NEW GARDEN-The $1.2 billion mushroom industry in Pennsylvania is working steadfast to overcome supply chain and labor shortage obstacles.
Similar to other agriculture sectors across the nation, the mushroom industry in the Commonwealth continues to face a labor shortage of approximately 25 percent, according to Rachel Roberts, president of the American Mushroom Institute.
This labor shortage existed prior to the 2020, which the pandemic shutdown has compounded. For instance, some businesses in Chester County are now facing a shortage of one-third of their workforce as winter approaches in 2021.
The mushroom industry in Pennsylvania generates $18 million in tax revenue annually.
Further, each year, “the industry supports nearly 9,400 jobs with $313 million in income,” Roberts said.
“Pennsylvania mushroom farmers and their workers not only work in Chester County but are part of the community — raising their families here, and sending their kids to schools here, and giving back to the community in which they work and live,” Roberts said.
She said 64 percent of agricultural workers have been in the industry for 10 or more years. “This industry helps to support a variety of other industries,” Roberts said, adding that this helps “to make Kennett Square one of the more sought-after small towns in Pennsylvania.
Kennett Square, the historical hub of the industry in the area, is well-known across the nation and globally as “The Mushroom Capital of the World.”
Southeastern Pennsylvania completes 60 percent of mushroom production in America, with 50 family-owned commercial mushroom farms in operation within the Greater Kennett Square Region.
Yet today, besides ongoing industry-wide labor shortages, some key raw materials needed to grow mushrooms are unavailable upon demand these days or available with inflated costs and what is available is sparse. And as an agricultural product, the well-being of the crops always comes into play. There are also transportation constraints impacting the entire supply chain network for American mushroom growers across North America.
“The holiday season is the busiest time of the year for mushrooms and this year is no different,” said Roberts. “However our members are telling us that they are facing challenges acquiring the raw materials needed to grow mushrooms, are experiencing increased costs, all with a small labor market.”
Although a resident of Chester County may be unable to help address the labor shortage at ports where cargo ships have remained backed up for miles and for months, as consumers, people can still make a difference to support the mushroom industry here at home. For one, people can continue to purchase mushrooms at the grocery store or while dining out.
“Mushroom farms are doing what they can to push back against these headwinds, working 24/7 harvesting, packing, and shipping mushrooms,” Roberts said.
In addition to the labor shortage, a key product missing today in abundance is peat moss, which is a key element for compost in the world of mushroom farming.
“You name it, pretty much anything we need is out-of-stock or our lead times are twice to three times as long as what they would normally be,” said Anthony Leone of Mushroom Central Supply, Inc. at 1290 Baltimore Pike, Toughkenamon in New Garden.
Such items in short supply that Mushroom Central Supply normally sells to local farmers range from plastic products to shovels, Leone said on Friday. The company buys from a stateside distributor who imports key industry supplies into the U.S. from overseas.
The container ships being backed up at the ports have led one supplier, for instance, to be backed up by more than 60 drums whereas typically that supplier sees a one or two drum backlogged.
Leone said one order placed for a customer last May continues to be delayed, adding every time the order has been slated for delivery, the supplier ends up making another call adding another 30 day delay “because they still don’t know when it is going to be in.”
The industry requires specific materials for agricultural production which sometimes take years to gain state and federal approval to implement within the industry to ensure high quality growing standards for American consumption.
“When something becomes available, we’ll order twice of what we’d normally need,” Leone said, “so we have some type of fallback in case the next time we call if they don’t have it.”
Leone added, “Unfortunately, it works for us because that’s what we want to do, but that makes everybody else’s problem even worse. If there is another company that wants to buy it, and I just bought double, and they can’t get it to begin with, and now they’re out for even longer. It’s happening everywhere. And I don’t know when it’s going to stop.”
Leone has been working in the mushroom industry for 21 years.
“This is the hardest I’ve seen it,” he said, adding that 2021 marks “especially the hardest year for the growers. The whole year’s been a struggle. There’s no outlet for anything. Everywhere you turn, you get turned away, because someone doesn’t have it — whether it’s harvesters or the products that you need — everything’s just been a waiting game. ‘Hurry up, and wait’ basically.”
