Tvedemose is Denmark’s undisputed largest producer of mushrooms and specialty fungi. With over 60 years of experience, the company is highly focused on sustainability and innovation. Owner Jens Christian and his son Frederik, together with Tvedemose’s dedicated team, pour their heart and soul into growing top-quality mushrooms—some of which end up on the menus of gourmet restaurants.
The 33 growing rooms house 11,250 meters of shelving or 13,500 m² of growing surface. Each year, Tvedemose produces over 2,800 tons of mushrooms—accounting for 80% of Denmark’s total mushroom production.
Chicken Manure, Gypsum, and Straw on the Menu
Organic mushrooms grow in a layer quite different from your average garden bed. Instead, there is a carefully designed process behind the nutrient substrate, one that Tvedemose manages themselves. The full process typically takes about eight weeks.
The main components are horse bedding and chicken manure, both rich in nitrogen and other essential nutrients. Key additives include straw and gypsum. These improve the structure of the substrate, while gypsum regulates pH levels, reduces ammonia, and adds calcium and sulfur—critical elements for mushroom development.
Challenge, solution and results
The chicken manure comes partly from Tvedemose’s own poultry farm on Lolland. It used to be mixed with straw and gypsum using a standard loader bucket. This was time-consuming and gave uneven results. They still use a wheel loader, but now it’s equipped with a special ALLU bucket.
Jens Christian says: “We still rough-mix chicken manure, gypsum, and straw the usual way, but then we use a very important tool—our ALLU bucket. The ALLU bucket is equipped with axe blades that mix the three ingredients like nothing we’ve seen before. More importantly, it crushes the lumps of chicken manure down to near powder, which releases nutrients throughout the entire mix.”
This results in a very homogeneous material—ideal for mushroom growing. With the ALLU bucket DL2-17 equipped with TS08 axe blades, mixing the substrate has become significantly easier. The resulting material releases nutrients much more effectively to the growing mushrooms.
After the ALLU bucket has mixed and refined the raw materials, they’re laid in large piles, watered, and regularly turned for about a week. This promotes microbial activity and gives compost with the right carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. Another week is spent removing unwanted spores and bacteria through heat treatment and driving off ammonia via evaporation.
Next, the compost is mixed with mushroom spores. After sitting for three weeks, the perfect substrate is ready for the growing rooms. In just 14 days, the first mushrooms are ready to be hand-picked by Tvedemose’s dedicated workers. “That’s more or less how we do it,” Jens Christian says.
The customer story was originally published on the CBS Wearparts website.
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