The Urban Mushroom Guys – 2010 BusinessWeek Top 25 Social Entrepreneurs

100% sustainable urban mushroom farm

By Sarah Henry
Berkeleyside
Nov 12th, 2010

Excerpt:

There’s so much buzz around the fledgling food business launched last year by two former University of California at Berkeley students, that you’d think they were pumping out premium honey.

BTTR Ventures, run by Hass School of Business grads Nikhil Arora and Alejandro (Alex) Velez, has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, and on the BBC.

Launched on Earth Day last year, the company has also won a steady stream of awards for its innovative, socially conscious, green business.

The pair, both 23, were named among America’s most promising social entrepreneurs by Business Week this year and in the top 25 of young entrepreneurs by the same publication last year.

What are they doing? Well, they’re in the mushroom business: using recycling coffee grounds (from Peet’s Coffee & Tea) they produce spore starter kits so people can grow their own oyster mushrooms at home. It’s part of a zero-waste system that diverts 7,000 pounds of coffee grounds a week into a delicious and nutritious food source. Their production process also results in nutrient-dense soil amendment suitable for fruit and vegetable gardens.

Read the complete article here.

Their website “Back to the Roots” here.