Fungibras Indústria e Comércio em Fungicultura Ltda.
Production process based on equipment developed with PIPE’s aid
expands both company’s market and mushroom cultivation in Brazil

Lívia Komar

Surrounded by bags of sawdust in an air-conditioned room, Fungibras’ employees organize the lots of mushroom matrixes that are going to be delivered on the following day. Barefoot, one of the partners, the agronomy engineer Guilherme Castilho Da Eira, gives directions to two staff members that work in the laboratory about how to store the company’s main product: substratum with mycelium for sterilized cultivation of different mushroom species. Mycelium is the name of the stem that is taken from the mushroom’s top from which the fungus multiplies; the substratum, a mixture of sawdust, bran, limestone and water, comprises the favorable environment for its proliferation. Depending on what has been ordered, the mycelium species that Fungibras lab puts in the substratum varies. The most common are edible ones, such as shimeji, shitake or champignon. But there are those who want to grow medicinal mushrooms, which Fungibras also supplies.

The company, in operation since 2003, is located in the Industrial District of Botucatu, a city 235 kilometers (146 miles) from São Paulo. The region surrounding Botucatu is one of Brazil’s most prosperous in mushroom culture. The State of São Paulo’s output accounts for about 70 percent of all mushrooms produced in the country – the leading producer is Mogi das Cruzes, in the São Paulo Metropolitan Area. Botucatu proper is not so important in this market, but the company wants to explore the niche of the big producers in the region, cities like Jaú, Barra Bonita and Sorocaba, by offering what can be described as a type of “cradle” for the cultivation of these fungi.

It was the agronomy engineer Augusto Ferreira Da Eira, a PhD in agricultural agri-biology, who had the idea of creating Fungibras. The company is sort of an extension of his work in the area of microbiology at the Botucatu campus of the São Paulo State University (Universidade Estadual Paulista, Unesp), where he was a researcher in the segment of fungiculture for 35 years. Da Eira, Sr. combined his longstanding experience with fungi with the inexistence of substrata producers in Botucatu. The composite Fungibras sells to the region’s producers comes already with the mycelia – which are produced in the laboratory “with no pesticides, so they may be considered organic,” he highlights. So all the producer has to do is placing the mesh in an air-conditioned chamber and wait for the mushrooms to sprout.

Guilherme and Frederico Castilho Da Eira, Da Eira, Sr.’s sons, who are agronomy engineers as well, have taken over the company. Fungibras’ fungi production process is “axenic” – meaning that it’s free of other organisms, because the substrata undergo a sterilization process to prevent pests and diseases in the final product. This methodology is different from the in natura technique, in which the mycelia are injected directly into wood stumps, still very common in Brazil, including in Mogi das Cruzes. “In wood stumps the process may take between six months and one year. Our process is more controlled. When the right time comes up the mushroom sprouts,” explains Da Eira, Sr. He points to a bag of brownish substratum inside the incubation room. The color is an indication of maturation, only 30 days after the process started. “That’s important for keeping the market share. The merchant wants to get so many kilograms of mushrooms every week. If your production is unreliable you’ll lose your customer. Our process is more dependable,” he assures.

Fungi are no kings in Brazil

Mushrooms were introduced in Brazil from China in the 1950s, and the first cultures were developed in Mogi das Cruzes. But even though they are rich in vitamins, proteins and minerals, mushrooms are still not very popular in Brazil.

In the kingdom of fungi more than 250,000 species have been catalogued, of which about 2,000 are edible. Mushroom world production increased by 60 percent in the past ten years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Faostat). Despite the increase in world production, estimated in 3.19 million tons a year, Brazil remains behind in terms of consumption. In 2004, it is estimated that the country consumed 8,000 tons. Brazilians consider mushrooms exotic; besides, some of them can be poisonous; and they cost a lot. “Mushrooms are expensive because it’s expensive to produce them. Investments and production costs are very high. In order to stay in the market one has to have a reasonable structure,” explains Guilherme Da Eira, who points out the fact that Brazil’s tropical climate requires especial care. Prices vary from about US$ 4.50 a kilo for champignon, the most popular type in the country, to almost US$ 10 a kilo for shitake and shimeji, which are very common in Japanese cuisine.

