Connor McCrorie loves talking about and selling his unique mushrooms to local people, especially at markets such as the iconic St George’s in Belfast city centre. And there’s very little he doesn’t know about mushrooms and extracts such as powders for healthy drinking.
Sporeshore, the small enterprise he’s created outside Ballywalter, County Down, is developing an impressive reputation for fresh mushrooms and innovative extracts.
His love for all types of mushrooms developed while foraging for herbs and other edible plants in northern Canada with friends. The passion for fungi led the 30-year-old Bangor native to set up a novel urban farm near the sea shore at Ballywalter – hence Sporeshore, the funky identify of his small company.
Formed last year, Sporeshore is now winning customers for his many varieties of mushrooms and extracts at Bangor’s Saturday market, Saintfield and at others here, as well as St George’s.
He’s currently on the lookout for other opportunities to sell the fresh and natural produce from his small farm, especially to hotels and restaurants in Belfast and other parts of Northern Ireland.
He’s a surprising farmer with little experience in growing mushrooms before setting up the farm. His background is in law, a graduate from the Ulster University.
He didn’t fancy a career as a solicitor or a lawyer and decided to look elsewhere. He’s a bit of a wanderer at heart, deciding instead “to see a bit of the world” before settling down in a career that suited him.
Connor decided to take a year out to travel the world before pursuing a career. “While it was great to have achieved a law degree, I wasn’t really keen on working my way up in the profession in a solicitor’s office,” he explains.
He packed his rucksack and booked flights that would see him touching down in South America.
“I have always been fascinated by countries there, especially Argentina, Brazil and Chile,” he continues.
“I wasn’t at all worried about my lack of fluency in Spanish,” he says. “I was just excited by the prospect of seeing South America, visiting exotic centres such as Santiago and Rio de Janeiro, and experiencing the various cultures and cuisines there. I was keen to learn as much as possible,” he adds.
Connor decided the best way to experience and enjoy the cultures and meet ordinary people was on a bicycle. He bought his wheels in Rio de Janeiro and set out on a journey of adventure that would take him to Patagonia on the southern tip and then north through Argentina, Chile and Peru.
“It was a fascinating trip in which I covered upwards of 3,000 miles on the bike,” Connor continues. “I met many friendly and helpful people who made my adventure a really interesting experience.
“And I learned a great deal from farmers and others living off the land about foraging for natural food. I enjoyed so many different foods, especially from the street food stalls so prevalent in many cities and towns,” he adds.
He worked on farms and even a cattle ranch, “dreaming of one day running my own small holding”.
Connor then travelled north to Canada’s British Columbia to stay with friends. “I was encouraged to travel there by a former girlfriend and to learn more about foraging for edible herbs and other natural foods in northern Canada.”
The foraging took the intrepid adventurer… and his trusty bicycle… to chilly Alaska and the frozen Yukon.
Armed with a wealth of experience and knowledge gained foraging for mushrooms in particular, Connor decided to give his bike a rest and caught a flight from Vancouver to London and then to Northern Ireland.
“I arrived back in Bangor in 2017 with no clear idea about what I wanted to do for a living,” he remembers.
“I was keen to put my knowledge of mushrooms, especially from Canada, to good use by starting to grow my own. I was fortunate enough to find a patch of suitable land at Ballywalter.”
He quickly set up a small laboratory on the farm for the initial cultivation of mushroom spores and the varieties of edible fungi.
“There are upwards of 10,000 different types of mushrooms around the world,” he continues. ‘Mushrooms are healthy in that they are low in calories, low in fat, low in sodium, and help reduce cholesterol. They are also full of fibre, vitamins, and minerals.”
In addition to an impressive variety of mushrooms picked by him by hand on the farm, Connor has created products with oil extracted from Chaga and Lion’s Mane mushrooms, which are also reported to be both nutritious and healthy.
Chaga extract, for example, has been described as a “nutrient-dense superfood” that slows the aging process, lowers cholesterol, helps fight cancer, supports the immune system, lowers blood sugar and fights inflammation.
“Families in Siberia and Russia have been depending on Chaga and Lion’s Mane mushrooms for generations as a medical support,” he says.
“I enjoy talking to people at the local markets about the distinctively different extracts. I am delighted to say that sales are growing as increasingly numbers of shoppers try the products.”
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