Company Process
Fully-grown compost and casing soil
This is the breeding ground for the mushrooms at van Asseldonk Champignons. The raw materials necessary for making mushroom mycelium aged-compost are: straw, chicken and horse manure, gypsum and lots of water. After mixing these ingredients, a fermentation process starts. This process ends with a product called "mushroom compost". Mushrooms propagate through spores and a single mushroom produces billions of spores. However, the compost is not inoculated with the spores just yet because it would take too much time to germinate. That is why it is inoculated with the so-called ‘broed’ which consists of sterile cereal grains and is completely grown with the mushroom mycelium. The mushroom compost is inoculated with this instead. It takes about 2 weeks after the inoculation until the compost is completely saturated with the mycelium.
In the fully-grown compost mushrooms cannot form. For this to happen the compost must be covered with a top layer consisting of a mixture of different types of peat and foam. We call this cover layer the casing soil. The casing soil stimulates the mycelium to grow the mushrooms. The casing soil also serves as a moisture buffer during cultivation.
Topping up
At Van Asseldonk Mushrooms we fill our cells on both Friday and Saturday mornings. The racks (7 high, 1.60 wide) are filled with compost and casing soil. This is done by a filling machine that brings these two products together and neatly distributes them over the bed. As you can see a thick layer of compost and a thin layer of casing soil. Because Van Asseldonk Mushrooms are to be sliced, it is important that the compost and casing soil lie neatly and tightly in the beds.
Read more Read lessCultivation
If the mushrooms are the right size, they are harvested and at Van Asseldonk Champignons Harvesting is done mechanically. As you can see, a cutting machine goes over the bed. This cuts off all mushrooms at once. The grower must ensure that the mushrooms are the right size at the time of cutting. The cultivation employee must pay careful attention to the height he is cutting, if you cut too high you leave it too much on the bed and if you cut too low, too much casing soil is added and you get dirty mushrooms. When the mushrooms are cut, they are transported to a sorting machine via a conveyor belt.
Read more Read lessHarvesting and Slicing
If the mushrooms are the right size, they are harvested and at Van Asseldonk Champignons Harvesting is done mechanically. As you can see, a cutting machine goes over the bed. This cuts off all mushrooms at once. The grower must ensure that the mushrooms are the right size at the time of cutting. The cultivation employee must pay careful attention to the height he is cutting, if you cut too high you leave it too much on the bed and if you cut too low, too much casing soil is added and you get dirty mushrooms. When the mushrooms are cut, they are transported to a sorting machine via a conveyor belt.
Read more Read lessHarvest, Sorting and Customer Focus
The mushrooms reach the sorting machine via the conveyor belt. This sorts all the mushrooms into their appropriate sizes. At Van Asseldonk Champignons we separate into the following sizes: 25mm, 35mm, 40mm, 45mm, 50mm, 65mm and 100mm. In addition to the size, there are differences in quality and also special wishes from our customers that we need to take into consideration. We respond to every customer wish and we always manage to find the optimum product for the customers needs and application.
Read more Read lessRooting
After cutting, the stems remain in the casing soil, these must be removed. As you can see there is a machine over the bed that scoops the remaining stems off. This is the preparation for and helps form the basis for a good ‘Second-flight’. It is therefore very important to cut at the right height; if you cut too deep you can dig up the mycelium because of this there will be too little to harvest on the next flight. If you leave too many feet, there is not enough room for new mushrooms and there will not be enough mushrooms on the ‘second-flight’.
Read more Read lessEmptying
After two flights have been harvested, the cells are then emptied. A machine pulls the cloth on which the compost and casing soil are sitting from their beds and the champost (the residual product) into a truck. The trucks drive this raw material to different landowners in the area, after which the product is added to the land for its structure-improving and humus-raising qualities.
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