Success Story: Engineer Couple Turns Pandemic Loss into ₹15 Crore Mushroom Empire

New Delhi: Poonam Sharma and Naveen Patwal, an engineer couple from Pauri Garhwal, Uttarakhand, have built a thriving business in exotic mushrooms after learning valuable lessons from a major setback. Today, their brand, Planet Mushroom, boasts an annual turnover of ₹15 crore.

Learning from the Lockdown
The couple, both with engineering backgrounds, faced a loss of ₹2 crore during the COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. At that time, three tons of button mushrooms destined for Delhi’s Azadpur Mandi went to waste due to the sudden market closure. This disaster taught them two key lessons: never depend on a single buyer and diversify beyond a product with a very short shelf life.

Diversification Strategy
Taking the lessons to heart, Poonam and Naveen diversified into exotic mushrooms such as shiitake, lion’s mane, king oyster, reishi, and cordyceps, launching their Planet Mushroom brand in 2020. These mushrooms are highly nutritious, flavorful, and sell for ₹1,000–1,200 per kilo, with dried varieties fetching ₹8,000 wholesale and ₹12,000 retail per kilo. By 2022, they had obtained “mother culture” for shiitake cultivation and expanded into other exotic varieties using their existing infrastructure.

Building the Business
Initially, they faced challenges selling their first 20 kilos of shiitake mushrooms at Delhi’s INA Market, with buyers offering far below market prices. They realized the importance of eliminating middlemen and selling directly to customers. Within two months, they set up a retail outlet, launched a website, and began marketing via social media. Today, their unit produces 3.5 tons of button mushrooms daily, along with 100 kilos of each exotic variety, generating an annual turnover of ₹15 crore.

A Landmark Achievement
One of their biggest accomplishments is successfully cultivating wild morel mushrooms (gucchi) in a polyhouse. Inspired by seeing locals forage gucchi in forests, they experimented in 2022 and, by December 2024, harvested 100 kilos of fresh morels from 100 sq. meters, which dried down to 13 kilos.

This inspiring story demonstrates how a determined couple turned pandemic losses into a highly profitable business, learning from mistakes and leveraging innovation to achieve success in Uttarakhand’s mushroom industry.