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Croydon Urban Mushrooms collects waste coffee grounds from local cafes and uses them as a substrate to grow delicious, healthy, gourmet oyster mushrooms – branded as Croydon Oyster mushrooms or Cr’Oysters. The mushrooms are then harvested and sold to individuals or to food establishments to create income to re-invest in the business to make it sustainable.

The mushroom farm is in a 30 foot shipping container that is fitted out to create the best environment for growing the ‘shrooms all year round. The farm is sited on land near to an area known as Reeves Corner, at 1B Church Road down in Old Town. It is part of Croydon ReUse Organisation.

For the future, there will be workshops on how to grow the mushrooms at home and the chance to go home with a grow your own kit.

We have local resident, Ria Patel, volunteering on the farm and she will be helping run all the necessary functions to grow the Cr’Oysters and get them to market. Best of luck Ria and great to have you on board.

Here’s a very pleased Ria after inoculating her first bag of waste coffee grounds – the first of many.

Happy ‘shrooming Ria!

We have been having success with some harvests in early 2024 and have some wonderful feedback from satisfied customers:

“Mushrooms, salt and pepper and a bit of butter were lovely”

“Mushrooms were so good!!! Probably the best I’ve had”

“My mushrooms were super fresh. I made a teriyaki stir fry. Next day I added to my baked beans with a jacket potato. They were both delicious.”

“Mushrooms were excellent. On good bread. Cooked with some butter, garlic and a little salt and pepper.”

” Hey dude. Those mushrooms were lovely. I shared some with a friend who is vegan and he loved them.”

“Huge bag of massive Cr’oyster mushrooms hand delivered yesterday. Totally delicious. Amazing to be able to get locally grown mushrooms like this. Delighted.”

“Just to let you know that the mushrooms were great. Used them in a risotto with herb crusted salmon. Will use the rest for breakfast.”

Follow us on Facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/croyurbmush

Local media article: https://www.croydonist.co.uk/cro/

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR MUSHROOM KIT:

Be patient and follow these steps for best results:

1.Keep the bag in a warmish room, an airing cupboard is ideal.

2.Wait for as much of the brown coffee grounds to become covered in the white root structure (mycelium). In most cases it is completely covered but you might get the odd brown patch still showing. Can be 2-4 weeks.

3.At this stage carefully cut a large cross across the front of the package below the white filter patch of the bag. Cut away the flaps to expose the surface of the block.  You can now keep the kit on a kitchen window ledge (on a plate) and near a sink where there is moisture around. Keep out of direct sunlight and keep well ventilated.

4.Keep the exposed surface moist by misting twice a day with water from a spray. If  no sprayer available then just lightly douse with a teaspoon of water, not too much. Tap water is fine.

5. Be patient and eventually you will start to see small ‘pins’ appearing on the surface. Fruiting is occurring and those fruits are the mushrooms.

Can be 1-2 weeks. Keep up the misting.

6.Let them get to a decent size and when the edge of the cap turns upwards, harvest. There we are Cr’Oyster mushrooms!

Cook and enjoy! Do not eat raw.

7.Let the block rest for a week or two and submerge in water for 8 hours, drain and repeat steps 4 and you may get a second and third crop.