Community Financing Opportunity

Opportunity to Invest in Your Local Farm

Heartwood Mushrooms is looking to expand our production capacity but needs your help. We are seeking investors to make a one-time investment of $500 which will go towards the construction of a steam sterilizer and buying supplies in volume to take advantage of bulk pricing. In return, you will receive a credit of $550 dollars to be used on any Heartwood Mushrooms products. That is a 10% return on your investment immediately.

Why we need your investment

We decided to go to our community for this investment as we feel that there is a direct shared benefit to our community members as we grow more food for you and your families. By working with our community to build the farm, we can share in the bounty and struggle as we build a stronger and more resilient local food system.

Building this sterilizer will tie up close to $3000 worth of our cash flow and the supplies another $2000. As a small business that is in the early stages of growth, and a mushroom farm with tight margins, we are very cash-flow sensitive.

Our current sterilizers allow us to produce 90 pounds of mushrooms per week, and 90 Grow at Home kits or some combination of the two. While this keeps the lights on, it is currently the bottleneck of our operation and it limits our ability to expand.

What is a steam sterilizer?
A steam sterilizer is an effective way to sterilize the substrate used in mushroom cultivation. The substrate is the mushroom food and is a mix of hydrated and supplemented hardwood sawdust. In our operation, all substrate is sterilized before it gets inoculated with mycelium. This gives the mycelium a chance to consume the substrate, increasing the yield of fresh mushrooms.

Production Goals

The designed equipment will be able to sterilize 120 blocks of substrate per batch and will be able to run 3 times per week. This increases our production capacity by a factor of 4.

Our goal is to be able to produce 1400 blocks per month which can be sold as grow kits or grown out at the shop and sold to local markets as fresh mushrooms. Opening up our production in this way will allow us to hire more local residents, develop new and novel products and create workshops and events for Manitoulin Island and the surrounding area.

Invest With Us 

We are seeking 10 investors to help us with this expansion. You will receive a promissory note for the investment and documentation of your credit.