Where do you buy mushrooms in bulk? Where to sell mushrooms and berries, surplus agricultural products - consumer cooperation, addresses and telephone numbers

The question of how to sell mushrooms certainly worries all farmers who grow this product. In fact, it is not so difficult to establish a smooth implementation, but beginners may have problems at first. To prevent this from happening, be sure to complete the necessary paperwork to sell mushrooms and use the tips offered on this page.

Selling mushrooms is also a fascinating process. In order for mushroom production to be successful, you must be able to sell mushrooms. They can be sold anywhere: in the market, in shops, at large enterprises in the city, or delivered to public catering outlets (restaurants, cafes, bars, etc.).

To organize the sale of mushrooms grown at home, use the following recommendations.

It is necessary to organize production by a conveyor belt, i.e. you must always have mushrooms, without interruptions.
Find a convenient form of packaging. It has been noticed that mushrooms sell out well if they are packaged on plates of 1, 0.5 and 0.3 kg and covered with “breathable” film. In this form, mushrooms for sale remain fresh longer and retain their presentation. If this is not possible, then they can be transported in plastic boxes.
It is necessary to organize advertising of products in trade organizations and the press. You can also print flyers with advertisements. It’s easy to put recipes for cooking mushroom dishes on them and distribute the leaves along with the mushrooms.
It is more convenient to find regular customers and carry out direct sales without the participation of intermediaries. At the same time, inform about the advantages of the mushrooms you grow, their beneficial properties and environmental safety.
To sell mushrooms, it is better to find wholesale buyers who would take all your products at once. These can be shops, cafes, restaurants, canteens, kitchens that bake pies and pizza.
It is possible to organize the simplest processing of mushrooms on site, for example drying them. In this case, you must, of course, know how to properly dry mushrooms. For example, the cap of oyster mushrooms is dried separately from the stem.
You always need to agree on the timing of delivery of mushrooms in bulk. Moreover, you should not lower the price below the one at which you sell mushrooms at retail.
When setting the cost of mushrooms, it is advisable to set the price slightly below the market price.
The buyer should be offered a wide range of mushroom packages. These can be plates with prepackaged mushrooms, small plastic trays of 1–2 kg each, or boxes weighing up to 5 kg.
Mushroom growers need to sell spent blocks to obtain mushrooms of the 3rd and 4th waves of fruiting and organic fertilizers to improve the soil structure.

Documents required for selling mushrooms

To sell mushrooms, you must have the appropriate documents. Oyster mushrooms and champignons in Russia do not require mandatory certification.

But you need to have a laboratory report. It can also be obtained on the market in his laboratory. You will also need a product test report. This service is paid and is only valid for 3 months.

Then you will have to carry out this procedure again and pay for it.

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The story of a professional mushroom picker

I have been picking mushrooms for thirty years and have learned to earn 100 thousand rubles per season.

Olga Lurie

professional mushroom picker

For me, walking in the forest is not only a hobby, but also a way to earn extra money. I’ll tell you where a mushroom picker can look for buyers and what difficulties can await.

How I started picking mushrooms

As a child, I lived in the country every summer. There were hungry nineties, from the age of three I went with adults to the forest to pick berries and mushrooms. We prepared food and ate it all winter.

Since I was twelve, I have wanted pocket money. In the summer, the guys and I at the dacha got up at five in the morning and went fishing. Chanterelles, boletuses and boletuses were good at the local market. Not far from our dacha there are many children's camps, and rich houses were built along the shores of the lake. Summer residents bought vegetables and herbs from the garden, berries and mushrooms from locals. For this purpose, the market administration provided counters free of charge.

On weekdays there were about five people trading, but on weekends there were already thirty people willing and they had to take a place at six in the morning. My friends and I took turns: one arrives early and stands with berries, the rest of the company arrives from the forest with mushrooms around eleven o’clock. The competition between sellers was high, but they bought from us because, apparently, they wanted to help hardworking teenagers.

