too little). It is necessary to promote mushrooms, which are unfortunately not popular in Indian culture, as a healthy vegetarian product that is able to diversify Indian plant-based diet, add new flavour and deliver missing proteins and useful micro elements.
Nevertheless, we are sure that the global trend of increasing mushroom consumption won’t skip this country, which is why we see a lot of opportunities for our company there and we are proud to be a part of the India Mushroom Summit 2023 and to support the local mushroom market”.
Agro-Project builds mushroom farms and compost yards turnkey and sells equipment and machinery.
