The Polish mushroom season seems to have taken a hit, as the heat in May and July has caused the compost to be less effective. This resulted in less mushrooms becoming available, and other than existing contracts there seem to be no mushrooms available for new customers.
The Polish mushroom situation seems dire, as the heat waves last summer has not helped the growers, Joanna Leszko from Grzybmar says: “It’s a very difficult situation right now, not just for us but for all mushroom exporters in Poland. It has never happened before, so people are naturally taking notice. It’s not just Poland though, other European countries have also had issues.”
Although there are fewer mushrooms, Grzybmar can still fulfil regular customers' orders. It does hurt the growers though, as they’ve had to spend a lot of money on electricity and air conditioning to be able to produce some mushrooms: “We try to meet our specifications for the mushrooms, but in August we had problems with small sized mushrooms - “buttons” which were not available. It can’t be helped, the growers have worked very hard to deliver a product of quality and they’re not receiving a lot of profit due to the extra costs they had. Prices for the customers stay the same due to contracts, but the problem still stands that fewer mushrooms are available.”
It’s not set in stone when the dire situation of the mushrooms will improve. The mushrooms cultivated right now still use compost coming from the heat which didn’t have the best quality either: “In October the mushroom cultivation should recover. Luckily the mushroom season lasts all year, so although we can’t guarantee everything, the situation should improve by then.” Leszko concluded.