In 1999, my parents went on vacation to the border zone in the Gulf of Finland and took me with them. We lived in tents for a whole month. There were a lot of mushrooms in the wild places, especially chanterelles in July. I collected them and then sold them on the Scandinavia highway to the Finns for stamps. Foreigners bought chanterelles well. When my parents went to the city to buy groceries, they took my earned currency, exchanged it, and brought my fee. In a day I could get fifty marks, or I could get a hundred.

But I didn’t like trading then. Standing in the sun or wind all day was difficult. I was annoyed by capricious buyers who reached into the basket with their hands, felt each mushroom and bargained:

“Are the mushrooms really clean? Can you cut it? How about we sell both piles for a hundred? If you don’t sell it anyway, it will disappear”

I didn’t like people even more who tried the berries - they touched them, ran them between their fingers: “Somehow your blueberries are sour, let’s make them cheaper.” It is unpleasant to sell berries that have been touched with unwashed hands. Then I had no other options, I had to endure.

I finished school, went to work, but walking in the forest remained my hobby. In August 2014, my relatives almost kicked me out of the house when I once again brought a trunk full of mushrooms. After that, I decided to start selling them again.

Mushroom picker expenses

You need to know mushroom places: where, when and what mushrooms grow. You can’t buy such knowledge; you have to develop it yourself in practice or get acquainted with mushroom pickers who will help.

Equipment. There is material equipment: shoes, clothes, something for the head. There are no uniform rules here. One mushroom picker wears rags and leaky sneakers, and the other wears a suit with a membrane that costs 20 thousand. But this does not affect the quantity and quality of the mushrooms found.

Navigator. In the forest I use a Garmin GPSMAP 62s navigator, which was given to me in 2015. Now this model is no longer produced, and a new one costs 20 thousand rubles. My navigator has topographic maps and depth maps installed, it remembers the route and points linked to the map, shows the type of forest, terrain, ponds and swamps. All this helps when walking through the forest.

Car- this is a big expense. In the Leningrad region, all the interesting mushroom places are far from St. Petersburg; we can travel 200 km one way. I have a Hyundai Solaris, gasoline consumption is 1,500 rubles per trip. Every 10 thousand kilometers it is necessary to undergo maintenance, I can do it twice in a season.

To save money, I take travel companions and we chip in on the fare. I usually take older women who want to take a walk in the forest, but don’t have their own car or are afraid to drive alone. I look for travel companions in the mushroom group on VKontakte or through Blablakar. When someone asks, I first ask: how often does he go to the forest, what does he collect, whether he has a car or a navigator. If I feel that a person is interested in mushroom places, I don’t take them with me.

About five years ago there was a scandal in the mushroom community. An elderly man asked to be a travel companion into the forest, and they willingly took him on. He knew how to make people laugh on the road and was very pleasant to talk to. The guys who rode with him were satisfied. And then suddenly the same guys meet him in their clearing. And with a bus full of other mushroom pickers. During that season, he looked at two dozen different places and now positions himself as an expert on mushroom places in the Leningrad region.

Minor expenses- this is the container where you collect mushrooms: buckets, baskets, boxes. I've been buying baskets for three years. A basket made from a whole rod cost 1,500 rubles, from a half rod - 800. I take buckets for 100 rubles.

My expenses for equipment and transport

Gasoline and maintenance

RUR 22,000 per season

Navigator

20,000 RUR, but they gave me mine

Boots, two raincoats, camouflage

6000 R

Baskets, buckets, knife

5500 R

Mushroom picker's income is up to 100 thousand rubles per season

Mushrooms can be collected one or two months a year - from mid-August to the end of September, sometimes as early as early July. So the income is seasonal; you won’t be able to make money constantly from wild mushrooms. The quantity and quality of mushrooms depends on the weather: what kind of spring it was, how hot the summer was, how much precipitation fell. Everything is different from year to year.

