The first mushrooms appeared on the shelves of the capital's markets a few days ago. To the question: “Where are the chanterelles from?” - the sellers grin: "Local, from the Moscow region." But it turned out that the merchants are cunning. Mushrooms are now mainly brought to the capital from the Vladimir region.

That's where I decided to go. I think I will buy it there, and then resell it in Moscow. I'll try myself in the mushroom business...

"COME EARLY!"

A friend of the mushroom picker Volodya advised me to go stock up on the market in the Vladimir town of Sobinka, which is 150 km from Moscow. Here locals bring goods from the surrounding forests. I leave by car at nine in the morning, but due to traffic jams, I arrive in Sobinka only at noon. Here I am disappointed: there are no mushrooms on the shelves!

Son, you should have come in the evening! - my grandmother, who sells blueberries, takes pity on me. - Mushrooms are picked early in the morning. Buyers come to us for them, with boxes. And they buy in bulk.

Yeah, and give them only small mushrooms, they don’t take large ones so that they don’t rot in a few days, ”a woman from a neighboring point grumbles with displeasure. - And they pay meager money for this - only 100 rubles per kilo of chanterelles!

Women persuade me to buy berries from them. A one and a half liter jar of blueberries is given for only a hundred.

Cheaper - only in the forest! - Granny's berries are passed to me. - And since you really wanted mushrooms, go to Lakinsk.

Lakinsk is a town about the same as Sobinka. Many do not have work here, so the fruit and berry season is expected here, like a vacation in Anapa.

We sold the mushrooms! - throws up his hands a happy local resident Yegor. He has already managed to exchange the earned rubles for vodka.

And like this every day, - looking sideways at Yegor, his wife Marina sighs. - We go to the forest together in the morning, and this one drinks almost all the money ...

WHERE YOU HAVE ASSEMBLED, THERE AND SOLD

Mushrooms were found only on the way back. At the shopkeepers on the side of the federal highway Moscow - Nizhny Novgorod. Their prices are biting: a kilogram of chanterelles - three hundred!

Nevertheless, at the forest market (about thirty people trade here) there is a whole line of foreign cars: drivers willingly buy mushrooms and berries.

Why are they so expensive for you? - I ask the sellers, nodding at the chanterelles. - Did you bring them from Kamchatka?

Not from any Kamchatka. - The woman looks at me with condemnation. - And dear ones, because there are few mushrooms now ...

For the sake of the experiment, I buy two bags (each contains about a kilo of mushrooms). 250 rubles per bag.

And if there are chanterelles with grebes mixed? I ask suspiciously.

There are no bugs there! We have been selling here for seven years, no one complained, - the aunt dismissed.

“Well, yes,” I think, “whoever eats toadstools will no longer come to be indignant ...”

MARKET SECRETS

I decide to resell the purchased mushrooms on the same day. Returning to the capital, I head to the covered market - "Butyrsky". There are no places inside the market: they are bought here in advance. I sit down at the exit, next to the grandmothers. They sell berries and vegetables here every day.

Are you being kicked out of here? - I turn to a neighbor sorting through strawberries.

How! she exclaims. - Through day shuhayut.

Are they asking for money?

What can we take from us, old women, - she sighs and draws in: - We buy strawberries, fresh, only from the garden!

And we take mushrooms! - I pick it up and for some reason add: - From the forest.

People look at my good with apprehension.

Why are you selling mushrooms, boy? - the plump lady asks me sternly.

Three hundred! For the package! - I name the price. And I think to myself: I need to somehow weld ...

I saw in the morning, they sold the same number of mushrooms for 200, and you for 300, - the woman mutters. - Baryga!

It's a shame: I myself bought a bag for 250!

Don't worry, my neighbor reassures me. And she looks at my jar of blueberries: - How much do you sell berries?

Berries? For 200. - I am modestly silent about the fact that I bought them for 100.

Granny grabs my one and a half liters of blueberries and pours the berries into glasses. Each - 120 rubles. She got five glasses from my jar. Total - 600 rubles. This is the market economy...

