In April 2023 UMDIS Mushroom Information Agency visited Spain to see farms and cooperatives. Soon we are going to publish videos from the farms – and now is short review.
As Spanish mushroom producers, remembering the history told us – mushroom cultivation in Spain was starting in 1960-1980 years. Now Spain is the 3rd (or probably 4th) mushroom producer in Europe according to the volume of production.Spain grows 120,000 tons of mushrooms a year – according to Pedro Garcia Fajardo, Amycel representative.
Nearly 80 mushroom farms operate now in Spain. Many of them belong to some cooperatives. It gives a farm the main bonus of not dealing with sales.
Farms are situated in the South and in the North regions of the country. In the North region you can find lots of old farms. As it is hard for them to compete with modern farm in the South in terms of quality – they sell lots of mushrooms for canning. And in the South (near Valencia) are produced mushrooms for the fresh market.
In the North part of Spain most farms collect 2 flashes, while in the South part it depends, like half and a half. Some farms in the South part of the country who grow 3 flashes tell that the margin is in 3rd flash. Those who collect 2 flashes explain it with two reasons: flies and lack of people.
Notably the quality of those mushrooms produced in the South of Spain is extremely high – higher than we see in Netherlands and Poland. The market here is very spoiled and demanding.
Spain – like Poland, USA, Ukraine, and some other countries has the town which produces great number of mushrooms and is the mushroom capital of the country. In Spain it is Villamalea (4000 citizens).
The farm gate price for white mushroom is like 1.6 – 1.65 Euro per kg. That`s notable that the most expensive type of mushroom (like 2 Euro per kg farm gate price) is 2.5-centimetre cup white mushroom.
Family business
As it is common in lots of countries – many farms here in Spain are family businesses. But here it looks like that it is extremely valuable for the producers. We asked Raul, owner of a large farm in the South part of Spain what he is most proud of – and he answered: “That I can continue the business which my farther started in 2004, many years ago”.
Elias, the President of Champinter cooperative has his own farm, – which is now actively developing by inspired work of his son – also Elias. The son is 28 years old, he studied abroad – and now he accomplishes the farm management and all processes on the farm, dreaming about making it totally remote-controlled.
INF24 management system
In Spain 80% of farms use the electronic management system INF24 of Spanish production. The INF24 company owner and engineer Eduardo Simon made the system allow to control every person on the farm and every punnet of mushrooms – and installed his system on nearly all farms in his country. We saw this system on all the farms we were in Spain – all mushroom producers are very satisfied with it.
You can ask questions Eduardo about the system: +34 653 86 09 09.
Thank you to Eduardo Simon and Edward Levandovsky for great help during this trip!
UMDIS Mushroom Information Agency provides consultations on mushroom growing and picking in Europe, organizes study tours and help with marketing the suppliers of mushroom industry. Contact us for more information: UMDIS Facebook page.
