Nammex announces that cultivation yield for organic turkey tail mushrooms have reached 30,000 kilos

Cultivated turkey tail mushrooms. Image courtesy of Nammex.

Nammex (Gibson, BC, Canada) has announced in a press release that it has seen an exponential increase in the amount of cultivated turkey tail mushroom harvested by their partner farmers in the third year of its pioneering initiative to cultivate turkey tail. According to Nammex, cultivated turkey tail is more consistent in quality compared to wildcrafted supplies, and creates less pressure on the ecosystem as the mushroom sees rapid growth in demand. Turkey tail mushrooms have been used traditionally in immune support applications, and are currently being utilized more by Western healthcare practitioners, which is generating greater demand as well as raising their market value.

“In 2021, our inaugural year of commercial production of the first and only large-scale cultivation of turkey tail ever attempted, we produced 8,000 kilos of dried mushrooms,” said Skye Chilton, CEO of Nammex, in a press release. “We’re pleased with how well the cultivation program is scaling, producing 12,000 kilos in 2022, and an impressive 30,000 kilos in 2023. We’ve projected 80,000 kilos of dried material for 2024 with an ultimate goal of scaling to 150,000-200,000 kilos annually.”

Nammex states that wildcrafted turkey tail mushrooms have on multiple occasions failed to meet the company’s standards for pesticide and heavy metal levels despite growing in the wild. By contrast, the high yield cultivar grown on wood-based materials have consistently met the high standards set by regulatory agencies.

“We can lessen some of the demand for the wildcrafted Turkey tail, thereby reducing environmental harvesting stress, and at the same time optimize the health benefits with a higher quality mushroom,” said Chilton.