My grandmother's blueberries were sorted out in just half an hour. And she again began sorting through her strawberries, laying out the rotten berries with their whole side up.

If they notice, I’ll say that it’s rained, - the woman says conspiratorially.

In theory, all goods on the market should be checked by sanitary doctors. But no one came up to me for several hours. Either they didn’t notice, or they decided that there was nothing to take from me ...

An obese pensioner next door sells pickles. Transfers them from the pelvis to the jars. One cucumber slips out of his hands and falls on the pavement. Grandmother picks it up and puts it in a jar.

It will sour! - I'm surprised.

They will eat it ... - yawning, the grandmother waves her hand. And advises:

And you won’t sell your mushrooms today. Go to the subway! People from work will go and buy up.

I collect the goods and trudge to the Savelovskaya metro station. I stand like a poor relative, holding mushrooms in my hands.

About 30 minutes later, a man stopped next to me.

Why are you selling mushrooms?

I look at the chanterelles shriveled from the sun. And I hide my eyes from shame:

Take both packages for 300...

Y-yes, I'm not a merchant. Took chanterelles for 500. Sold for 300...

While walking home, I calculated the losses: on a trip to the Vladimir region, I spent 700 rubles on gasoline, 500 on mushrooms, and another 100 on berries. A total of 1300. Only 500 rubles returned from them - 200 for berries, 300 for mushrooms.

But if I bought mushrooms from the natives in bulk, twenty kilograms of commercials at a time, on the cheap, then I would have remained in the black. Judge for yourself: for 20 kilos in Sobinka, I would give two thousand rubles. Plus for gasoline 700 re. Total 2700 rubles of expenses. In the markets of Moscow, a kilogram of fresh forest mushrooms costs 400 rubles. If you manage to sell it, you will get 8000. Taking into account the costs - 5300 rubles of net profit!

The question of how to sell mushrooms, of course, worries all farmers involved in the cultivation of this product. In fact, it is not so difficult to establish a smooth implementation, but beginners may have problems at first. To prevent this from happening, be sure to complete the necessary documents for the sale of mushrooms and use the tips offered on this page.

The implementation of mushrooms is also an exciting process. In order for mushroom production to be successful, you must be able to sell mushrooms. They can be sold anywhere: in the market, in shops, at large enterprises of the city, to take them to catering points (restaurants, cafes, bars, etc.).

To organize the sale of mushrooms grown in the household, use the following recommendations.

• It is necessary to organize production by a conveyor, that is, you must always have mushrooms, without interruptions.
• Find a convenient form of packaging. It has been noticed that mushrooms sell well if they are packed on plates of 1, 0.5 and 0.3 kg and covered with a "breathable" film. In this form, mushrooms for sale remain fresh longer and retain their presentation. If this is not possible, then they can be transported in plastic boxes.
• It is necessary to organize advertising of products in trade organizations, the press. You can also print promotional flyers. It is easy to place recipes for cooking dishes from mushrooms on them and distribute leaflets along with mushrooms.
• It is more convenient to find regular buyers and carry out direct sales without the participation of intermediaries. At the same time, inform about the advantages of the mushrooms you grow, their beneficial properties and environmental safety.
• To sell mushrooms, it is better to find wholesale buyers who would pick up all your products at once. It can be shops, cafes, restaurants, canteens, kitchens that bake pies and pizza.
• It is available to organize the simplest processing of mushrooms on the spot, for example, their drying. In this case, of course, you need to know how to properly dry mushrooms. For example, in oyster mushrooms, the hat is dried separately from the stem.
• It is always necessary to agree on the terms for the delivery of mushrooms in bulk. Moreover, you should not lower the price below the one at which you sell mushrooms at retail.
• When setting the price of mushrooms, it is advisable to set the price slightly below the market price.
• A wide range of mushroom packages should be offered to the buyer. These can be plates with packaged mushrooms, small plastic trays of 1–2 kg each, or boxes weighing up to 5 kg.
• Mushroom growers need to sell spent blocks to obtain mushrooms of the 3rd and 4th fruiting waves and organic fertilizers to improve soil structure.

