Smith: Love Mushroom co-founder shares how he’s gone from market trader to market domination

What inspired you to start a vegan business, and how did you transition from idea
to reality?

Two things: my passion for the magical and mysterious holistic health properties of
mushrooms, and a wish to serve. If you look into them, mushrooms and in general
the world of fungi are super wild - from how mycelium and the thousands of varieties
play an essential role in Earth’s ecosystems - nature’s internet - to the multitude of
beneficial compounds they can provide our bodies and minds. I wanted to serve
others by bringing these amazing benefits to a broader audience, at accessible
prices, with ethics such as no animal-derived ingredients at our heart (pun
intended!).

What are some of the biggest challenges you've faced, and how have you
overcome them?

Some of our products include additional ingredients such as ashwagandha and B12
and sourcing these, ensuring they’re ethical and ideally organic (we’re the only
mushroom company we know of using mushroom-derived organic B12) is harder
than you might think. The scaling of the business from local, farmers-market-based
set-up to selling in major chains and supermarkets has been a huge learning curve
for me - I have a background in the charity sector working at EU-level on fairly
complex multi-stakeholder projects though so I’m blessed with transferable skills.
And yes, education around functional mushrooms: it’s still early days for the market
and the UK in general is mycophobic culturally, so it's a bit of an uphill challenge to
emphasise the depth of their benefits.

How do you balance ethical sourcing and pricing to ensure your products remain
accessible to a wide range of consumers?

Yes, as I’ve alluded to above, this has not been simple. But it's a core principle of
mine and the business to offer our products across all income brackets - I’m trying to
move functional mushrooms away from ‘luxury’ to ‘accessible’ supplements as I
know their benefits! At the end of the day, our margins are very tight as we balance
sourcing and pricing, but that is the price we are paying.

What role does community engagement play in your business, and how do you
connect with your audience beyond just selling products?

Sadly I don’t do farmers markets anymore as I loved those. That said, we’ve done
quite a lot of trade and health shows and women’s wellness events this year which
have been an absolute joy - they have the same spirit as the markets, but different.
We’re also active digitally on socials and we get many questions via email which I
often personally reply to re: our products and mushrooms in general. I’m intending to
make more of an effort to do live Q&As on socials in the near future.

What trends do you see emerging in the vegan industry, and how is your business
adapting to them?

A few trends for sure. Vegan consumers seem more interested in sustainable packaging and we’re as tight to this as possible: for example we use more expensive glass recyclable packaging for our liquid drops and capsules rather than cheaper plastic. I also wonder about the word ‘vegan’ - maybe its becoming more accepted, maybe its becoming ‘accidently vegan’ - we don’t make a huge song and dance about being vegan but we are, proudly, and this seems, from my perspective, to be more accessible to consumers (thinking of my dad who avoids anything labelled
vegan, but will gladly consume vegan products that aren’t labelled that). Also, I’m seeing more supplemented products - like ours which have added vitamins and minerals such as B12, D3 and Zinc - this feels like something that customers are coming to expect.

Can you tell us about a specific moment or achievement that made you feel
especially proud of your business?

I’m over the moon that considering the grassroots from which we’ve emerged, chains
such as Tesco, Holland & Barrett, CLF and Natural Dispensary wholesalers, and
more coming soon (!!), are recognising the power of Love Mushrooms and listing us
in their physical and online stores - super proud of this. Also our women’s wellness
range - Empower - menopause and perimenopause capsules and decaf coffees
have been received amazingly by women across the UK - so proud to be offering
functional mushrooms as humble support to specific needs groups far and wide.