Unearthed Co. Mushrooms

We love nature.

We love clean sustainably grown food.

And we really, really love mushrooms.

Mushrooms are of the earth, they are the fruit of the fungi that renew and rejuvenate our ecosystems. Without fungi, life on our planet would cease.

Lucky for us, so many mushrooms are edible. And delicious. And some can be cultivated. Our mission is to find them and bring them to you.

Uncovering new mushrooms, unlocking new connections to nature.

We are endlessly excited and driven to bring new mushrooms to your plates, to find new ways to connect with nature through good food.

We are the cultivators of nature.

We are Unearthed.

Unearthed Co. Mushrooms

The Unearthed Co. Story

Unearthed co. Mushrooms was born from a love of the small and beautiful things in life. Founder John Ford was fascinated by the mysterious and fleeting nature of fungi from a young age, spending teenage years combing the forests of Wollongong NSW seeking mushrooms to pick and identify. After learning the craft of edible wild mushroom hunting in Germany, John spent his twenties foraging for pines, slippery jacks and blewitts in the cool Autumn forests around Melbourne. In 2015 the world of fungal farming opened up via a begginer mushroom growing course with Will Borowski of Forest Fungi. With spawn jars overflowing in spare room cupboards, mini greenhouse growrooms dotting the garden and taking over the laundry, the decision to transition to a fully fledged business happened in 2018 with the addition of shipping containers and the beginning of a strong partnership with Russell Whittam at Aussie Mushroom Supplies. The business at the time was named King Oyster Mushrooms, a tribute to one of John’s favourite mushrooms, but also a salute to his first career as a Marine Scientist, university lecturer and sustainable seafood champion.

We moved to our current premises in Monbulk in 2019 which coincided with the building of our farming team who share the desire to grow beautiful mushrooms with care and humility. We are privileged to have established strong relationships with our local Yarra Valley restaurants and wineries, working for many years with chefs at Oakridge, Seville Estate, Tarrawarra, Sir Paz and Medhurst. We have developed a strong partnership with Northside Fruit and Veg and distribute across Melbourne, with our mushrooms regularly featured at top restaurants such as Minamishima, Attica, Cutler and Co, Mister Bianco, Hazel, Greasy Zoes, Philippe, Lona Misa, and Ides amongst so many others.

Our team has a passion for finding new and exotic mushrooms to bring to the plates of Australia. Mushrooms such as the snowflake and abalone mushrooms are being in grown by us here in Australia for the first time. We have many more in development - both Australian natives and unique varieties from abroad. Development can take years to identify the right cultures, the best substrates and growing conditions. So keep checking back with us to hear about our latest new mushroom!

Our Farm

We believe in growing our mushrooms as close to nature as possible, to provide our customers with the highest quality flavour and texture. So when you visit our farm in the Yarra Valley, you won’t find a sterile mushroom “facility”. Most of our operations are outdoors, surrounded by our medicinal mushroom log forest, our compost bays and our raised kitchen garden vegetable beds. However, inside our shed you will find a state of the art packing and storage facility to ensure the best quality product reaches our customers.

We grow our mushrooms in climate-controlled shipping containers, each room with the perfect conditions for each of our dozen varieties. Our farm has developed with an underlying ethic of environmental and social sustainability. To that end, we are powered by 30kW solar panels, enabling us to keep cool conditions even in the midst of summer with minimal power impact. Our farm runs on tank water and all our waste substrates are composted on site or used by local wineries and farms. We use only local ingredients for our mushroom growing substrates and rely on the great work of Aussie Mushroom Supplies for our spawn and cultures.