For example, 2014 was ideal in terms of the length of the season and the number of mushrooms. I once collected 30 kg of boletus mushrooms in three hours, although usually in eight hours you only find 10 kg. But 2017 was not a mushroom year: cold late spring, rainy summer. The mushrooms did not have enough warmth; they only grew in the fall, and only a little. Gaining even 5 kg was a success. It was not possible to make money from mushrooms that season.

800 R

I charged buyers per kilogram of boletus mushrooms in 2018

Mushrooms can also be wormy. This indirectly depends on the weather, but it is impossible to predict. In 2015, out of three hundred whites, ten were put into the basket. In July 2016, all porcini mushrooms were wormy.

Mushroom prices change depending on how many have grown. To determine the price, I study advertisements on Avito or Vkontakte, and I’m not too lazy to ask the metro station how much they sell.

My opinion - don't be cheap

For example, average porcini mushrooms sell for 500-1500 rubles. In such a situation, if there are a lot of mushrooms in the forest, then I sell mine for a thousand, if there are few, then for one and a half.

If I’m lucky with the weather and the mushrooms are not wormy, I can earn up to 100 thousand rubles per season. And in a bad season, I can do 10 thousand. Even gasoline doesn't flow back.

How much did I sell mushrooms for in 2018, prices per 1 kg

Boletus

800 R

Boletuses, chanterelles

500 R

Mokhoviki

400 R

Competitors

There are two types of sellers: professional resellers and individual collectors like me.

Professional resellers they purchase mushrooms from remote villages and bring them to the city. They travel to buy mushrooms as far as possible to save money. Residents of remote villages sell mushrooms at least four times cheaper than in the city. For example, last year chanterelles in the Pskov region were sold for 50 rubles per kilogram, and in St. Petersburg - for 300.

50 R

cost a kilogram of chanterelles in the Pskov region in 2018. Resellers sold chanterelles at a 500% markup

These sellers then sort the mushrooms and transport them to markets and tents. The duration of the trips is two to three days, and most mushrooms live only 12 hours. Many resellers bring only chanterelles, which are stored for a long time, and the rest of the mushrooms are processed, for example into pickles or frozen.

Individual assemblers They sell mushrooms near the metro, in markets and on highways. There are two problems with them: small volume and the issue of safety and hygiene. Usually pickers sell mushrooms in piles of 5-7 pieces, because buyers take a little at a time. A client walks by, sees mushrooms and buys spontaneously, according to his mood. Street vendors do not stand all the time, but only when there is production. Let's imagine: a housewife needed three buckets for supplies, but there was no one at the metro - no one to buy from.

The quality of mushrooms and the place of collection from such sellers also raises questions. On the highway, mushrooms lie on folding tables, cars drive past, dust settles. At the metro, goods are laid out on boxes or directly on the ground, instead of a tablecloth there is a newspaper or a bag. The seller could be a gloomy man in an old tracksuit, a tipsy group, or a sweet old lady.

No one will ever know who actually collected these mushrooms

Several times I saw a man crawling out of a roadside ditch towards a seller on the highway, dragging a filled basket behind him. He put the mushrooms on the table and disappeared into the forest again. It is unlikely that this person went the required two kilometers from the road. Mushrooms also grow along the roadsides, but eating them is dangerous. Mushrooms absorb harmful substances from the soil, so it is important to collect them at a distance of no closer than two kilometers from highways and factories.

A neat mushroom picker with clean hands and mushrooms, selling on the highway or near the metro, is a rarity. If you dress neatly and keep an eye on mushrooms, you will always have a buyer.

How I collected a client base

When I first started selling mushrooms, I didn’t have any client base; I collected it from scratch. Talking about yourself on the Internet and in life helped with this.

I started with Avito and Vkontakte. On Avito I published advertisements with the following content: “I will collect forest mushrooms to order”, “Young boletus mushrooms only from the forest”, “A basket of mushrooms straight from the forest”. I started a page on VKontakte called “Forest Shop”. Before each trip, I wrote a post there: what mushrooms I’m going for, how much I plan to collect, what the price is.

