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OfflineStromriderM
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Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability
    #27844343 - 06/30/22 09:23 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

From the beginning I've done every step of the process and have had success being profitable. I recently looked into possibly purchasing spawn from a supplier just to ease my workload and focus on growing more mushrooms. I can not wrap my head around how so many people are doing this.

I'm about as low overhead cost as you can get and the numbers just don't work even at over 200# mushrooms a week. There's even people buying ready to fruit blocks at 8 or 10 bucks a piece which completely baffles me. I must be doing something wrong :shrug:

All the YouTube myco guys are heavily encouraging new farms to buy spawn and of course they would, they sell spawn. I'd love to not make spawn but I have to buy groceries :lol:

Anyone making this work or know someone who is?


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Offlinefather_fungi
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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: Stromrider]
    #27844362 - 06/30/22 09:39 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

This is an interesting consideration.  I guess if one is willing to accept slim(er) profit margins it would work.  You have any links to said videos?  It's not something I've gone looking into. I'm start to finish self sufficient, a touch beyond hobby level but still just extra income.  Even if I only had to pay shipping, making spawn is just too cheap and easy to bother buying it.

:shrug:


Edited by father_fungi (06/30/22 09:40 PM)


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OfflineStromriderM
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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: father_fungi]
    #27844378 - 06/30/22 09:59 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

I don't have links to any particular video. It's just a common thing talked about in these mushroom farmer youtube videos like mossy creek or Eric Myers puts out, among many others


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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: Stromrider]
    #27845515 - 07/01/22 06:27 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

Sure it can be profitable. But I guess some things must be different if going that route. I buy my spawn and including transport I pay around 3$ per lb. If I could sell 100lbs a week, I could pay myself a monthly salary of 2,200$ after all expenses. Problem is that I live in a small town/city so it's hard to get to 100lbs.

I also know a farmer who does the same but lives in bigger city and pays himself and his colleague salaries. Their trick is, they use the time saved by not making spawn, to make value added products, workshops etc.

But this all happens in northern scandinavia where things are quite different than in the US I think. So probably not at all comparable. But it must be possible in the US too since many ppl does it.


Edited by spasm666 (07/01/22 06:28 PM)


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Offlinedeadmandave
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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: spasm666]
    #27845806 - 07/01/22 10:23 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

There must be a lot of folks doing it, Maine cap n stem's whole business model is based on selling blocks and not fruiting. The most recent myco wizard podcast is with dunks mushrooms. I think he's growing like 500#'s a week and buying all the production blocks, so only fruiting...

Dunk does lots of mushroom products like burgers jerky and pot pies. Idk maybe that's where the money comes from.

How much time a week do you devote to spawn and block production? If you could use the time to make more money doing something else I guess that's a possibility. I like doing the whole process personally, but it is a lot of time and effort.

How much were blocks at bulk pricing? I sell 5# grow kits for $10 :lol:


Edited by deadmandave (07/01/22 10:26 PM)


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OfflineStromriderM
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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: deadmandave]
    #27847415 - 07/03/22 08:33 AM (1 year, 6 months ago)

Shit I sell 5# grow kits at the farmers market for $20 :shrug:

I think most places selling bulk blocks are selling 10# blocks for around $10 a piece. I guess you'd just have to grow at a really large scale to be profitable. At that kind of scale your harvest and distribution work load would be huge. Seems to me it'd be less work to make your own spawn and blocks and grow way less


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InvisibleAphexPin
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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: Stromrider]
    #27847820 - 07/03/22 02:53 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

I don't get it either. The only time it make sense imo is if you want to postpone buying a flowhood, sterilizers etc and just test the waters as cheap as possible to see if you can sell them before committing.


Edited by AphexPin (07/03/22 02:54 PM)


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Offlinefather_fungi
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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: Stromrider]
    #27847857 - 07/03/22 03:48 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

Quote:

Stromrider said:
Shit I sell 5# grow kits at the farmers market for $20




Same.  Sort of.  I sell "boxes of moldy straw" with a promise, for $20 at the farmers market and the excitement of my clientele is palpable!

My process is yielding about 10lbs of oyster mushrooms from 2lbs of spawn and I'm getting $16-$20 / lb at the weekly farmers market.  At the numbers you've quoted above, that almost seems like it might be worth it.  At my scale, there's a lot of subtleties that would erode away at profits though:  Lack of flexibility, shipping, limited market to sell into (I grow them faster than I can sell them), spawn preservation (Would a 10# block keep for 2-3 weeks and still be viable an not contaminate?)

I have a process that eliminates the need for a flow hood or even a SAB, at least for regular production purposes.


--------------------
Agar and Liquid Culture Formulas


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Offlinedeadmandave
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Re: Buying spawn or ready to fruit blocks profitability [Re: AphexPin]
    #27847864 - 07/03/22 03:55 PM (1 year, 6 months ago)

How many grow kits are y'all selling on average vs how many mushrooms? I'll sell about 5 grow kits and 25lbs of mushrooms.

------------

10# block for $10, can produce on a good day 3lbs which at a farmers market could fetch maybe $48 or to restaurants for around $30.

So you could make 20-38 dollars per block minus fc electricity and gas and labor delivery.

This seems like an ok strategy. Are my numbers inflated? What am I missing? You'd be gaining an extra $8-9 per block to do it yourself but also a lot of time spent making them.

For 200# a week I imagine you're making about 200 five lb bags (100 10#'ers) which might take 6-8 hrs from start until they're loaded into the machines. And another 3-4 hrs inoculating. Plus maybe 2-4 hrs of grain prep and culture work.

If you're ordering 100 blocks that would be about $1k. $1k to save yourself 11-16 hrs of labor.

Yeah after thinking about the numbers it seems crazy to buy blocks but if you choose to buy blocks and can supplement somehow with the extra time then it also seems viable.

(Sorry if my very rough estimates offend anyone)


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