Documents required for the sale of mushrooms

For the sale of mushrooms, you must have the appropriate documents. Oyster mushrooms and champignons in Russia do not need mandatory certification.

But you need to have a laboratory conclusion. It can also be obtained on the market in his laboratory. You will also need a product test report. This service is paid and is valid only for 3 months.


Then you will again have to carry out this procedure and pay for it.

You can go to the tab, select a product and see detailed information on it: prices, articles, recommendations, applications and offers

Prices for Mushrooms

Mushrooms occupy a small place in the diet of Russians. But their positions are stable and the demand for such products remains high. Russians often prefer not to buy mushrooms, but to pick them on their own in the forest. At the same time, wild plants are in demand in stores. Every year, up to 15 thousand tons of wild plants are sold on the domestic market, including mushrooms, aspen mushrooms, flywheels, chanterelles, volnushki, boletus and other species.

Import and export of mushrooms

In small volumes, Russian wild mushrooms are exported to the CIS countries and European countries. Cultivated mushroom products produced on an industrial scale in Russia are not exported abroad due to the high cost of mushrooms.

The assortment of imported mushrooms presented in stores is divided into several types of product.

• Fresh mushrooms make up almost half of the products supplied to Russia.
• Canned mushrooms are slightly inferior to fresh mushrooms in terms of supply.
• Frozen mushrooms account for up to 10% of imports.
• Dried products make up no more than 2%.

Mushroom production in Russia

Until 2013, production was gradually reduced, as imported goods were cheaper and forced Russian goods out of stores. This was followed by economic sanctions and a policy of import substitution. Since 2013, mushroom production in Russia has been constantly growing. Prices for Russian cultivated mushrooms are still higher than for Polish or Dutch ones. Now the situation is favorable, so that in the future Russian products will be presented on the market in sufficient volume to meet demand. The main mushroom for manufacturers remains

09.04.19 59 018 168

History of a professional mushroom picker

I have been picking mushrooms for thirty years and have learned to earn 100 thousand rubles per season.

Olga Lurie

professional mushroom picker

For me, walking in the woods is not only a hobby, but also a way to earn extra money. I’ll tell you where the mushroom picker can look for buyers and what difficulties may await.

How do I start picking mushrooms?

As a child, I lived in the countryside every summer. There were hungry nineties, from the age of three I went with adults to the forest for berries and mushrooms. We made preparations and ate them all winter.

From the age of twelve I wanted pocket money. In the summer, the guys at the dacha and I got up at five in the morning and went fishing. Chanterelles, aspen mushrooms and white ones were well taken at the local market. Not far from our dacha there are many children's camps, rich houses were built along the shores of the lake. Summer residents bought vegetables and herbs from the garden, berries and mushrooms from locals. For this, the administration of the market provided counters for free.

On weekdays, there were five people trading, and on weekends there were already thirty people who wanted to, and it was necessary to take a place at six in the morning. My friends and I changed: one comes early and stands with berries, the rest of the company is pulled up from the forest with mushrooms by eleven o'clock. The competition between sellers was high, but they bought from us, because, apparently, they wanted to help hardworking teenagers.

In 1999, my parents went on vacation to the border zone in the Gulf of Finland and took me with them. We lived in tents for a whole month. There were a lot of mushrooms in wild places, especially chanterelles in July. I collected them, and then I sold them on the Scandinavian track to the Finns, for stamps. Foreigners bought chanterelles well. When my parents went to the city for groceries, they took my earned currency, exchanged it, and brought my fee. I could get fifty marks in a day, or I could get all a hundred.

But I didn't like trading. It was hard to stand all day in the sun or in the wind. Irritated by capricious buyers who climbed into the basket with their hands, felt each mushroom and bargained:

Are the mushrooms really clean? Can you cut? And let's both piles for a hundred? Don't sell it anyway, it'll be gone"

I didn’t like the people who tried the berries even more - they touched them, fingered them: “Something your blueberries are sour, let’s be cheaper.” It is unpleasant to sell berries that have been touched with unwashed hands. Then I had no other options, I had to endure.