At São Paulo’s huge Companhia de Entrepostos e Armazéns Gerais de São Paulo (Ceagesp), the city’s main food market, of the hundreds of modules and boxes not a single one sells just mushrooms. According to Alessandro França Paula, owner of Granada Hortifruti, one of São Paulo’s mushroom distributors, the fungi account for about 30 percent of his sales. “The largest customers are hotels and restaurants. The big consumer of mushrooms in Brazil is the middle class,” he says.

PIPE in 2004

Fungibras is Botucatu’s single producer of substratum, but in Brazil as a whole it faces competition. All companies that use the substratum methodology work with autoclaves to sterilize the mesh in which the mycelia are injected. It’s a difficult, costly process. The substratum is packed into small plastic bags, which are placed inside the equipment and exposed to high temperatures. Fungibras also began producing its substrata with autoclaves. But Da Eira, Sr.’s research pointed to an easier path. He designed and created what he named Esterilizador Homogeneizador, or Homogenizer Sterilizer, a 2.5 meter (8.2 ft) high device that resembles a concrete mixer. While showing it he proudly lists the characteristics he has developed for it that made possible a tenfold production increase. The main advantage compared to the autoclave system is the dynamic sterilization — there’s no need to pack the substratum. The inventor explains: “Once you close the scuttle very hot water comes in to heat up the machine and the material. The steam that is used for sterilization is generated inside it. Then on the following day the inoculation is carried out. No other company in Brazil has that. In other countries there are similar processes, but they’re not as efficient as ours,” he says.

According to him, the device, which has a capacity of 1.5 tons, processes in a single day what through autoclave would take ten. “We’ve gained efficacy while saving time and personnel,” he emphasizes. The substratum is taken out of the sterilizer through a door connected internally to one of the building’s three laboratories, a totally sterile environment which, due to the axenic production, must have insulating walls, an air insufflator and a refrigeration system.

In order to build his innovating equipment, Da Eira, Sr. in 2004, one year after the company had been created, applied to The State of São Paulo Research Foundation (Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Fapesp) for funding, through its Programa Inovação Tecnológica em Pequenas Empresas (Technological Innovation in Small Businesses Program, PIPE). In this first phase, with a US$ 39,000 loan, he was able to produce a prototype of the device and test it. The positive, promising results led to the company to submit a second project, this time for the program’s Phase II. Fapesp approved it in 2005. With approximately US$ 155,000, Fungibras built a full scale, 5,700-liter (1,500 gallons) machine. The loan also funded the purchase of laboratory material and paid the wages of five scholarship holders, and the project was successfully closed in September of 2007.

Repercussion with patent

From a company that was incubated until September of 2006 at Botucatu’s Núcleo de Desenvolvimento Empresarial (Nucleus for Entrepreneurial Development), Fungibras begins to become known in the market. Owner of a 500-sq. meter (5,382 sq. ft) area, the company, which has seven employees, now starts a new stage, the patenting of the Homogenizer Sterilizer. “The paperwork is ready to be submitted to Fapesp’s Núcleo de Patentes e Licenciamento de Tecnologia [Nucleus of Technology Patents and Licensing, Nuplitec]. What caused delays were the adjustments that had to be made after Phase II. Now Fungibras will be able to patent the tested machine,” explains Da Eira, Sr. As the main argument for requesting the patent the process of dynamic sterilization will be described, as well as the manner in which the substratum is heated, among other differentials.

Fungibras is now getting the return for its research. With the machine in operation since November of 2006, the company has added ten more customers, and now its portfolio has 40. “PIPE financed our idea. Before it we had a small, subsistence market. Now we have the chance to enter fungiculture more aggressively,” he says.
Concerned with the quality of its substrata and of the mycelia, the company began itself to test its products by cultivating a small amount of mushrooms – no more than 600 kilograms (1,322 lbs.) a month in a 300-sq. meter (3,230 sq. ft) warehouse (a mid-size producer of these fungi works with at least twice as much). The strains Fungibras tests are later commercialized.

The company’s capacity for substratum production is approximately 30 tons per month. However, Fungibras still produces only half of that; it expects to get new clients soon in order to fully explore its potential. The expectation is for sales to increase with a marketing campaign that is about to be launched. For the Da Eira family, the excellence of its products is being spread by word of mouth. But the price helps too: Fungibras sells the kilogram of substratum for around US$ .65, compared to US$ .72 the large manufacturers charge.