Introducing Forest Bounty Wild Harvested Mushrooms.

Forest bounty is comprised of four longtime friends: Hunt Paddison, Mira Warner, Thomas Reilly, and Tracy Funck. We are a very small (just the four of us!) company that became established in 2016. All of us grew up in the northwest corner of this country, and will always call this special and beautiful place home. This region contains large and unspoiled tracts of healthy and robust forests filled with hundreds of lakes, undammed rivers and crystal-clear streams. Those forests abound with a dizzying variety of life. Life that is sustained by lush green forage, pristine springs, rivers, and most importantly to us, soils that have never seen any kind of man-made disturbance, chemical or otherwise. The concept that brought this company into existence was and will always be a desire to share our knowledge, passion, and access to a very unique and special food source with others… and that food source is none other than wild mushrooms.

Wild mushrooms are highly prized amongst culinary professionals as well as home cooks for their varied and unique textures, deep, earthy, subtle, and nuanced flavors, robust nutritional profiles, and myriad of health benefits. We here at Forest Bounty will all enthusiastically attest, from our own personal experiences, to the absolute deliciousness that these mushrooms offer! Their value isn’t simply aesthetic, either. Wild mushrooms boast a bountiful array of nutritional benefits: They contain very high protein levels for plant specie, are low in calories, and are cholesterol-free. But most importantly, they are a great whole-food source of micronutrients. They contain dietary fiber and well over a dozen vitamins and minerals including, but not limited to copper, magnesium, zinc, and several B-vitamins, including folate. Mushrooms are high in antioxidants like selenium, glutathione, and ergothionene, which can help protect cells from free radical damages and reduce chronic disease and inflammation. A mushrooms nutritional offerings are highly influenced by its environment, as they are incredibly sensitive and responsive plants. They are nature’s own network of nutrient, chemical, and information transfer, they can vary greatly in their levels of possible benefit (or even harm). I’ll use an analogy here, to better illustrate this: It is best to avoid seafood from unclean waters, as they may concentrate possibly harmful substances and/or chemical compounds. This is why we feel that our product is so special, and valuable. Our mushrooms are harvested from clean and healthy environments with little to no evidence of man-made alterations. These ecosystems are wild, intact, vibrant, and fruitful. There are no pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, or man-made fertilizer of any kind that ever contact our product. Therefore, that product offers a purer, and more highly concentrated amount of these beneficial and necessary nutrients, while containing none of the chemicals or toxins that may be found in conventionally grown mushrooms. As the saying goes “You are what you eat”. We at Forest Bounty feel that you are not only what you eat, but you are what your food eats as well.

Here's Forest Bounty's harvest and handling protocol:

We are firm are firm advocates of transparency, accountability, and trust in food sourcing.

An intimate knowledge of mushrooms, both edible and inedible, is of paramount importance for any mushroom forager. There are wild mushrooms that can cause illness, so it is our duty to ensure there is absolutely zero chance that we will harvest any species that is not safe. We rely on expert sources, both from other highly experienced harvesters, and from taxonomical guides, books, and software to ensure we are 100% certain of the variety of mushrooms we pick. Once we have properly identified the species, we select only the highest quality specimens on site. The mushrooms are handled very gently, and all harvesting is done entirely by hand. We are guided by a basic set of rules when harvesting mushrooms:

#1. Be 100% certain of the species you are picking, 99.9% does not cut it.

#2. Harvest only from clean, undisturbed sites well away from any road, regardless of whether they are paved or gravel or dirt. We also avoid trails and any other areas of potential human traffic.

#3. Harvest ethically, sustainably, and responsibly. We are ever aware that we are removing a wild, natural, uncultivated, and therefore degradable element of the natural world. We know how important these species are to the ecological health of the environments they reside in, and to the animals, insects, microorganisms, and plants that rely on them as a resource. In order to be certain that proper ecological balance is maintained, we only remove a portion of any populations that we find and harvest from. We never, ever remove all of the mushrooms we see. It is our policy to leave more mushrooms undisturbed and on site than we harvest.

All of the mushrooms we sell have been picked by one of the four of us, that’s it. There are no breaks in the chain of custody. They are in our hands all the way from the forest floor to the bag, ready for shipping. There is no supplier, middle man, or broker. We are proud of our product, and we will ensure that is remains pristine and unadulterated on its way to you. We absolutely promise you that these mushrooms are second to none when it comes to proper identification, product purity, responsible harvesting, and quality control.

Processing and Packaging: Once the mushrooms are removed from the forest we clean them thoroughly by hand. Each individual mushroom is gently washed in cool, clean, running water. Dirt and debris are removed by careful and meticulous hand brushing using clean soft brushes. Once cleaned, the mushrooms are then dried. We dry our product slowly, over the course of many hours, using very, very gentle heat. This allows the mushrooms to retain the best texture, aroma, flavor, and nutritional quality. Once properly dried, the mushrooms are packaged and sealed into airtight bags and stored in a clean, cool, and dry environment until they are ready for use. At each step of the process we are continually running quality control. Each mushroom has been inspected no less than three times on its way to the final packaging. Any that we deem are not up to our standards, we simply do not sell.

We are very excited to be able to offer these unique, delicious, nutritious, wild and rare food with you. We hope that you will find them as wonderful as we do.