FungALL | Sustainable Food

Here at Groundwork, we’re helping young people build their skills confidence and networks so they can make their ideas a reality.

Over the past year, as part of our Green Leaders and Food Wave programmes, we’ve been supporting Thomas & Norton with FungALL.

Their vision for FungALL was to formalise as a local not-for-profit organisation which provides low carbon, mushroom based meals for their community.

They’re now on a mission to expand community mushroom farming to every neighbourhood in the country and to help do so Thomas has shared some fantastic insight into the world of FungALL and how others can start their own sustainable non-profits!

How did you start FungALL?

“The concept of FungALL originated from a final year project at University, Norton’s project visualised how we would tackle the collapse of the food system in a modern society. It blossomed into a love (or obsession) of all things fungi, and all of its powerful potentialities. Me and Norton lived together at this time and I was witness to the mushroom madness that was been cultivated in his bedroom.

A couple years down the line, with a massive helping hand from Groundwork and lots of other partners we were able to start our first mushroom farm on the Merseybank estate in Chorlton, where we now produce up to 70kg of mushrooms a month and provide regular hot meals to the community.”

Did you face any challenges or setbacks?

“Some big challenges at the moment have been getting our farm to produce efficiently, we have encountered ‘technical difficulties’ which have hindered our ability to grow, however we know failing is a big part of the learning process so we aren’t letting it get us down!

We are both finding it challenging to commit to working full time on the business to help grow mushrooms and feed the community without been paid yet, balancing a social life with limited funds during a cost of living crisis is proving difficult but we are very motivated to persevere and make this work.”

What activities have you done so far with the volunteers?

“So far we have hosted loads of volunteer days for people of all ages and backgrounds. When we host a volunteer day the main activities involve basics in mushroom cultivation and preparing the next batch of buckets to grow our mushrooms in!

Substrate preparation and inoculation are the main two activities we get our volunteers on, this teaches them some fundamental of mushroom cultivation techniques. We also get them involved in some community cook-offs, getting people involved in trying to cook different mushroom based dishes while educating them on the benefits of integrating more healthy ingredients into their cooking.”

What has been your favourite part of FungALL so far?

“Feeding people!!!

We love giving away free food and seeing happy faces after a full plate of hot and nutritious food. Helping people access healthy food is what drives us and when we get to witness the people we are helping to feed, its such an inspiring part of what we do.

Meeting such a diverse group of people wanting to learn about mushrooms has also been such an amazing part of the journey. Building our little community around what we are trying to do is magical to be a part of.”

Why is it important to educate others on sustainable food practices?

“Climate change is effecting us all in so many ways and a lot of those ways are becoming increasingly clear and worrying to us all. Having mass amounts of fertile land to grow nutritious food on is becoming more scarce every day, due to un-sustainable agricultural practice. This is something we have taken for granted up till now and if we don’t act sooner rather than later, healthy food is going to become more expensive and harder to access.

This is why learning how to grow your own food locally and sustainably is not only in your own economic interest but in the interest of our beautiful world and all the future generations that will live on here. A source of hope and security for you and your loved ones, that you can put into action right now!”

What tips would you give to people wanting to grow their own mushrooms at home?

“HAVE A GO! And come visit FungALL for some advice. We know that growing mushrooms is quite a weird concept, but that doesn’t make it any less wonderful! I had never previously grown my own mushrooms before starting my journey with FungALL. However, after a couple weeks asking questions to the beautiful mind behind FungALL (Norton), I now grow my own mushrooms at home with confidence. I’m teaching my family how to as well.”

What advice would you give to others wanting to start their own non-profit?

Make sure you are passionate about what you want to achieve.

It is a lot of work and it will be a lot of unpaid work as well. If you’re not 100% motivated by what you want to achieve, you will really struggle to keep going.

Don’t be afraid to try out different ways of doing things.

You need to make mistakes and accept when something doesn’t work. Fail fast, succeed faster! If you’re still working towards the same end goal then it doesn’t matter how you get there!

Keep and eye out for burn out.

Whether its you or your business partners, its very easy to get sucked into working all day every day. If you don’t leave time for yourself, your well-being, and your social life… YOU WILL burn out. This doesn’t help anyone and will slow you down in the long run.

Make sure you maintain perspective.

Its easy to get sucked into what you haven’t achieved yet and lose sight of what you’re doing right now. Okay, you might not have fed 10,000 people yet, but those 100 people you have fed so far love you for that.

Don’t rush!

Building a non-profit is not a fast paced business model. Don’t get disheartened, Rome wasn’t built in a day… Everything takes a lot longer than you think, AND THAT’S FINE! Take your time, make mistakes, have fun, build your network.

How can people get involved with FungALL?

“Check out our website www.fungall.org or Instagram @fungall.cic for the links to apply for volunteering. We want people to come down and get to know us and what we want to do. Seasonally we will also run foraging trips regularly which is always a lovely day out (when its not too cold and / or wet), also keep and eye on our socials for that.

And you help us out the most by sharing our story! Tell everyone you know that a mushroom farming revolution is underway and its name is FungALL.

Mush love to you ALL!”