In addition to my page, I wrote in groups for lovers of “silent hunting” - this is the name given to people who pick mushrooms and berries in the forests. Mostly I published photos from my trips, told them what I managed to collect, what the quality of the mushrooms was, and whether there was anything unexpected.

For two years I regularly published advertisements on Avito and maintained a page on Vkontakte. This is what I came to. A post works if it says:

That I pick mushrooms myself and sell them myself.
In what area do I collect?
What experience do I have and what can I do? Let me just praise myself.

And be sure to add many, many photographs of mushrooms, without embellishment.

Mushrooms are generally divided into two large types: noble - these are tubular types, and weeds - for example, russula. In mushroom picking slang they are called “shnyaga”. Weed mushrooms grow everywhere during the season; they can be transported by Kamaz trucks, so they have no special value. But the hunt is on for noble mushrooms.

To attract the attention of buyers, I photograph only noble mushrooms. True, I don’t collect weeds at all. But if you collect, keep in mind that they are less valuable and are rarely bought.

You need different photographs: yourself with mushrooms, mushrooms in the forest, how they lie in a basket or bucket. Such photographs show better than words that the mushroom picker can be trusted, the mushrooms are clean, collected in the forest, and not near the highway.

Who are my clients

Everyone buys mushrooms from me: men and women, old and young. Housewives admire each mushroom, close the jars according to family recipes, boil, fry, make julienne and carpaccio.

Restaurants also buy mushrooms. The chefs personally evaluate the quality and process the mushrooms for their menu. A buyer from a restaurant at the Astoria Hotel called me and asked me to bring mushrooms straight from the forest, but only when the chef was on site. He accepts unusual products personally.

They are bought by mushroom pickers who cannot go into the forest themselves. My beloved client used to go into the forest on her own, but now she is sick and cannot walk for a long time. Another regular customer is a member of the board of directors of a large company. A couple of times a season he finds time and goes mushroom hunting with us. He collects one or two baskets of all sorts of things for fun, and then orders ten kilograms of boletus mushrooms from me. He wants to freeze elite mushrooms for the winter, but lacks the skills to collect them himself.

Orders from restaurants

I myself found two regular customers in everyday life, they are representatives of restaurants. First, I searched through Yandex to see which cafes and restaurants serve mushroom dishes, compiled a list and selected small establishments. I found their phone numbers on the website, called and asked the chef to answer the phone. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: Good afternoon, I sell mushrooms, from five kilograms. Can I speak to Chef Alexander?

CHEF: This is Alexander, I’m listening to you.

Me: Hello, Alexander! I collect wild mushrooms and bring them to the city. The season is coming soon. If you want, we can collaborate.

SH: Hmm, interesting.

I'm fine. What mushrooms do you usually take? What volume? What are the processing requirements?

If the mushrooms and supply volume were suitable, we agreed on an order. So I called about twenty restaurants, two agreed, and now I bring them mushrooms every season.

Pre-orders

Fresh mushrooms are stored for 12 hours, then larvae appear in them, the mushrooms become wormy and begin to smell bad. During this time, you need to get from the forest to the city and sell the loot.

In order not to sell bad mushrooms, I began collecting pre-orders on Avito and Vkontakte. The scheme is this: you place an ad, leave your phone number, people call and place an order. For example, 5 kg of moss mushrooms. I go to the forest and collect the order.

In the forest I type exactly what was asked. When they want 10 kg of moss mushrooms, I go to the places where these mushrooms grow. During the harvest, I am not distracted by salted mushrooms and boletus mushrooms.

It was not always possible to pick mushrooms strictly to order. In the forest the picture changes every day. The day before yesterday I found 10 kg in the clearing, but today it’s empty. In such cases, I took what grew and then offered the mushrooms to buyers from the list. I always keep a queue of four orders in reserve so that I have a choice.

If her customers did not take these mushrooms, she wrote another advertisement: “There are such and such mushrooms, take them apart.”

