The coffee to mushroom Life Cykel

Julian Mitchell of Life Cykel collects waste coffee grounds from a Fremantle cafe
Two Fremantle entrepreneurs have joined together to use the coffee industry’s most wasted product for growing mushrooms.

Julian Mitchell and Ryan Creed started Life Cykel, a business dedicated to reducing coffee waste by using it to grow mushrooms, earlier this year.

Julian says it was after reading Mycologist Paul Stamet’s presentation Six Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World that he had a “lightbulb moment”.

“[Paul] talked about food production and mentioned the volume of coffee waste and its potential to be a good nutrient for fungi growth,” Julian says. “I did some research, read his books, conducted some trials, and found a business proposition that could work.”

Julian and Ryan set about crowd-funding their campaign to start what is Australia’s urban mushroom farm, and received $30,000 in donations, which meant their idea could become a reality.

“I never realised how much coffee is wasted,” Julian says. “Each year about 300 tonnes of coffee waste from Fremantle goes to landfill.”

Julian and Ryan visit local cafés daily to collect leftover ground coffee. In preparation for their arrival, the coffee waste must be chilled at 4°C. Once collected, it’s taken to the urban farm – housed in three 12-metre shipping containers – and mixed with mushroom spores.

“The mushrooms eat the coffee grounds. It’s about a three-week incubation period, 21 days’ formation, and six weeks later the oyster mushrooms are ready to consume,” Julian says. “Coffee is rich in nitrogen content, so as a soil it has a high nutrient value for the mushrooms to thrive. There’s also minimal water used, no electricity needed or pesticides applied, unlike other farmed produce.”

Life Cykel currently produces 55 kilograms of mushrooms each week, but Julian thinks this figure will exceed 100 kilograms by Christmas. Life Cykel has also seeking been crowd-funding for urban mushroom farms in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne between 15 August and15 September. It is also selling Mushroom Boxes for people to grow their own tasty and nutritious mushrooms at home using infused coffee grounds.

“There’s no simple formula to reducing coffee waste, but I do think in the next five years we’ll start to see it become a viable product for people to use and recycle, not just us,” Julian says.

The Life Cykel mushroom boxes are available to buy from the company website.

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