Permafungi: growing mushrooms in used coffee

A Belgian company has extremely innovative ideas.

It is known that used ground coffee has various uses for a household - from fertilizer and insect repellent, as an ingredient for homemade beauty products. However, most of the time, it just ends up in the trash, and considering the daily consumption of coffee, both at home and in the catering sector, the number of ground coffee beans that end up in landfills is frightening!

Although ground coffee is not particularly harmful to the environment, it is a fact that it burdens landfills, especially at a time when we are constantly looking for new ways of alternative disposal and utilization of all types of waste. Somehow obviously a group of young businessmen from Belgium thought so, and so Permafunghi was born!



What is Permafunghi?

Permafunghi is a company based in Brussels, Belgium and its object is mushroom cultivation. The originality of the company lies in the fact that it uses the used, ground coffee that it collects from the restaurants in Belgium, as a basis for the cultivation of its mushrooms!

The company name itself is a pun between the words Funghi (mushroom) and permanent (permanent), which shows the company's orientation towards the principles of sustainable development. In the few years of its existence, Permafunghi has successfully recycled more than 250 tons of coffee, while it has produced more than 10 tons of rib mushrooms, which were channeled to the local market.

The company is constantly growing, and within its next project is the creation of lighting fixtures, vases and accessories, from the by-products of both coffee and mushrooms.

How does Permafunghi work?

The ground coffee beans are collected from the cafes and restaurants of Brussels, and taken to the "base" of Permafunghi. There, they are mixed with straw and enriched with mycelium, the "seeds" of the mushrooms. Then, they are packed in special bags and spent two weeks in dark and high humidity conditions, so that the mycelium can effectively colonize the coffee.

After a few days, the mushrooms begin to crack and nature takes over its role, creating the right conditions for the conversion of ground coffee into rich compost and the growth of mushrooms to a point that is commercially viable. Humidity and temperature conditions are determined in part by the mushroom cultivation itself, always under the supervision of experts from the Permafunghi team.

The mushrooms are collected, cleaned, packaged and sent to the local market in Brussels, completing a "cycle". It is worth noting, to avoid misunderstandings, that mushrooms do not have a coffee taste, as the environment in which they grow does not affect its taste in such a way.



A model company in all areas

The very idea that led to the creation of Permafunghi is related to the principle of sustainable development and reducing the environmental footprint, however the company strives to follow best practices in every area of ​​its operations.

Both the collection of used coffee and the distribution of mushrooms to customers are done almost exclusively by the use of bicycles, while the company emphasizes the trend that wants the food we consume to be produced in a specific radius from its serving point, investing in the local economy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions due to transport constraints. Also, mushrooms are grown according to the principles of organic farming, while Permafunghi gives job opportunities, both in collection and distribution, to groups of people who are considered socially excluded, ensuring their dignified living.



The next time you go to throw away your used coffee, give it a second chance! A company in Belgium has managed to create delicious rib mushrooms from it!