UMDIS Mushroom Agency met Peter Marseille at German Mushroom Conference in November 2023. He is Mushroom Industry Ambassador and conduct a lot of activities to promote mushroom consumption to Germans, explaining them about benefits of mushrooms and how to use them.

On his website (https://www.leichlinger-champignonzucht.de/ueber-uns.html ) you can find many interesting videos about different types of mushrooms. But videos are only part of his promotional efforts. UMDIS talked to him and offer you a story about this.

Peter started his farm back in 1972 with 3 growing room. And now his farm is still one of the smallest farms in Germany, producing yearly between 40 and 50 tons of mushrooms.

Thanks to direct sales to final customers – Germans, who love to buy local products – Peter’s farm doing well. All mushrooms go directly to kitchens in his area and local shops and restaurants. Till year 2000 he grew 16 mushrooms species including shiitake, pom-pom, king oyster, yellow oyster and others but now he grows only agaricus.

Germans prefer to buy locally grown mushrooms. Local growers mark their products with German flag giving the customers direct notice about product origin. Peter explains that this preference mainly has a root in perception of buyers that locally grown mushrooms are fresher. And this perception is true in fact, says Peter – mushrooms reach a customer in period from 12 hours to two days since they were harvested.

Another reason of the preference of local produce is doubts about quality of imported mushrooms. “When it comes to imported mushrooms, buyer often don’t know from where they came, for how long they’ve been stored, how they were grown” – says Peter. In addition to this, customers when buying locally grown mushrooms support local businesses. And finally, they trust German quality control system more.

Of course, German growers support buyers in their wish to buy local products – at first because it gives them opportunity to sell mushrooms at better price. “German mushrooms price is 30% higher than ones imported from Poland” – says Peter. But in the same time price for mushrooms that come from Netherlands or Belgium are the same as on German ones, adding Peter, making a conclusion that buyer’s preference is more about freshness and trust to quality than about supporting local growers. But anyway, according to Peter Germany have no other choice but import mushrooms, because local growers cover only around half of demand.

Peter likes to tell other people about benefits of mushrooms, about how they are grown and harvested. And he managed to make it his part-time job. German Mushroom Growers Association pays him for this work (he didn’t say how much 😊) and gave him a title of Mushroom Industry Ambassador.

“In Germany we have kind of parks, where you can see how different plants, including those that we consume, grows. We use this opportunity to show people how mushrooms are grown” – says Peter. From 2011 they have places in those parks where they grow mushrooms and show the process to the public. And don’t miss the chance to explain to public how healthy they are. They don’t stick to specific places and change them once in two or three years to attract more people.

German Mushroom Growers Association financing the production of booklets, fliers and creation of videos about mushrooms for Youtube. In these promo materials they describe different types of mushrooms, write about their versatility and good taste, health benefits. Almost half of promotion is recipes with mushrooms. Peter believes that doesn’t matter what kind of mushroom you promote – it will have positive influence on all mushroom industry. Peter estimates that promotion materials and activities reached around 30 million people since he doing it since 2011. For example, explains Peter, each exhibition in a park has turnover from 2 to 4 million people during the half a year period.

Peter is 71 now. Last year Peter retired and passed the mushroom farm on to his son Tim. But he isn’t going to quit mushroom promotion activity and going to continue with it.

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