Today we are sharing our Q&A session with Michael Coperine, one of the co-founders of Wild North Mushrooms. WNM is an add-on vendor for Brightside’s Online Farmers Market, offering shares of their premium, organic mushrooms to our customers. This conversation has been edited for clarity.
BrightSide: Can you tell us a bit about Wild North Mushrooms?
WNM: We formed at the beginning of 2024, so we’ve been in business for a little over a year now! We cultivate our mushrooms at our indoor, urban farm in Bloomington. Indoor growing means there is no need to pesticides or herbicides because we don’t have to deal with any animals or bugs. We feed our mushrooms a mix of hardwood pellets and upcycled farm waste like flax pellets. They eat products that would otherwise go to waste. After we harvest our mushrooms, we donate the spent substrate blocks to florists because they make great compost.
Who are the founders, and what inspired you to start Wild North Mushrooms?
WNM: The founders are me (Michael Coperine), and a married couple, my friends Kate and Mikey. I’ve actually been friends with Mikey for 30 years now! After I got laid off from my latest accounting job, we saw an opportunity to finally give our business idea a shot. Both Kate and Mikey are microbiologists who have worked in the food industry. There are only two main competitors in the premium mushroom field, and based on our research, only 20% of the demand is being met currently.
What is the mission of WNM? Are there any core values that guide your business?
Our goal is to provide high quality, organic specialty mushrooms that are grown in environmentally friendly ways and are good tasting. We noticed when doing our research that many of the mushrooms that were available on the market were not that great of quality. Yes they were available, but they not the best tasting. We want to get the pricing for premium mushrooms to be more affordable to help people enjoy mushrooms because they are tasty! Prices are high now because there are not that many suppliers. The majority the of mushrooms you find in grocery stores (except R&R Cultivation) come from Canada or Pennsylvania. These mushrooms are shipped long distances, so they are already at the end of useful life by the time they hit grocery store shelves.
What makes your mushrooms distinctive from your competitors?
Our mushrooms are higher quality, fresher, and more environmentally friendly produced. We use pasteurized substrate (rather than sterilized substrate like most of our competitors) to grow the mushrooms because it is more eco-friendly and uses much less water and electricity.
Which varieties of mushroom do you grow? Do you have a favorite?
We cultivate blue oyster, feather oyster, golden oyster, grey dove oyster, pink oyster, snowy oyster, king trumpet, black pearly king trumpet, chestnut, lions mane, and shiitakes. Some of these are seasonal varieties because they are incredibly sensitive to temperature, even though we grow them indoors! The one I like the best is feather oyster. It has a great texture for sauteeing!
That leads into my next question! What is your favorite way to prepare mushrooms?
It depends on the variety. For the Feather oyster, I do a rough chop, then saute with olive oil and garlic, and add Italian herbs (oregano, basil). Then I mix it with alfredo pasta. It gets a cream of mushroom type of taste, and is a great meat substitute.
Another thing I like to do with our mushrooms is use olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, and then roast them in the oven with asparagus.
Wild North Mushrooms are not typical button mushrooms from the grocery store. What do you tell folks who are intrigued, but a little intimidated by the varieties they may not be familiar with?
I try to direct them to our oyster varieties first. These have a similar flavor profile to button mushrooms, but it is amped up. Button mushrooms have 8% glutamic acid, while oysters have 18-28% which gives them that stronger flavor profile.
Are there any common misconceptions about mushrooms that you’d like to clear up?
A lot of people think that mushrooms are slimy. This only comes from the packaging used by the big brands that are available at grocery stores. Even after being harvested, mushrooms breathe. Mushrooms are like humans – they take in oxygen and breathe out CO2 (unlike plants, which do the opposite). Most big brands package their mushrooms in plastic, which holds in the moisture from their breathing. This is what makes them slimy. Also, these mushrooms tend to go bad quickly because they are shipped long distances.
You should always take mushrooms out of plastic packaging right away and put them in a paper bag in the fridge. They will last a lot longer.
What has been the most surprising thing about starting a mushroom farm?
How narrow the harvest window is. For some varieties, it is literally about 6 hours. If you go beyond that period, the mushrooms won’t be as high quality. If you leave them growing in the substrate after the harvest window, they will keep growing and drop their spores. This is because they are maturing, not just growing! Once the mushrooms drop their spores (as part of their reproductive cycle), the mycelium breaks down the mushroom body to pull that energy back.
What dreams do you have for Wild North Mushrooms?
We would love to get into a bigger growing facility so we can scale up production. We would love to have this be a full time job for all 3 of us co-founders. We’re hoping to get to point where we can provide a wide variety of mushrooms that people across the Twin Cities can enjoy.
Anything else you’d like to share about Wild North Mushrooms?
We get asked a lot about whether we will ever get into medicinal or “magic” [hallucinogenic] mushrooms. Nope, not for us, even if Minnesota may be legalizing magic mushrooms at some point. We want to focus on specialty, premium mushrooms for culinary uses.