In Romania 93% of mushrooms produced are button, and 7% are oyster mushroom. There are two largest button mushroom producers – Boglar Champ and Iazul V&V. And nearly ten smaller producers of button mushrooms, plus number of producers of oyster mushrooms.If we look on the percentages – they are like this: 75% of mushrooms consumed in Romania are produced by Boglar Champ and Iazul V&V. Another 10% are imported from abroad. And the rest 15% are produced by smaller Romanian mushroom farms.
– That is quite impossible that our smaller producers will organize themselves in sort of cooperatives. Because the quality is very different on different farms, and also, they are far from each other, – explain UMDIS Calin Cohut, representative of Amycel in Romania.
Farm gate price for white button mushrooms here is 2 – 2.1 Euro. In Romania mushroom producers have lower VAT taxes – 9% for mushrooms. The price in the supermarket is 3 Euro per kilogram.
That is quite unusual that the cost of white and brown mushrooms in Romania are nearly the same. Notably: nearly 25% of mushrooms produced in Romania are brown. Quite unexpectedly as Romania is not a reach market for which such percentage would look usual – however remembering that the price is the same, it shows that lots of people would really prefer browns.
– Here if you ask people why they prefer brown mushrooms – they give two reasons. They are more natural, and have better taste, – explains Calin Cohut.
94-95% of mushrooms in Romania are sold to the supermarkets – while just 4-5% to HoReCa sector. But that is a strong tendency that restaurants buy products from Metro supermarket – so the real proportion is quite larger for restaurants` share.
In Romania there is no working compost yard – so compost is imported, large amounts from Hungary. There is one producer of casing soil here in Romania – casing from him costs 1000 Euro per truck, without transportation. Cost of big bag is nearly 50 Euro.