Yet Leone concurs with others in the community that the mushroom industry will not only survive the obstacles impacting local businesses these day, but ultimately again truly thrive.
“The mushroom industry has been around for a long time,” Leone said. “There’s been ups and downs over the years.
As for solutions, “whether we become more efficient in ways of doing business and finding alternatives to products that we’ve normally relied on,” he said.
This includes finding other products to use that the growers need for production, Leone stated. “I’m sure they’ll figure something out — they’re a group of smart guys.”
One leader in the American mushroom industry is Joseph Basciani, chief financial officer of Basciani Group of Companies, a fifth generation enterprise run by the descendants of Mario and Anna Basciani. The business is one of the largest vertically integrated mushroom conglomerates in North America, as previously reported.
Founded in 1925, the company operates more than 100 mushroom growing rooms. Basciani Group of Companies is headquartered in Southern Chester County at 944 Penn Green Road in New Garden near the Avondale municipal line, and just a few miles shy of Kennett Square.
“The mushroom industry offers great wages,” Joseph Basciani said on Friday. He said the businesses who hire employees within the industry are all incredibly loyal and flexible.
“A lot of us are just puzzled as to why we can’t find the labor,” he said, “as we used to. I don’t have an exact answer.”
Besides being paid well for those who are employed by the industry, there are benefits and growth opportuniti
es.
“The industry is a really generous employer,” Basciani said. “It is just puzzling.”
Basciani added that there is a misconception that working in agriculture, and getting one’s hands dirty, is unsophisticated. “But it’s a misconception,” he emphasized. “It requires a lot of skill and determination” of which there is strong compensation.
Across the nation, some people are still collecting unemployment rooted from the pandemic shutdown last year. Additionally, new work competitors have emerged in the region in recent years including Amazon.
Yet the mushroom industry is hiring too.
“There is so much room for growth,” Basciani said.
“Mushrooms are a gentle agricultural and highly perishable item that need to be hand-harvested,” Basciani said.
There are also high-level leadership positions available in the industry especially for people looking to enter the agriculture side of it — the production of mushrooms.
“Mushrooms are a nutritious, delicious and versatile food,” said Roberts, the president of the American Mushroom Institute. “Mushrooms work with all types of healthy eating plans and can be used from breakfast — in eggs and on toast, to lunch — salads — and at dinner in main dishes as well as sides. They are packed with vitamins and nutrients and have little to no fat, calories, or cholesterol.”
As for jobs, with a shortage of workers, that means there are leadership positions available, Basciani noted.
“There are so many opportunities,” said Basciani.
The crux of the labor shortage is that unlike other produce, the mushroom industry currently has no visa program for workers. There is an H2A temporary worker program, which many segments of agriculture use. However, since mushrooms are grown year round, the industry is not eligible to apply under current federal regulations.
American Mushroom Institute and its hundreds of agriculture labor partners across America continue to advocate in DC for legislation and policies that enable a legal, reliable workforce.
In March, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act passed the U.S. House — and now awaits introduction in the U.S. Senate.
Among other provisions, the federal bill, H.R. 1603, would establish a Certified Agricultural Worker status and op
en the H-2A temporary worker program to include the mushroom industry. If enacted into law, the measure would address existing trained, skilled workers — the average mushroom industry worker has been in it for 16 years, according to the American Mushroom Institute — and allow the number needed to enter to fill the industry’s long standing labor gap.
On Wednesday, the U.S. House Agriculture Committee held a hearing in Washington, D.C., titled “The Immediate Challenges to our Nation’s Food Supply Chain.”
“American Mushroom Institute has built strong relationships with federal, state, and local representatives and they understand the plight of our members.
In the early days of the pandemic, our governments took swift action to invest in food systems and to work together to keep supply chains moving,” said Roberts. “It’s imperative that governments work urgently with all parts of the supply chain to mitigate these challenges.”
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