For orders placed between 28/04/2023 and 08/05/2023, please note that orders will be processed from 09/05/2023.

Being responsible

Our supply sources

Hand picking

Our mushrooms are wild by nature

Most of the mushrooms we sell are hand-picked wild mushrooms. As such, we have no control over the quantities harvested in France, which may vary from one year to the next depending on climatic conditions.

Most French wild mushrooms are consumed by collectors themselves, while some are sold on fresh markets and the rest to restaurants. In good years, we have a few hundred kilos left over that we can use for our customers.

Adapting

Controlled sourcing from all over the world

Without looking to foreign resources, we could not satisfy more than 5% of the French demand for wild mushrooms. Purchasing wild mushrooms from abroad is therefore essential to meet consumer demand.

This also allows us to maintain more than 80 jobs in our production workshops in Saugues, in the Haute-Loire department. Our foreign supplies (Balkans, Carpathians, Turkey, Yunnan Province in China, Chile, North America, etc.) mean that we are not dependent on the climatic variations and annual harvests. What’s more, they allow us to source varieties of mushrooms with flavours and aromatic qualities that are often different from those that can be found in France.

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Climate and change

A changed nature

For the past few decades, fewer and fewer mushrooms have been harvested in France. For economic reasons, foresters have replaced native trees (Scots pine or spruce) with other varieties that grow faster and are therefore more profitable (e.g. Douglas fir for timber construction). As a result, the composition of the soil has changed. It has become more acidic and edible mushrooms no longer grow.

Under spruce trees, we find five times more porcini mushrooms than under beeches. Under the Douglas fir, it is very simple: there is nothing. Add global warming into the mix and the fact that there are hardly any professional mushroom pickers left today, and you can understand why we need to source our mushrooms from abroad.

Aware of these changes, Maison Borde acts within our local region to encourage the implementation of silviculture programmes favourable to the growth of wild mushrooms. We also plan to support a research thesis on this subject at the University of Montpellier.