Colorado Mushroom Co.<\/a> and began selling mushroom-infused tinctures, elixirs, coffees, skin salves, seasonings and chais on Etsy.<\/p>\nMushrooms used in her products have been obtained foraging out in the wild or ordering mushrooms online, but now she\u2019s working on creating a growing structure in the back workshop of her Bayfield house, where she plans to begin growing fruiting fungi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call it the \u2018myco lab.\u2019 We\u2019ve got lab coats and all \u2013 official lab coats \u2013 because you have to create a situation where it\u2019s sterile. Otherwise you have molds, yeasts and bacteria, and they compete. So you have to follow certain standards,\u201d Grant said.<\/p>\n
The use of mushrooms to remediate toxic soils and to eat plastics, and other creative uses have inspired Grant\u2019s documentary \u201cCan Mushrooms Save the Planet?\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant works in videography and photography, and while the pandemic crushed her media work, it that allowed her to focus on growing Colorado Mushroom Co. and finishing her documentary, which she plans to complete this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was kind of forced to put all of my focus into mushrooms and my business. It turned out to be a good thing, because that\u2019s when people started really wanting to support their immune system, and my sales went way up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Even before her fascination with mushrooms, since her teenage years Grant\u2019s been interested in natural healing and herbs. That interest is now combining to incorporate mushrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cMushrooms help with cancer, they have anti-tumor properties, they support the healthy flora in the gut, they help with the immune system. There\u2019s so much there,\u201d she said. \u201cIn other parts of the world like Germany and Russia, it\u2019s part of the norm to go out and find 40 chanterelles, but for some reason in the United States we have a fungus phobia,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Grant believes her idea for a mushroom-based business can thrive based on evidence she received at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, when her Etsy sales peaked at about $300 a month.<\/p>\n
Since the first months of the pandemic sales have dropped to about $50 a month, but she plans a social media advertising campaign, and expects to boost her sales once she gets her growing myco lab up and she secures a steady supply of mushrooms.<\/p>\n
Grant\u2019s sister, Jeni Gross, has joined the business and financing from family and friends are helping with development of the myco lab.<\/p>\n
Grant sees an almost limitless amount of products she can integrate with the healthful properties of mushrooms. She might try a mushroom-infused pancake mix next.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just really depends on what\u2019s wanted and needed, right? Where the demand is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Experience from the pandemic, Grant said, opened the eyes of many people to food security and healthful alternatives, and she believes locally produced mushroom products can help alleviate some of those concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole COVID thing, a lot of people started wondering what would happen with their food, where it came from,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I was thinking: If we\u2019re able to grow mushrooms and supply even just our neighborhood, that would be something. But now it\u2019s to the point where I can see us outgrowing our lab.\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides selling her products on Etsy, Grant has begun talking with local restaurants to see if they would be interested in locally sourced mushrooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m even thinking of a home-delivery service. If somebody wants me to come deliver a couple of pounds of, say, oyster mushrooms, we could deliver it to your door,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Like many small businesses, Grant said, financing to bring her ideas to fruition has been her biggest problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve gotten a couple of small loans, and we\u2019re looking at some grants to help us move forward a little faster, but right now, we\u2019re just doing everything ourselves, and that can be slow going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
While infused-mushrooms cannot solve a financing issue, Grant is confident the beneficial natural properties of mushrooms are a solid foundation for a business.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many varieties and they\u2019re each different, different textures, different flavors, and we\u2019re going to grow a bunch of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Videographer\u2019s passion for mushrooms sprouts home-based firm and a documentary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,338,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-business-enterprises","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87145,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47221\/revisions\/87145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47221"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}