The Quest for Giorgio Mushrooms

One part of this food blog assignment is to follow a product back to its original source. I decided to trace back some fresh mushrooms that my mother purchased at our regular grocery store. I have never traced a food product back before so I thought I better start with the label. I googled Giorgio mushrooms and was surprised to discover that they have their own website. Giorgio claims to be America's favorite mushroom(I thought they were pretty good!) and their company began in 1928 in Temple, PA. From their website I discovered that all of their mushrooms(millions of pounds a year) are grown in one of their three farms and picked by hand. I also learned that Giorgio seems to have very high standards for their company,their motto refers to continuous improvement and the are a Integrated Pest Management company. IPM is a system of pest management which has three stages prevention, observation, and intervention. This system of pest management stresses pest management, not pest eradication, and prevention. Giorgio's website claims, " Giorgio, we use pesticides only when absolutely necessary. We limit the amount of chemicals applied by using other, non-chemical and natural pest control techniques to reduce pest damage. These steps include shortening crop cycles, pest exclusion, sound growing practices that produce healthy, disease-resistant crops, and strict farm sanitation. Furthermore, we implement the latest research to win the battle against pests." The cans used for Giorgio's canned products are made in a factory right next to their farm and an another factory nearby in Pennsylvania. Giorgio Foods has a slide show of the growing process from start to finish on their website and encouraged people to visit the farms and take a tour!The slide show can be viewed here http://www.giorgiofoods.com/index.php?p=25.Overall, I didn't find out exactly where the mushrooms came from but the transparency of this company is really comforting and impressive!

These are the mushrooms from Giorgio Foods.