WOODVILLE, Ohio — There is a new fungus among us in northwest Ohio.
A Toledo native has developed a system to inoculate growing beds with a variety of edible mushrooms which supplies local farmers and will soon be sold to hungry customers.
"You can cut open one of our blocks and within two weeks you've got a really hearty meal. They've got a lot of protein in them and some medicinal properties in some," said Thomas Lodge, who studied mushrooms while living in California.
MidAm Mushrooms has a new home inside of a former bowling alley at 512 Lime St. in the village of Woodville.
"We got the place in June and started building. We've been building ever since. it's been a lot of work to transform a bowling alley into a mushroom factory," Lodge said. "But we've been in production now for about a month and a half, actually making the blocks and starting to grow it out."
For the last month, MidAm has been producing locally grown mushrooms for area farmers and restaurants at a much larger scale than other area suppliers.
"Either they're growing in their basement or they're growing in their little facility outside of their house. But nothing on this scale has hit Ohio," said company investor Mike Madden.
Thomas said his farm offers a much wider variety of mushrooms than local grocery stores.
His mushrooms are varieties that grow on trees, not manure, so they are much more nutrient-rich while also using up material in the grow beds that would normally be thrown away.
"That tends to allow them to have a lot more nutrients or a different mix of nutrients than you would find in your button mushrooms." said company associate Zach Zientek.
The process reuses resources that would typically be considered agricultural waste.
"We just take sawdust and soybean hulls, things that are just getting thrown away, and we grow the mushrooms off those," Lodge said.
MidAm Mushrooms will begin selling its products on Amazon next month. Lodge also has a goal to sell directly to eventually sell directly to consumers on the company website.