Mana Mushrooms

Mana Mushrooms believes in being net contributors to the environment. We also understand the importance of planning and being conscious about conservation efforts. We take the same approach in our work: work smarter, not harder.

This article discusses some of the complexities of well-intended reforestation projects and reflects the complexities of the systems in which we live and work. In order to make the world a better place, in order to undo harms that have been done, we must understand issues like these.

Mana Mushrooms envisions opportunities like those at Las Gaviotas where such projects can increase precipitation and water retention.

Mana Mushrooms grows edible mushrooms using predominantly waste byproducts from existing business and municipal entities. We take a novel approach, using materials like woodchips from municipal chipping and wood milling operations, spent brewer’s grain, coffee grounds, and other organic materials with valuable biomass like organically grown grass. We extract our valuable crop before passing on the remaining SMS (spent mushroom substrate), which becomes another source of revenue. We are actively developing industrial partnerships to recapture wastes from industrial processes, safely recapturing value that was previously discarded or unavailable for exploitation. Our goal with industrial ecological systems design is to generate profit and reduce the footprint of our industrial partners.

Our substrates (mushroom food) are abundant and omnipresent in the form of spent grain from breweries, wood chips and other byproducts from industrial processes, other wood wastes (chipped, cleared brush and trees), coffee grounds, etc. Similar models have been implemented in Belgium, Tanzania, and South Africa using brewery waste and water hyacinth (an invasive plant species).

We convert 'wastes' into revenue streams. This is consistent with the ecosystemic niche of Fungi - one of the five kingdoms of life on earth: agricultural recyclers. Transportation of materials is reduced (removed) as a cost (and market externality) by co-location with industrial partners. For example, we grow mushrooms on spent brewer’s grains at Buzzard’s Bay Brewery in Westport, MA. We then take the spent mushroom substrate and generate more revenue with it as cattle feed, vermicompost, soil amendments, and environmental restoration services and other ecosystem services. These and other revenue streams will have thereby been generated from what was originally a greenhouse gas producing cattle feed. Consequently, the cattle get a higher protein and nutrient TMR (Total Mixed Ration).

Another significant revenue opportunity is the sale of dried mushrooms. Dried mushrooms have a host of benefits including reduced shipping and packaging costs and greatly increased shelf life. We have a design in mind (Intellectual property) to enter this market which will mitigate the risk to investors while maintaining our model of reduced environmental footprint coinciding with competitive advantage. Members of the development team have experience with appropriate technology and are knowledgeable and familiar enough to implement modified design structures for this use immediately.

Our competitive advantages are married with reduction of environmental impacts and even environmental restoration. 'Wastes' are translated into revenue streams.

For example, we begin with waste wood and generate mushrooms that are available for sale to a global market. We then take the "waste" substrate (what is left after the mushrooms have grown on the wood) and use it as an additive for cattle feed (total mix ration) / vermicompost: two more revenue streams.

Incorporating mushroom compost into cattle feed reduces relative greenhouse gas emissions by allowing the mushrooms to ease the burden on the ruminant animals' digestive system, breaking the cellulose in what is typically a feed additive. Many brewers and farmers who have developed relationships are surprised to learn that feeding cattle spent grain without the intermediary process of allowing mushrooms to break it down miss out on a higher protien, nutrient enriched food source.

This concept of cascading waste streams and clustering industry to exploit inefficiencies in current methodologies for competitive advantage is integral to our model.

We believe it is important to be transparent and share our methodologies because resource efficiency ought not be optional. This line of thinking stems from our exposure to Natural Capitalism.