There are hot orders when the client needs mushrooms urgently and by a specific date. Last year, an uncle I knew called and asked to bring a basket of strong boletus no later than September 5th: his daughter was coming to visit him from Spain, and I wanted to surprise her.

My husband and I went to the forest at six in the morning, wandered around, and by ten in the morning we found only five mushrooms. It was raining, there was a disgusting squelch in our boots, and we felt so pathetic that we wanted to cry. After lunch we changed three places and by evening we filled this unfortunate basket. Along the way, we filled the trunk with all sorts of things for other clients and earned an additional 8 thousand rubles.

Preliminary agreements help to sell mushrooms on the same day, without wasting time searching for a buyer. This is convenient when you are driving out of the forest with a trunk full of mushrooms that are about to spoil.

How do I deliver mushrooms

Mushrooms have a short shelf life. I have to get out of the forest, get to the city, give the order and meet it in 12 hours. This complicates logistics, because you can’t collect goods for a week and hoard goods, you need to work in the “collected - delivered, collected - delivered” mode.

Usually they do this: they collect mushrooms in the morning and give them away in the evening. My clients understand that I need to arrive from the forest in time, so they expect orders at ten in the evening. But before delivery, I usually clarify until what time they wait and what time it is convenient to accept the order.

Once I was delayed in the forest: on the way I got caught in a downpour, and at the entrance to the city I got stuck in a traffic jam due to an accident. As a result, I got to the client at half past twelve at night. I called on the way, so she knew about the delay. I dragged the baskets to the apartment and saw three women. It turned out that the buyer called her friends to help with processing and they were all waiting for me. My client doesn’t go to work, but her assistants have a shift in the morning. I was ashamed that because of me they would go to bed late, so I gave them a basket of chanterelles as an apology.

There are two delivery methods: pickup from the mushroom picker’s apartment and delivery to the buyer.

I am against self-pickup and believe that self-pickup is evil. Half of the buyers do not pick up the order, the rest are late

Instead of eating dinner, washing your face and going to bed, you sit and wait for a buyer. He didn’t show up, and at ten o’clock in the evening you’re thinking about who to urgently sell the mushrooms to so that they don’t spoil.

I personally deliver all orders to the buyer. He knows that they are coming to him specifically, and it is already inconvenient to go somewhere and refuse altogether. For advertising, I offer free delivery for orders over 1,500 rubles. Almost all orders are more expensive, and I still planned to deliver it myself, so I don’t lose anything. And the buyer feels like they are giving him something for free, and that’s nice.

There are restrictions on delivery: I don’t go to the suburbs, I don’t go to residential complexes, I don’t go up to the apartment. This wastes time: either there is no parking space, or the navigator doesn’t know how to get in, or it can’t pass in narrow passages. Therefore, a trip to the yard becomes a fifteen-minute quest, and I need to deliver several orders during the evening.

0 R

I charge for delivery of mushrooms for orders over 1500 RUR

I meet people with disabilities and the very elderly halfway. But usually they ask children or neighbors to go outside to pick mushrooms. So I went up to the apartment three times in five years.

Customer complaints

I have encountered complaints. There were no direct scandals, because she immediately took the mushrooms and returned the money.

After one incident, she began to warn that I accept questions about quality only on the day of sale. Then one woman bought 5 kg of large whites from me. I brought them in the evening, and that same evening the mushrooms had to be sorted. Apparently, the customer was too lazy to do this; she put the mushrooms in a bag and left for work in the morning. I opened the mushrooms only in the evening, a day later. The unseparated mushrooms in the plastic bag had become wormy. The woman called me and let's argue. They say she discovered the worms yesterday, but it was too late and she didn’t call. I pretended to believe it and brought another basket for free, so as not to stir up a scandal.

Let me tell you another story about mismatched expectations. Another woman wanted to buy the smallest boletus mushrooms. My family and I went to the Olonets region to pick them up, spent the night in the forest, collected them for eight hours and then drove six hours to St. Petersburg.

