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Meadow Mushrooms: The business that mushroomed
After initially setting up a mushroom farm in caves in Cyprus in the late 1960s, co-founders Philip Burdon and Roger Giles established Meadow Mushrooms across four hectares on Springs Road, Prebbleton, in 1970. The facility employed 11 staff and was surrounded by racing stables and racecourses, which offered easy access to wheat straw and manure for the compost they needed. The new mushroom venture was initially mocked as a "ridiculous pipe dream". Burdon did not really like mushrooms, but the novelty and adventurousness of the idea persuaded him and his wife, Ros, to grow the company with Giles. Burdon and Giles were a great team. Burdon developed strategy and marketing, while Giles was committed to the production and technology side.
Image: Philip Burdon in a mushroom-growing shed, Prebbleton, c1970s.
Logo from the letterhead of Meadow Mushrooms, c1970.
Courtesy of Meadow Mushrooms
Hygrometer used to measure air moisture in Meadow Mushrooms' growing sheds at Prebbleton, and tins of what were once Kiwi household staples, Emma Mushrooms.
On loan from Meadow Mushrooms
Originally cultivating only white button mushrooms, Meadow Mushrooms now grows more varieties such as shiitake, Swiss brown button, and Portobello. Mushroom mycelium is grown in compost made up of wheat straw, chicken manure and gypsum. Mushrooms are ready 16 days after the compost enters the growing shed and are hand-picked: over nine million are picked per week. A typical large growing room can contain as much as 70 tonnes of compost and peat – or ‘spent compost’, which is then reused for farm fertiliser. Image: Meadow Mushrooms stand at a 1977 trade show. Courtesy of Meadow Mushrooms.
