A mushrooming industry May 01, 1999 12:00 AMBy Gareth Smyth
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/1999/May-01/13932-a-mushrooming-industry.ashx#ixzz2tqeYohVk
The mushroom grows mainly in the dark. And if Nazem Ghandour is anything to go by, the fresh mushroom business can also grow in a recession.
Just a year after the first crop from his Tripoli farm, Mr. Ghandour is set to increase production by 400 percent.
But don’t think of mushrooms as an easy way to get rich quickly: Mr. Ghandour’s story is one of patience, imagination and hard work.
It began in 1992 with sugar. Mr. Ghandour, then a 24-year-old computer science graduate from England, flew home to reopen the family’s sugar refinery.
Things didn’t work out, he recalls: “By 1996 we faced problems with high interest rates. We didn’t want to work just for the banks, so we closed.”
He looked for a new venture. Agriculture seemed to offer low start-up costs. He researched asparagus but noted the four-year period before harvesting.
Meanwhile, he and four friends opened an Italian restaurant, Paparazzi, in Tripoli. Italian cuisine uses a lot of fresh mushrooms and he noticed that the price around $6.40 a kilogram was six times that in the United States. “I spent $750 on mushroom books,” he says, “and began trials in a shipping container. No one thought I was serious.”
The first crop was in 1998. Production is now 2,000 kilograms a week, and should reach 10,000 kilos by the summer’s end. Mr. Ghandour has also taken on 25 staff.
Expansion has not been easy. “The Lebanese are micro-phobic,” says Mr. Ghandour. “They’re afraid of fresh mushrooms, especially ones grown in Lebanon.”
Mr. Ghandour confesses that at one point he was dumping a quarter of his production: “But Tele-Liban did a feature on us, and suddenly demand improved.”
He estimates that canned mushrooms account for 80 percent of the 20,000 kilograms of mushrooms eaten weekly in Lebanon.
Mr. Ghandour believes he shares the fresh market roughly equally with another mushroom farm to the north at Koura. The key, he says, is to expand the market.
Around 80 percent of Mr. Ghandour’s sales are through distributors and the rest go directly to hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. He charges around $3.50 a kilogram wholesale. But retailers, like consumers, can need education. “Sometimes I see mushrooms in supermarkets at $10 a kilo,” he says. “When I can increase production, I’ll convince them to sell at a lower price.”
Live products bring special difficulties. Mushroom farming in the West is very high-tech, as mushrooms are very sensitive to any changes in conditions. “Mix the compost wrong, or alter the temperature by a few degrees, and you can lose half your production,” says Mr. Ghandour. “We need computers to control conditions.” The first arrives in a fortnight.
Setting up a mushroom farm in the Netherlands, the world leader, costs $2,000 a square meter. Mr. Ghandour relies on science and ingenuity to work with less adapting unused warehousing to create a laboratory, compost-mixing area and six growing rooms.
He develops half the spawns, makes his own compost and mixes peat from Russian imports. Then comes growing.
The compost goes into trays with incubated spawn. After seven days, streaky, white mycelium appear, and after 14 days at 24C and 99 percent humidity they have spread across the compost.
A layer of peat is added to introduce micro-organisms and aid water retention, and a week later the mushrooms appear.
Mr Ghandour currently grows the Agaricus, or white-button mushroom, the most popular variety worldwide. As the Lebanese palate develops, he hopes to add the brown Agaricus and the Shiitake. He is already test-running brown mushrooms on request from the Vendome Hotel.
It will take two years to break even on his investment, and Ghandour says he will then reinvest the profits. But he will not borrow from the banks. Like the mushroom itself, the business will grow at its own pace.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/1999/May-01/13932-a-mushrooming-industry.ashx#ixzz2tqeYohVk
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/1999/May-01/13932-a-mushrooming-industry.ashx#ixzz2tqeYohVk
The mushroom grows mainly in the dark. And if Nazem Ghandour is anything to go by, the fresh mushroom business can also grow in a recession.
Just a year after the first crop from his Tripoli farm, Mr. Ghandour is set to increase production by 400 percent.
But don’t think of mushrooms as an easy way to get rich quickly: Mr. Ghandour’s story is one of patience, imagination and hard work.
It began in 1992 with sugar. Mr. Ghandour, then a 24-year-old computer science graduate from England, flew home to reopen the family’s sugar refinery.
Things didn’t work out, he recalls: “By 1996 we faced problems with high interest rates. We didn’t want to work just for the banks, so we closed.”
He looked for a new venture. Agriculture seemed to offer low start-up costs. He researched asparagus but noted the four-year period before harvesting.
Meanwhile, he and four friends opened an Italian restaurant, Paparazzi, in Tripoli. Italian cuisine uses a lot of fresh mushrooms and he noticed that the price around $6.40 a kilogram was six times that in the United States. “I spent $750 on mushroom books,” he says, “and began trials in a shipping container. No one thought I was serious.”
The first crop was in 1998. Production is now 2,000 kilograms a week, and should reach 10,000 kilos by the summer’s end. Mr. Ghandour has also taken on 25 staff.
Expansion has not been easy. “The Lebanese are micro-phobic,” says Mr. Ghandour. “They’re afraid of fresh mushrooms, especially ones grown in Lebanon.”
Mr. Ghandour confesses that at one point he was dumping a quarter of his production: “But Tele-Liban did a feature on us, and suddenly demand improved.”
He estimates that canned mushrooms account for 80 percent of the 20,000 kilograms of mushrooms eaten weekly in Lebanon.
Mr. Ghandour believes he shares the fresh market roughly equally with another mushroom farm to the north at Koura. The key, he says, is to expand the market.
Around 80 percent of Mr. Ghandour’s sales are through distributors and the rest go directly to hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. He charges around $3.50 a kilogram wholesale. But retailers, like consumers, can need education. “Sometimes I see mushrooms in supermarkets at $10 a kilo,” he says. “When I can increase production, I’ll convince them to sell at a lower price.”
Live products bring special difficulties. Mushroom farming in the West is very high-tech, as mushrooms are very sensitive to any changes in conditions. “Mix the compost wrong, or alter the temperature by a few degrees, and you can lose half your production,” says Mr. Ghandour. “We need computers to control conditions.” The first arrives in a fortnight.
Setting up a mushroom farm in the Netherlands, the world leader, costs $2,000 a square meter. Mr. Ghandour relies on science and ingenuity to work with less adapting unused warehousing to create a laboratory, compost-mixing area and six growing rooms.
He develops half the spawns, makes his own compost and mixes peat from Russian imports. Then comes growing.
The compost goes into trays with incubated spawn. After seven days, streaky, white mycelium appear, and after 14 days at 24C and 99 percent humidity they have spread across the compost.
A layer of peat is added to introduce micro-organisms and aid water retention, and a week later the mushrooms appear.
Mr Ghandour currently grows the Agaricus, or white-button mushroom, the most popular variety worldwide. As the Lebanese palate develops, he hopes to add the brown Agaricus and the Shiitake. He is already test-running brown mushrooms on request from the Vendome Hotel.
It will take two years to break even on his investment, and Ghandour says he will then reinvest the profits. But he will not borrow from the banks. Like the mushroom itself, the business will grow at its own pace.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Business/Lebanon/1999/May-01/13932-a-mushrooming-industry.ashx#ixzz2tqeYohVk