The mushrooms were just like the picture. But the client said, I quote: “Some specimens are not young enough.” She didn't demand a refund, she was just being capricious. Now he calls every summer, but I always gently refuse: I don’t want to get involved.

If during a conversation I hear some strange demands, I also refuse the order. Five-centimeter hats, snow-white lips, chocolate-burgundy shades - let them look elsewhere.

To the forest - sober

There are three dangers in the forest: getting lost, getting injured, or encountering wild animals. I had all this.

Ten years ago I got lost and didn’t emerge from the forest until four in the morning. My city friends and I went into the forest. Mid-September, monotonous rain, late morning. We had with us a box of cheap wine, half a bottle of vodka and a can of beans. We wandered through the forest, chatted about life, I argued on the phone with my ex. Having finished the conversation, I looked around - and did not recognize the area. It was getting dark, and it was unclear where to go.

We called the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The employee advised us to spend the night in the forest and walk eight kilometers in any direction, so we could reach the highway or railroad. He added that young, healthy people are taken out by telephone, but the elderly and children need rescuers; they are in greater danger.

I didn’t want to spend the night in the forest in the rain, so I called my aunt and uncle, who were relaxing nearby at the dacha, for help. They knew the forest well and went to look for us. Everything worked out well: they found us and at four in the morning we went out onto the highway. By the way, the mushrooms were not lost and brought home.

There was also a story with the navigator. I use a GPS navigator, which shows where which river, forest, swamp is. I’m walking through the forest, I want to get my bearings and I realize that there is no navigator. I wore it with a carabiner on my belt, and it apparently came off. I was lucky because I knew the area: I was able to leave the forest myself, and then retrace my steps and find what was lost.

One day I sprained a ligament in my leg. She was picking mushrooms, tripped on a branch and fell. I had to crawl to the car. It’s good that I had sober comrades with me; one of them got behind the wheel and drove me to the emergency room. I walked on crutches for a week, and then for another month with a walking stick.

Wild animals are the least dangerous. Every time I see tracks, but I saw animals twice: wild boars and moose. They are afraid of people and try not to get caught by us. It seems to me that it is safer to be noisy: crunch branches, talk loudly, sing. A friend of mine carries a bicycle bell with her into the forest.

Over thirty years of hiking in the forest, I formulated rules for myself. Here they are:

Do not take alcohol.
Look around, don't get distracted.
Take a supply of lighters and flashlights with you: you may have to make a fire or go out in the dark.
Charge your phone, take an external battery, hide it from the rain.
Agree before the hike who to call if you get lost or fall.

And another rule is to try to be in a good mood and be sad at home. Otherwise, you may not notice the danger simply out of stupidity.

Remember

You can always sell mushrooms if they are fresh, neat, and the seller does not look like an alcoholic.
It’s better to work on pre-orders: first find clients, then collect. Otherwise, the mushrooms may spoil.
Pickup is evil. I advise you to deliver mushrooms to customers.
Clients can be found on Avito, VKontakte, at your mother’s work and anywhere else.
There is no need to register, no taxes, no cash register needed.

We worked on the material

Author - Olga Lurie, editor - Tonya Sergeeva, production editor - Marina Safonova, photo editor - Maxim Koposov, information designer - Zhenya Sofronov, responsible - Anna Lesnykh, proofreader - Alexander Salita, layout designer - Evgenia Izotova

The first mushrooms appeared on the shelves of the capital's markets a few days ago. To the question: “Where do chanterelles come from?” - the sellers grin: “Local, from the Moscow region.” But it turned out that the traders were lying. Mushrooms are now mainly brought to the capital from the Vladimir region.

That's where I decided to go. I think I’ll buy it there and then resell it in Moscow. I'll try my hand at the mushroom business...

"COME EARLY!"

