First generation mushroom farming
Our story
In 2021, Robin and Melanie realized that life is short and beautiful, and it needs to be lived fully. Robin’s background as a chef and love of foraging for wild foods, combined with Melanie’s passion and career as a wildlife biologist, was the combination it took to start thinking about creating a regenerative gourmet mushroom farm and fungi distribution company. Their journey began by experimenting with growing oyster mushrooms for home consumption on cardboard bound for recycling! This passion project expanded into a business in February 2022, when they began renovating an ideal farm space for growing mushrooms near their home on southern Vancouver Island.
Now, a few years later, West Coast Mycology is a full-functioning mushroom farm based between the farm fields and sea in beautiful Metchosin, BC. We specialize in both regenerative mushroom farming, as well as foraging, and pride ourselves on cultivating and sourcing some of British Columbia’s most beautiful and delicious gourmet mushrooms.
We acknowledge with respect that our farm is situated in Sc’ianew (Beecher Bay) First Nation territory. We honor their enduring presence and are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and learn on these traditional lands.
Grown and hand-picked with care
At West Coast Mycology, what sets us apart from other commercial mushroom farms is where we source our mushroom cultures, substrate, and growing materials. Unlike some farms that grow button or Portobello mushrooms, we grow our mushrooms on sustainably-sourced wood sawdust and local farm byproducts like wheat bran or soy hulls.
We specialize in cultivating “wild-strain” gourmet mushrooms, meaning we source small samples from selective wild mushrooms and culture them in our on-site laboratory, allowing us to grow thousands of pounds of mushrooms from one tiny sample; a truly sustainable approach.
The wild-strain mushroom varieties that we offer are 100% genetically unique, saprophytic (wood fungi family) wild mushrooms grown indoors, including cultures like oyster, lion’s mane, enoki, or shimeji. For example, the “Galloping Goose” wild Metchosin oyster, or the “Bluebell Woods” oyster from Melanie’s childhood home forest in Lancashire, England. We also select the strongest commercial mushroom cultures with desirable traits like fast growth, delicious flavour, or high medicinal qualities.
We culture our own mushrooms and develop our own mushroom spawn, substrate, and enriched compost. Each step in the process requires sterile techniques with the highest standards to ensure the best quality and nutritional output from our mushrooms.
Our impact on nature
We use 100% compostable retail packaging that is designed to keep our mushrooms fresher for longer by creating a humid environment, while allowing them to ‘breath’.
Zero chemicals are used in any of our operations other than biodegradable soap and diluted peroxide for cleaning purposes, producing zero harmful runoff water from the farm. The only ‘by-product’ from our farming practice is organic mushroom compost. Our system is designed to repurpose forestry and agricultural byproducts and turn them into organic foods, and our goal is to repurpose the compost to generate other mycelium products as our journey continues, making our process a regenerative cycle.
