“When I bring a chef the best mushrooms I can grow, I feel like I’m giving a musician the best guitar ever made,” says Brian. “I’m providing the tools they need for their artistry. Chefs are artists. The things they can do with quality ingredients are amazing. And they recognize and appreciate that quality.”

Brian Thomas founded Myca Farms out of a lifelong love of food and farming. His passion for flavour and connecting with chefs led him to discover sustainable artisan mushroom farming.

“Our mushrooms are grown on materials that would otherwise be burned or composted,” says Brian, who uses husks, wood shavings, and oats as a nourishing substrate for his mushrooms.

What sets Brian apart is that his mushroom varieties are “potent and wild.” Brian sources wild spores of numerous mushroom varieties because of their intense flavour and rich, dense nutrients.

By cultivating unusual and gourmet mushrooms, Brian is hoping to help develop gourmet mushroom farming in the area.

“There’s a ton of button mushroom farming in BC,” says Brian. “But when it comes to gourmet varieties we rely heavily on imports.”

And the disadvantage with imports is they aren’t as fresh as what Brian can provide. His mushrooms are typically harvested within the last few days. That freshness results in incredible flavour, texture, and nutrients.

Myca Farms mushrooms are shelf stable for about five days, but after that can be easily dried out and used as dehydrated mushrooms. You can leave them out on the counter to dry or use a dehydrator – no need the throw them out.

Because of that tight turnaround, suppliers like The Honest Farmer make sense for his business model – it tightens the time frame of getting food from the farm to someone’s doorstep.

“My mushrooms are like fresh flowers,” says Brian. “They’re delicate, beautiful, fragrant, and meant to be enjoyed fresh.”