Recently contracted project MU22011 is developing guidelines for best practice management within mushroom supply chains, from farm to retail store. The project aim is to ensure that shoppers are presented with fresh, unbruised, and all-round glamorous mushrooms every time they go shopping (Figure 1). With many, if not most, purchases decided in store, good quality is a key strategy to reverse recent drops in sales.

Temperature is certainly the key factor determining the storage life of fresh mushrooms. It affects weight loss, colour change, firmness, stipe elongation, cap opening, bacterial growth and overall freshness. While there are many things growers can do to improve quality at harvest (see MushroomLink Summer p11, Best practice in mushroom supply chains for more on this), it is the temperatures that mushrooms experience afterwards that are key to determining the quality consumers experience.

Even the most polished or targeted marketing campaign will not work if the mushrooms on the supermarket shelf look old, brown, and unappealing. The same applies through the whole supply chain; effort spent on growing, picking and packing the best possible mushrooms will be wasted if they are not well managed after.