Mushrooms
“Our entrepreneurial journey
has not been easy, starting with
just R56 in the bank from our
home garage in 2013, armed
mainly with masses of knowledge
on mushrooms, my technical engi-
neering background and Nikki’s
operations and financial exper-
tise.” Building a website was the
first aspect of the business devel-
oped, and it all grew from there.
Innovation
The winning entrepreneurs who
are very keen to promote mush-
rooms as part of food security,
Craig and Nikki, who hail from
Port Elizabeth originally, remain
very humble and friendly. “We
loved
meeting
commercial
farmers and agricultural experts
at the Nisboere finals. There is
such incredible knowledge and
innovation in South Africa’s agri-
cultural sector, and one can feel
very confident in our country’s
farming sector’s ability to produce
products for us in innovative
and sustainable ways, I feel,”
commented Craig.
While Mushroom Guru trains
a range of students – through
eBooks and through various
on-site training programmes – in
the art and science of growing
culinary, exotic and medicinal
mushrooms as part of food
security and health, their own
production enterprise of capsules,
tinctures and serums is based
on medicinal mushrooms. Their
courses, many of which run over
the weekends, are booked to
capacity, with growing numbers
of people wanting to learn to
grow mushrooms, either for own
culinary and nutritional use or as
part of agri-enterprise. More than
600 people have attended their
popular courses.
Indeed, the day I visited, a group
of enthusiastic urban farmers from
Lwandle had just had a meeting
with Craig, to discuss their plans
and designs to grow mushrooms
with a crop of vegetables.
It is clear Mushroom Guru team
loves to share knowledge on
business and life journeys, and
Craig’s insight and dedication
to technical, scientific and busi-
ness excellence is apparent. The
interior of their Strand premises
is akin to a high-tech labora-
tory and factory – scrupulously
hygienic and neat. This is where
the students come for training
and where their consignments
of Reishi supplement capsules,
tinctures and serums - which
are widely sought after for their
immensely high quality – MG-LZ8
( M u s h r o o m G u r u - L i n g z h i 8 )
are packed and dispatched for
local and international export.
A local laboratory works with
Mushroom Guru to ensure the
quality standard of the MG-LZ8
is excellent. Notably, Mushroom
Guru is getting orders and interest
as far afield as Scandinavia
for their high-quality Reishi
supplements MG-LZ8.
Tissue culturing
Mushroom Guru also offers
spawn and mushroom cultures for
sale, and their training includes a
training segment offered on tissue
culturing. Craig has a precision
engineering background, having
spent time working in Spain in
engineering, and is a qualified
tool, jig and die maker. Nikki’s
background is in the corporate
world, in finance, operations
and administration. “We work
together perfectly,” smiles Craig.
SABI | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2019
9