A mushroom picker I know, Volodya, advised me to go and stock up at the market in the Vladimir town of Sobinka, which is 150 km from Moscow. Local residents bring goods from the surrounding forests here. I leave by car at nine in the morning, but due to traffic jams I arrive in Sobinka only at noon. Here I am disappointed: there are no mushrooms on the shelves!

Son, you should have come in the evening! - the grandmother selling blueberries pities me. - Mushrooms are picked early in the morning. Buyers come to us for them, with boxes. And they buy in bulk.

Yeah, and give them only small mushrooms, they don’t take big ones so that they don’t rot in a few days,” the woman mutters displeasedly from a nearby point. - And the money they pay for this is meager - only 100 rubles per kilo of chanterelles!

Women persuade me to buy berries from them. A one and a half liter jar of blueberries sells for just a hundred.

Cheaper - only in the forest! - grandmothers pass me the berries. - And since you really want mushrooms, go to Lakinsk.

Lakinsk is a town about the same size as Sobinka. Many people here don’t have a job, so they look forward to the fruit and berry season like a vacation in Anapa.

And they sold the mushrooms! - happy local resident Egor throws up his hands. He had already managed to exchange the rubles he had earned for vodka.

And this is how it is every day,” his wife Marina sighs, looking sideways at Yegor. - We go to the forest together in the morning, and this guy drinks almost all his money...

WHERE WE COLLECTED, WHERE WE SOLD

We managed to find the mushrooms only on the way back. From traders on the side of the Moscow-Nizhny Novgorod federal highway. Their prices are outrageous: a kilogram of chanterelles costs three hundred!

Nevertheless, at the forest market (about thirty people trade here) there is a whole line of foreign cars: drivers willingly buy mushrooms and berries.

Why are they so expensive? - I ask the sellers, nodding at the chanterelles. - Did you bring them from Kamchatka?

Not from Kamchatka. - The woman looks at me with condemnation. - And dear ones, because there are few mushrooms these days...

For the sake of experiment, I buy two bags (each containing about a kilo of mushrooms). 250 rubles per bag.

What if there are chanterelles and toadstools mixed there? - I ask suspiciously.

There are no toadstools there! “We’ve been selling here for seven years, no one has complained,” the aunt shrugged it off.

“Well, yes,” I think, “whoever eats toadstools will not come to be indignant...”

MARKET SECRETS

I decide to resell the purchased mushrooms on the same day. Returning to the capital, I head to the indoor market - “Butyrsky”. There are no places inside the market: they are bought here in advance. I sit down at the exit, next to the grandmothers. They sell berries and vegetables here every day.

Are they driving you out of here? - I turn to my neighbor, who is sorting out strawberries.

Why! - she exclaims. - Every other day they scare me.

Do they require money?

“What can we, old women, take from us,” she sighs and drawls: “We buy strawberries, fresh, just from the garden!”

And we take mushrooms! - I pick it up and for some reason add: - From the forest.

People look at my goods with caution.

How much are you selling mushrooms, guy? - the plump lady asks me sternly.

Three hundred! For the package! - I name the price. But I think to myself: I need to make some money...

This morning I saw that the same number of mushrooms were sold for 200, and you were selling for 300,” the woman mutters. - Huckster!

It's a shame: I bought the bag myself for 250!

“Don’t worry,” my neighbor reassures me. And she looks at my jar of blueberries: “How much do you sell the berries?”

Berries? For 200. - I am modestly silent about the fact that I bought them for 100.

Granny grabs my one and a half liters of blueberries and pours the berries into glasses. Each - 120 rubles. She got five glasses from my jar. Total - 600 rubles. This is the market economy...

My grandmother’s blueberries were sorted out in just half an hour. And she again began to sort through her strawberries, laying out the rotten berries with their whole side up.

If they notice, I’ll say that it was rained on,” the woman says conspiratorially.

In theory, all goods on the market should be checked by sanitary doctors. But no one came to me for several hours. Either they didn’t notice, or they decided that there was nothing to take from me...

