Winner's update
Suriname Gourmet Farm
1 year later
Rinette cultivates edible tropical mushrooms on agricultural waste. To produce and maintain vital spawn for the mushrooms is not easy. Nevertheless first sales have been achieved and the big niche market for mushrooms offers possibilities, as well as possible export to other Carribean countries.
with:
| Country | Surinam |
|---|---|
| Total investment | €19,000 (€3,000 own investment + €16,000 BiD Challenge (still keeping €4,000 from BiD Challege as back-up) |
| Turnover | €555 (expected to reach break-even in 3 months when the second unit will be producing) |
| Contribution to Millennium Goals | Environment - we use biological cultivation practices, re-use agricultural waste, glass bottles, paper, spent substrate, etc. Workers get an on the job training. I am pro women, all full time workers were women. |
| Direct employment | 3 full time and 8 partime workers |
| Indirect employment | 35 people |
Achievements
- We built a working and storage shed, soak basin and part of the indoor growing room, and we purchased machines
- We cultivate straw mushrooms on outdoor beds and oyster mushrooms are now cultivated in bags. The straw mushrooms don't do so well. Despite many problems we managed to produce and maintain vital spawn for the oyster mushrooms and to set up a growing unit for 280 bags. A second unit of 280 bags is now ready to be used. One unit can produce approximately 84 kg mushrooms during 6 weeks.
- First sales to local restaurants (professional consumers)
Challenges
The strength of our product is that there's a (unexploited big) niche market for it, we have a good network and the specific knowledge needed, export is still possible.
Challenges are the bad supply chain of agricultural waste, water shortage in the dry season.
The prices from farmers for their agricultural waste.
Plans for 2007
- Achieve a higher mushroom consumption per capita in Suriname. And I want to diversify with 2 to 3 more mushroom species (consumers’ demand).
- Building two more units for the oyster mushrooms
- Regarding Volvariella (straw mushrooms), R&D of methods and searching for a higher yielding strain.
cultivation of edible tropical mushrooms on agri waste
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