Gloucestershire’s first urban mushroom micro farm operated March 2015 to June 2018.

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Fungusloci mushroom farm diverted tons of commercial waste from landfill, using the coffee grounds from local cafes as the growing medium for producing highly prized nutritious oyster mushrooms. Over a 100kg of coffee grounds was collected each week and turned into up to 20kg of mushrooms.

These healthy and delicious mushrooms were sold via local food retailers (including the Farmer’s Market and StroudCo) and to local cafes and restaurants who were all keen to add locally grown gourmet mushrooms to their menus and produce lists.

At the heart of this town centre enterprise is a sustainable system of production and distribution that’s has very low environmental impact. Not only is material diverted from the commercial waste stream, very little energy or water, and no chemicals are used in the production process. Raw materials (coffee) are collected, and local sales are delivered, on foot – ie zero food miles! Not only is a healthy food produced from what once was waste, but at the end of the growing process the coffee grounds become a top quality compost, that can go back into the ground and help produce other local foodstuffs.