Coffee Mashrooms? No, It's Not As Crazy As It Sounds.

Original: Coffee Mashrooms? No, It's Not As Crazy As It Sounds.

Submitted by Dmitri Davydov on Mon, 2010-03-08 09:29.

Posted in: Statistics And Other Lies

Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You


http://www.bttrventures.com/

BERKELEY, CA (KGO) -- Two new graduates from UC Berkeley's Business School are trying to turn coffee grounds into a high demand food for local consumers. But the venture doesn't stop there, it gives back to the community as well.

What do mushrooms and a pile of used coffee grounds have in commmon?

"Mushrooms biologically grow really well in hardwoo social innovation grant from Cal, they researched and launched a for-profit social venture called BTTR Ventures; BTTR stands for "Back To The Roots." The goal is to be a sustainable company focused on social responsibility. They're accomplishing this by diverting one of America's largest waste streams out of Bay Area landfills.

"We realized America is like absolutely addicted to coffee," said Arora.

So it dawned on them they could help the environment, at least locally, by collecting a ton of coffee waste a week from local shops like Peets Coffee and Whole Foods' Alegro Cafe. And then at a local warehouse in Emeryville, a small crew of employees packs sterile bags full of grounds, growing hundreds of pounds of gourmet oyster mushrooms a week. After harvesting, they're sold at local farmers markets and grocery stores.

A Whole Foods store in Berkeley is one of seven in the Bay Area that buys the BTTR oyster mushrooms. Now each store orders about 15 pounds amp=1789&creative=9325">The