An obese pensioner next door sells pickles. Transfers them from the basin to jars. One cucumber slips out of your hands and falls onto the asphalt. Grandma picks it up and puts it in the jar.

It'll turn sour! - I’m surprised.

They’ll eat it... - the grandmother waves her hand, yawning. And he advises:

And you can’t sell your mushrooms today. Go to the metro! People will come home from work and buy up.

I collect the goods and trudge to the Savelovskaya metro station. I stand like a poor relative, holding mushrooms in my hands.

About 30 minutes later a man stopped next to me.

How much do you sell mushrooms?

I look at the sun-dried foxes. And I hide my eyes in shame:

Get both packages for 300...

No, I'm not much of a trader. I took the chanterelles for 500. I sold them for 300...

While walking home, I counted my losses: on a trip to the Vladimir region I spent 700 rubles on gasoline, 500 on mushrooms, and another 100 on berries. Total 1300. Only 500 rubles were returned back - 200 was earned for berries, 300 for mushrooms.

But if I had bought mushrooms from the aborigines in bulk, about twenty kilograms at a time, on the cheap, then I would have stayed in the black. Judge for yourself: for 20 kilos in Sobinka I would give two thousand rubles. Plus 700 rubles for gasoline. Total expenses are 2700 rubles. In Moscow markets, a kilogram of fresh forest mushrooms costs 400 rubles. If you manage to sell, you will get 8,000. Taking into account expenses - 5,300 rubles of net profit!

Very often, it is the issues of selling their products, including their certification, that become a stumbling block for beginning entrepreneurs. Which can be especially annoying for a person who is one step away from realizing his dream - creating a profitable environmentally friendly mushroom production. The Center for Environmental Programs is ready to provide support with the sale of finished products to everyone who wants to realize their dream!

Let's try to list all possible sales channels for mushrooms:

1. Retail- with its stores of various formats comes to mind first. A mushroom grower can offer his products for sale to another entrepreneur who has his own small store. It is also possible to rent a place at the market and sell mushrooms yourself. Large chain stores most likely will not allow a small manufacturer on their shelves - they are interested in supply volumes of several tons.

Of course, in order to be allowed to trade food products in our country, you need to complete the appropriate documentation:

A-you must register as an individual entrepreneur or as a legal entity;

B- have legally obtained technical specifications for your products (you will most likely have to buy them);

IN- issue a certificate of conformity for your products at the Center for State Sanitary and Epidemiological Surveillance;

G- provide quality certificates for each batch of products offered for sale.

2. Wholesale- it is quite possible that your offer will be of interest to a reseller at a wholesale base or the owner of a small network of vegetable stalls. In this case, having lost in price, you will save time and effort.

3. Canteens, cafes, restaurants- what was previously called catering, and now the newfangled word ferret. Naturally, the owners of catering establishments are interested in the freshness and quality of products and, of course, will be glad to see your supplies.

4. Sales through friends- you (and perhaps your employees) probably have friends who love mushrooms; they have friends with the same tastes. By organizing trade “by appointment” and making arrangements for delivery, you will find a large number of consumers of your products.

5. Recycling- the disadvantage of all of the above distribution channels is the seasonality of demand. As a rule, in Russia there is a huge demand for mushrooms in winter. Especially during holidays and fasting. In summer, demand decreases significantly. In order not to experience interruptions in the sale of mushrooms, it is best to be able to offer them to processing industries. After all, mushrooms can be frozen, dried, pickled, or pickled. They are also used in the preparation of various types of cheeses, pates, dumplings, dumplings and pizzas, after all.

6. And finally, the most convenient option that insures all your risks. You can donate fresh mushrooms to our company. At the same time, you do not need to register as a legal entity or individual entrepreneur, you do not need to buy technical specifications, you do not need to certify your mushrooms, you do not need to issue a quality certificate. There is no need to even buy anything from our company. We will simply accept all your mushrooms at a price of up to 120 rubles. for 1 kilogram without any problems.