Last year, the UK’s first urban mushroom farm was launched in Exeter – using recycled coffee grounds as the growing medium. Based in disused office space, the GroCycle farm takes coffee grounds from local cafes and uses this to produce Oyster mushrooms. GroCycle say that approximately 80 million cups of coffee are drunk every day in this country yet less than 1% of the beans actually end up in the cup. The vast majority of the remaining grounds generally go to add to landfill waste sites, thus producing more methane gas as they decompose. Director of GroCycle, Adam Sayner, said: “It’s crazy that most large cafes are throwing their coffee waste away. It’s still packed full of nutrients which can be turned into delicious Oyster mushrooms. We’re making it possible to grow gourmet food from it instead”.
Visit www.grocycle.com for more information.