Colonizing the millet
Cordyceps militaris
Edible mushrooms
Get to Know High Country Fungi I
f in recent months you’ve visited one of our area’s popular farm-to-table dining establishments, you have likely come across High Country Fungi’s product offerings on the menu. Or, if you’ve picked up some fresh or dehydrated mushrooms, or lesser known medicinal extracts, at the Watauga County Farmers’ Market, you may have even rubbed elbows with High Country Fungi’s founder himself, Avery Hughes. A relatively new addition to the gourmet and medicinal mushrooms trade, High Country Fungi is best described by its slogan: “from spore to shroom, we do it all.” We couldn’t help but want to learn more about how someone can take something as microscopic as mushroom spores and transform them into prized culinary delicacies and highly effective remedies. CML was thrilled to accept an invitation to meet with Avery Hughes for a behind-the-scenes tour of his impressive High Country Fungi operation in Plumtree, NC. While with Hughes, we asked him to share more with us about his introduction to fungi, how his emerging business has “mushroomed,” and what the future holds. CML: When did you first become interested in mycology (the study of fungi)? Hughes: Fungi entered my awareness in my early twenties when I attended a shiitake log growing workshop hosted by the Avery County Ag Extension Office
108 — Autumn 2021 CAROLINA MOUNTAIN LIFE
in Newland. My father had signed us up while I was in town visiting from Atlanta, where I was working in the hospitality industry. The workshop touched on growing [shiitake mushrooms] as a business and then we proceeded to inoculate our own oak logs. We were given a bag of spawn and told that within this bag of sawdust was shiitake mycelium. I had no mental framework for understanding what mycelium actually was. I was fascinated. We inoculated the logs with spawn that fall and had mushrooms by the following spring. CML: What brought you here to the High Country, and how did your interest grow into a business? Hughes: About three years after that workshop, I moved up to Boone and had taken an interest in farming. I began interning on a farm where they grew shiitakes and found myself consuming more and more of them. At that time I was also seeing an herbalist, who recommended Reishi mushroom tea to improve my health. I was incorporating mushrooms into my diet and supplement routine and my overall wellbeing went through the roof! Soon I was studying other medicinal mushrooms, and met some guys out west who introduced me to an indoor mushroom cultivation course in Oregon. So I flew to Oregon where I learned the ins and outs of the industry. I came back home, found space to start the operation, and the rest is history.
By CML Staff
CML: How did you go about launching your business in this market, and what challenges did you encounter? Hughes: Shortly after getting the operation up and running at a small scale, we applied for a grant through the WNC Ag Options Grant program and were awarded a $3,000 grant, which we used to purchase shelving materials and bulk growing supplies to set us up for our first year. That year happened to be 2020; we had everything in place right as restaurants shut down for COVID. So we spent the better part of last year learning how to grow a few different medicinals, perfecting our extraction techniques, and finalizing other products. As things opened back up and sales resumed, my partner Miika decided to join me fulltime in growing the business. From designing our logo to managing the grow room, she does it all and I sure couldn’t do it without her. CML: Give our readers a basic understanding of your process, “from spore to shroom.” Hughes: The whole process begins in a sterile laboratory that we constructed in an old pottery studio. The central component to this lab is a hospital grade HEPA filtration unit which blows sterile air over the work surface, ensuring no other microscopic organisms, such as bacteria and mold, contaminate the clean culture of mycelium we are seeking to propagate.
