A mushroom that captures the deliciousness of bacon? That’s exactly what Sonoran Mushroom Company LLC has recently introduced into the marketplace.
“We have some vegans in the family and we started thinking about how it would be good to have a meat alternative that tastes decent. So we started kicking around the idea of making a mushroom that tastes like bacon,” says John Jacobs of the Tucson, Ariz-based company. So Sonoran began experimenting by growing multiple strains of mushrooms and inoculating them to produce the pink fungi that tastes like bacon.
Growing in the desert
It’s a tricky process though, growing mushrooms in the dry desert climate of Tucson. “The biggest challenge is controlling the climate, especially in the summers when we reach 110 degrees and have humidity levels that are extremely low. Mushrooms love moisture and humidity to grow,” Jacobs says.
Looking ahead
While for now Sonoran is producing approximately 1,000 lbs. a month of the mushroom out of its 3,000 square-foot facility, growth plans are in place. By summer of 2017, Sonoran would like to grow an extra 10,000-14,000 out of a 10,000 square foot-facility currently being built and by 2018, out of a 30,000 square-foot facility. “Right now everything we grow is pretty much presold to the Tucson market via a dozen or so restaurants, some smaller grocery stores and a farmer’s market,” he says. “By next summer, we’ll sell to Phoenix and by 2018, we’d like to expand selling to the East Coast and possibly the northwest.”
Meanwhile Sonoran is also experimenting with producing another mushroom meat alternative: a mushroom that tastes like fried chicken.
