Meet Jessica & Dirk of Pennybun's Mushrooms
Jessica Lypkie and Dirk McCabe have worked in restaurant kitchens for a combined 27 years. As chefs, they know that success rides on consistency and quality ingredients. So, when they saw that the Calgary culinary community was lacking a local grower of gourmet mushrooms, they took the matter into their own hands.
Jessica and Dirk are the owners and operators of Pennybun’s Mushrooms, a company that cultivates shiitake and oyster mushrooms, and sources various others, selling them to restaurants and consumers around the city.
The couple started Pennybun’s in January 2015 after drawing inspiration and expertise from a mushroom-farming friend in Ottawa. They secured space in a North East Calgary warehouse for their indoor greenhouse and began a long process of trial and error, experimenting with different temperatures, light and humidity levels.
“Mushrooms are quite unique,” says Jessica. “They need exactly perfect conditions to be what I call ‘happy mushrooms.’”
Because of their temperamental nature, not all mushrooms grow in the same environment. For instance, as Jessica explains, most people think mushrooms need darkness to thrive, but oysters and shiitakes actually need twelve hours of light each day.
On top of the fungi they grow in their greenhouse, the couple works with select foragers in B.C. who have access to an array of other mushrooms. As such, Pennybun’s is able to offer such sought-after varieties as morels, chanterelles and porcinis.
Eventually, Jessica and Dirk hope to be able to expand their operation so they can produce more varieties in their greenhouse. Jessica says that’s more of a long-term goal; in the short term, they want to focus on mastering their current offering and building their base of satisfied customers.
So far, both restaurants and individuals have offered a lot of positive feedback about Pennybun’s products. Jessica says that, above all, people appreciate having a local producer because of the bearing on quality. Reducing the time between when a mushroom is picked and sold means less damage and happier customers.
You can find Jessica and Dirk selling and talking mushrooms at the weekly Hillhurst Sunnyside Farmers Market. You can also visit them online at www.pennybunsmushrooms.ca, or follow @pennybunsmushys on Twitter and pennybunsmushrooms on Instagram.
