MushBloom
Our vision
Our goal is to face the problem of global food shortage by looking into educating the public on repurposing food waste into edible food. We hope to achieve this by creating a mushroom growing kit that uses domestic vegetable waste as nutrients. At the same time we are reinforcing mushrooms as a meat analogue. Our conditions are for the product is to be environmentally and economically sustainable.
Our solution
The solution is a mushroom growing kit. The mushroom grown would be oyster mushrooms (P. ostreatus). The kit comes pre-made, with alternating layers of Paddy Straws (PS) and Vegetable Waste (VW) to be filled in by the consumers. The PS substrate is inoculated with P. ostreatus. The layers are separated by a cotton mesh fabric that is strong enough to hold the layers in place while allowing liquid to pass through. Raw Vegetable Waste should be boiled, then added into each empty layer by the consumer. Once the empty layer is filled, consumers would then spray water on the PS layer to stimulate growth of the mushroom.
Our market
Our target audience would be households with children. This would encourage the children to grow up with the mindset to repurpose appropriate food waste and at the same time bring to light alternative protein sources. By targeting the next generation of thinkers, we sow the seed of sustainable eating early on. In addition, this product gently introduces curious, young minds into the world of alternative proteins by letting them experiment with something milder. A substantial yield of mushroom has to be achieved to convince the consumer that recycling waste can have significant benefits.
About the team
We are an inspired team of food technology students from Wageningen university with a drive to learn about the protein substitute world and see its potential. With our food technology background we are hoping to tackle global food problems in any way we can.