Ms Orla McManus:

What is affecting the industry right now is not yields. The yield for the mushroom industry has gone from approximately 20 kg per m2 to as high as 36 kg or 40 kg per m2 in some instances. If we bring this alternative in, we will be starting at 20 kg per m2 again. We will not be competitive in the UK market. We hope that retailers will give us a new price for peat-free mushrooms but we all know that this will only hold for so long before they will want the same peat-free mushroom for a conventional price. It is not that using the alternative will make growers unviable.

It is about keeping our growers viable until we have a commercially available alternative that yields at where it needs to be for the growers. It is in the next six to 12 months that we need to make the growers viable but this alternative is not going to be available, even to CMP members, on a 100% scale until 2030.