What do coffee and mushrooms have in common? A great deal! The mushroom manufacturer Hut&Stiel grows oyster mushrooms sustainably on coffee grounds in Vienna’s 22nd district.
In mid-September, 3rd semester students of the Bachelor’s program in Tourism & Hospitality Management an their lecturer Andrea Strohmayer visited the “Hut&Stiel” city farm. As part of the specialization “Gastro & Culinary Management” there was a guided tour of the farm, a tasting of the products and a lot of background knowledge about the company.
The focus in the 3rd semester is on sustainable businesses / suppliers for the gastronomy and culinary industry in Vienna. The Viennese mushroom farm fits in particularly well. With coffee grounds, they obtain a resource that is almost infinitely available in a large city like Vienna. Instead of ending up in the residual waste, the coffee grounds are collected from Viennese coffee houses, restaurants, commercial kitchens and offices. Then it is processed into mushroom substrate and used as a breeding ground for oyster mushrooms.
Thanks to a regional network of dealers and restaurants, transport distances are also kept short, as most of the buyers are located in Vienna. The students particularly enjoyed the tasting, where they could try the oyster mushrooms “pure”, but also in processed form as sausages, spread, sugo or goulash.
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