The Mushroom Council

The Mushroom Council, an entity that represents mushroom growers and importers, is helping PHA bring more vegetables to the plates of Americans. From school nutrition directors to moms and chain restaurants, our partner is dedicated to getting consumers to use mushrooms to amp up up flavor while cutting down on fat and calories.

“We recently coined the saying, ‘The Trend is to Blend,’ which means blending mushrooms and meat in meals where you would normally just use ground meat. It makes sense for families as kids love things like tacos, meatballs and burgers. And, people love it! Recent research found that the mushroom and meat blend has an 80% acceptability rating and actually was preferred to an all-meat version in a taste test.

~ Bart Minor, President of the Mushroom Council.

In a collaboration with PHA partner Sodexo, the Mushroom Council is working with the company to switch the all-beef burgers served to K–12 students in 250 school districts across the country to a mushroom-beef blend burger. By making the swap, Sodexo estimates it will remove a cumulative 250 million calories, 38 million grams of total fat,15 million grams of saturated fat and 304 million milligrams of sodium from student meals each month. According to the Mushroom Council, the blend packs in added nutrition, reduces cost per serving and boosts flavor to boot. The menu change aligns with Sodexo’s efforts to encourage students to both take and consume more vegetables while reducing plate waste in school cafeterias.

Building on this win-win collaboration, Sodexo and the Mushroom Council designed marketing materials featuring eat brighter!TM, a campaign developed by PHA partners Produce Marketing Association and Sesame Workshop. These eye- catching posters and salad bar clings featuring Sesame Street characters, created for Sodexo elementary schools, will encourage children to eat even more fruits and veggies.

The Mushroom Council working with other PHA partners to lower costs, increase consumption of healthier foods and improve kids’ health? It’s exactly the kind of collaboration we love to see happen.

For information about the nutrients in mushrooms, visit www.mushroominfo.com/benefits.