I finished school, went to work, but walking in the woods remained my hobby. In August 2014, my relatives almost kicked me out of the house when I once again brought a trunk full of mushrooms. After that, I decided to start selling them again.

Mushroom picker's expenses

You need to know mushroom places: where, when and what mushrooms grow. You can’t buy such knowledge, you have to practice it yourself or get acquainted with mushroom pickers who will help.

Equipment. From the material there is equipment: shoes, clothes, something for the head. There are no uniform rules here. One mushroom picker walks in rags and holey sneakers, and the other in a suit with a membrane for 20 thousand. And this does not affect the quantity and quality of the mushrooms found.

Navigator. In the forest, I use a Garmin GPSMAP 62s navigator that was given to me in 2015. Now this model is no longer produced, and a new one costs 20 thousand rubles. Topographic maps and depth maps are installed on my navigator, it remembers the route and points linked to the map, shows the type of forest, relief, water bodies and swamps. All this helps when walking through the forest.

Car are big expenses. In the Leningrad region, all interesting mushroom places are far from St. Petersburg, we can go 200 km one way. I have a Hyundai Solaris, gas consumption is 1500 rubles per trip. Every 10 thousand kilometers it is necessary to undergo maintenance, I can go twice in a season.

To save money, I take fellow travelers and we throw off the fare. I usually take older women who want to walk in the woods, but do not have their own car or are afraid to drive alone. I am looking for fellow travelers in the mushroom group on Vkontakte or through Blablacar. When someone asks, I first ask: how often does he go to the forest, what does he collect, is there a car or a navigator. If I feel that a person is interested in mushroom places, I don’t take it with me.

About five years ago there was a scandal in the mushroom party. An elderly uncle asked to be a fellow traveler in the forest, he was willingly taken. He knew how to amuse on the road, was very pleasant in communication. The guys who rode with him were satisfied. And then suddenly the same guys meet him in their clearing. And with a full bus of other mushroom pickers. During that season, he looked at two dozen different places and now positions himself as an expert on mushroom places in the Leningrad region.

petty expenses- this is a container where you collect mushrooms: buckets, baskets, boxes. I have been buying baskets for three years. A basket made of a whole rod cost 1,500 rubles, a basket made of half a rod cost 800 rubles each. I take buckets for 100 rubles.

My expenses for equipment and transport

Gasoline and maintenance

22 000 R per season

Navigator

20 000 R, but they gave me mine

Boots, two raincoats, camouflage

6000 R

Baskets, buckets, knife

5500 R

Income mushroom picker - up to 100 thousand rubles per season

Mushrooms can be collected one or two months a year - from mid-August to the end of September, sometimes as early as early July. So the earnings are seasonal, it will not work to constantly earn on wild mushrooms. The quantity and quality of mushrooms depends on the weather: what kind of spring it was, whether the summer was hot, how much precipitation fell. Everything is different from year to year.

For example, 2014 was ideal in terms of the length of the season and the number of mushrooms. Once I collected 30 kg of mushrooms in three hours, although usually in eight hours you only find 10 kg. But 2017 was not a mushroom year: cold late spring, rainy summer. The mushrooms did not have enough heat, they went only in the fall, and even then a little. Gaining even 5 kg was good luck. It was not possible to make money on mushrooms that season.

800 R

I took from buyers per kilogram of mushrooms in 2018

Still mushrooms are wormy. It indirectly depends on the weather, but it is impossible to predict. In 2015, out of 300 whites, 10 were put into the basket. In July 2016, all white mushrooms were wormy.

Prices for mushrooms vary depending on how many have grown. To determine the price, I study the ads on Avito or Vkontakte, I’m not too lazy to ask the metro how much they sell.

