Or how we transform our organic coffee grounds into delicious mushrooms to enjoy on the ViVi menus!
The coffee that feeds the mushroom that feeds us and then the Earth
Once upon a time, there was a wonderful coffee shop that made hundreds of steaming cups of coffee every morning as the city woke up… Inside the ViVi coffee shops, tens of kilograms of coffee were produced every day, only to be discarded in the organic waste collection. Today, this no longer happens.
From December 2021, the Zebra Paths Cooperative, together with the Nausicaa Consortium and the Il Trattore agricultural cooperative, has launched the project “The Urban Mushroom“, an experiment of growing mushrooms from used coffee grounds collected in bars involving children with disabilities throughout the entire production process, from harvesting to selling the mushrooms. A wonderful project, already a reality in cities like Paris, which ViVi fell in love with and decided to support.
This is a highly innovative project of urban agriculture, which transforms waste products into resources with a production cycle that takes place entirely in Km0, It also allows the social and work integration of people with disabilities and disadvantages and uses spaces unsuitable for other activities (basements, old warehouses, damp and dark rooms). Mushrooms grown from coffee grounds are delicious and of high quality, with the 30% of extra protein compared to traditionally cultivated mushrooms. The final "waste" is also an excellent component for compost that is returned to the soil.
In addition to collecting organic coffee waste from its own coffee shops, ViVi has involved Mogi Coffee (the roaster of the organic coffee used in ViVi restaurants) which will donate the skin of the organic bean thus creating a mushroom that is not only virtuous but also organic that ViVi will use in its menus.
The project's strengths:
A WASTE THAT BECOMES A RESOURCE:
Mushrooms grow in a mixture of coffee grounds and silverskin (the skin covering the coffee bean). This is typically waste from bars and coffee roasters that ends up in landfills, but is instead used as the primary growth medium for the mushrooms, which is then returned to the soil as a nutrient.
CAREFULLY SELECTED AGRICULTURE:
Our cities are dotted with cafes that produce waste; in every municipality there is a space available for growing; in every municipality there are restaurateurs and residents who want to consume locally sourced mushrooms, thus reducing the transportation chain. It's also a way to reconnect residents with the rhythms of nature.
WORK AND SOCIAL INTEGRATION:
The coffee grounds are collected from cafés by vulnerable people with mental retardation or psychiatric problems. They collect the coffee grounds in the cafés and participate in the activities of preparing the substrate, following the production process from the coffee to the sale of the mushrooms.
NUTRITIONAL QUALITY OF THE MUSHROOM:
Thanks to the presence of microelements that coffee grounds are rich in, mushrooms grown in this way contain 30% more protein than mushrooms grown on straw and do not lose water during cooking.
END-OF-LIFE PRODUCTS – COMPOST:
Once the mushroom is harvested, the material left in the bag will be sold and reused as a quality compost ingredient. The entire process, therefore, returns to the soil.
THE PRODUCTION PROCESS – A SMALL MIRACLE
VIRTUOUS CYCLE and RECYCLING at 100%
It starts with the coffee grounds collected daily from the neighborhood bars.
- The grounds are sifted and added with “silver skin” (coffee film that is produced after roasting) and inoculated with mushroom mycelium purchased from a national supplier.
- The mixture is placed in large plastic bags (the only waste from the production cycle) and placed in a first room, with little light, a cool environment and high humidity, where it will remain for approximately 20 days.
- The bags are then moved to a bright, ventilated, and warmer room, where the mushrooms will grow and mature for another 15-20 days.
- In this way, different types of Pleurotus mushrooms are obtained, with chemical and organoleptic qualities superior to traditional ones.
- The harvest will then be carried out by hand and subsequently sold, both of the fresh product and of the dried mushroom.
ViVi is a Benefit Corporation