Show Millard Count) Chronicle Progress - Fillmore farm thrives Mushrooms popularity never at stake It s' trom the lamily Agaricaceae (which already doesn’t make it sound too good) and on top of that it has close kinship to bacteria molds toadstools smuts and rusts Ycech! puffballs Why anyone would have ever thought of tastebut a sampling one is beyond our understanding lot of us are sure glad he or she took that first nibble of the Incredible Edible Mushroom Picture the world without a mushroom Nothing sauteed for atop your steak No school of Cordon Bleu We may have had to think of a life with no Julia Childs But we were saved by some spices of prehistoric manwoman grubbing around in the dark of a cave and discovering the delectable little tidbits by What with innate inquisitiveness chance Paleolithic Person probably took a bite not unlike Adam with the apple Next he wondemi if there might be room for this tasty morsel in the pot in which he boiled up his daily ration of mush On inspection he found some and utterd “Ah mush room!" (You have a more plausible explanation we’ll listen to it) Whatever mushrooms have been with us for a lot of milleniums They most likely developed in the rich black soil and forests of what is today’s Northern And their Europe popularity spread from there once it was learned you could grow them in a shoe box in your clothes closet We are in fact growing them right here in Millard County Not in shoe boxes and clothes closets of course We have ourselves a big operation here in Fillmore It’s an education to go down to the Mushroom King plant and chat with Ralph Horia the farm's manager When Horia talks of the fungi you should listen He knows of what he speaks This guy was born on a mushroom farm It’s doubtful that any other county resident can make that statement Ask a stupid question such as “How many acres of mushrooms do you harvest here?" and the San Jose Calif native will politely correct you with “We don’t talk acres in the business We refer to square feet" And then he tells you “We pick from 101000 square feet here every week” That breaks down to about 30000 pounds of the little goodies every seven days And they double in size every 24 we’re talking some big bucks hours S625 million worth of around Somewhere mushrooms annually So eats them? Well just about everybody in America old enough to have developed a taste for the better things in life Horia says and yet he doesn’t want you to consider mushrooms a luxury food Trouble is we’re not eating enough of them to satisfy the grower Man for man the Canadians eat twice as many mushrooms as Americans And the French? Mon Dieu! They eat mushrooms with everything They sprinkle mushrooms on their cornflakes They use them in martinis in place of olives They pour mushroom sauce like Americans pour flour gravy The Frenchman worships mushrooms like he does Joan d’ Arc Bastille Day the Eiffel Tower and Brigette Bardot The French would sooner give up their precious vin their harsh Gallauiscs their risque postcards and their air space before surrendering their mushrooms But back to Fillmore is Mushroom’s here but three one of King facility in the company And it is the smallest The two other farms located in Ventura Calif and Salem Ore produce an additional 730000 pounds of mushrooms per week Give or take a pound or two here and there and we’re talking 43 million pounds of mushrooms per year Most of the products stay in the West Horia said They’re shipped in baskets 20 to a box to brokers and supermarkets in Salt Lake City Denver Boise and Pocatello And all leave here fresh King tries to hold its canned mushroom operation “to zero” Horia says “There is too much competition from the (cheap labor) markets of Tiawan and Korea” Mushrooms this day at Duane’s Market in Fillmore are selling for 99 cents a pound The same quantity and quality at Duane’s has sold for as low at 79 cents and as high as SI 29 It’s all a matter of supply and demand Duane’s deals primarily in Medium” It seems to be the most the “No popular with the American housewife King with a staff of 130 is the largest employer on that side of the county About half of the employees are Asians people particularly skilled The in the growing and harvesting of mushrooms other half is made up of locals Horia at the plant for the last three years made the transition from previous owners Castle & Cook Dole con(a subsidiary of the glomerate) to King 13 months ago He says the operation has been made more efficient productivity has increased by about 20000 pounds per week and the company has trimmed its executive structure to bare necessities Space here does not allow for a detailed accounting of how mushrooms progress from fungi to But Horia assures us it all begins in a laboratory and is eventfully shipped here packed in rye seeds and then placed in wooden beds to await nine weeks before harvesting begins The time is by no means One needs to develop a sense of “sight and smell” to know when the hour is right It is not something one learns in an class room One thing is for certain: it is all scientific and under the strictest of controlled accomplished conditions You might think about that the next time you’re enjoying your steak - or sipping a martini a la Francais "What’s past is prologue” FO SPAKE SHAKESPEARE WILLIAM Where we haw been and where we is largely a matter of internal pride In the real world it's only history But the wars served us well Since our beginnings 25 wars ago with the acquisition o( a rural telephone exchange serving an Illinois community of 2 it X) customers Cornel has grown to become the nation's third largest operating telephone It was company a start Our place in the regulated telephone environment has led to are today poration providing information services to growing businesses and domestic and conglomerates offshore governments Cornel is positioned among the comfortably Forbes 5x) financially stable with 54 2 billion in assets and remains the youngest company ewr admitted to the NYSE What's past is prologue Yesterday diversification within the telecommunications industry and the evolution of a cor For all your telephone service and Custom Calling needs call: Residential — Business — Continental Telephone System the telephone company" million tomers states to two cus- in 51 Today "the information services corporation" with presence on three continents It isn't so much where we have been It's where we are going Confidently Ralph Horio manager of Mushroom King's Fillmore operation |