My opinion - do not be cheap

For example, medium porcini mushrooms sell for 500-1500 rubles. In such a situation, if there are a lot of mushrooms in the forest, then I sell mine for a thousand, if not enough, then for one and a half.

If the weather is lucky and the mushrooms are not wormy, I can earn up to 100 thousand rubles per season. And in a bad season - I can and 10 thousand. Even gasoline does not fight back.

How much did I sell mushrooms for in 2018, prices per 1 kg

Mushrooms

800 R

Boletus, chanterelles

500 R

Mokhoviki

400 R

Competitors

There are two types of sellers: professional resellers and individual assemblers like me.

Professional resellers are purchased in remote villages and brought mushrooms to the city. They travel as far as possible to buy mushrooms to save money. Residents of remote villages sell mushrooms at least four times cheaper than in the city. For example, last year chanterelles in the Pskov region were sold at 50 rubles per kilogram, and in St. Petersburg - at 300.

50 R

cost a kilogram of chanterelles in the Pskov region in 2018. Dealers sold chanterelles with a markup of 500%

Then such sellers sort mushrooms and transport them to markets and tents. The duration of trips is two to three days, and most mushrooms live only 12 hours. Many dealers bring only chanterelles that are stored for a long time, and the rest of the mushrooms are processed, for example, into pickles or freezing.

Individual assemblers they sell mushrooms near the metro, in markets and on highways. There are two troubles with them: small volume and the issue of safety and hygiene. Usually pickers sell mushrooms in bunches of 5-7 pieces, because buyers take a little bit. The client walks by, sees mushrooms and buys spontaneously, according to his mood. Street vendors do not stand constantly, but only when there is prey. Let's imagine: the hostess needed three buckets for blanks, and there was no one at the metro - there was no one to buy from.

The quality of mushrooms and the place of collection from such sellers also raises questions. On the track, mushrooms lie on folding tables, cars drive by, dust settles. At the metro, goods are laid out on boxes or directly on the ground, instead of a tablecloth - a newspaper or a bag. The seller can be a surly man in an old tracksuit, a tipsy company, or a sweet old lady.

No one will ever know who actually harvested these mushrooms.

Several times I saw a man crawling out of a roadside ditch to the seller on the highway, dragging a stuffed basket behind him. He put the mushrooms on the table and disappeared into the forest again. It is unlikely that this person departed for the prescribed two kilometers from the highway. Mushrooms also grow along the roadsides, but it is dangerous to eat them. Mushrooms absorb harmful substances from the soil, so it is important to collect them at a distance of no closer than two kilometers from highways and factories.

A neat mushroom picker with clean hands and mushrooms, who sells on the highway or near the metro, is a rarity. If you dress neatly and keep an eye on the mushrooms, you will always have a buyer.

How do I build a client base?

When I first started selling mushrooms, I did not have any client base, I built it from scratch. This was helped by a story about myself on the Internet and in life.

I started with Avito and Vkontakte. On Avito, I published ads with the following content: “I will collect forest mushrooms to order”, “Young mushrooms only from the forest”, “A basket of mushrooms immediately from the forest”. In Vkontakte, I started the page "Forest Shop". Before each trip, I wrote a post there: what mushrooms I go for, how much I plan to collect, what is the price.

In addition to my page, I wrote to groups for lovers of "quiet hunting" - this is the name of people who pick mushrooms and berries in the forests. I mainly published photos from trips, told what I managed to collect, what is the quality of mushrooms, is there anything unexpected.

For two years I regularly published ads on Avito and maintained a page on Vkontakte. Here's what I came up with. The post works if you say in it:

1. That I pick mushrooms myself and sell them myself.
2. What area do I collect?
3. What experience do I have and what can I do, just praise myself.

And be sure to add many, many photographs of mushrooms, without embellishment.

Mushrooms are generally divided into two large types: noble - these are tubular species, and weeds - such as russula. In the slang of mushroom pickers, they are called "shnyaga". Weed mushrooms grow everywhere during the season, they can be taken out by trucks, so they have no special value. But for noble mushrooms there is a hunt.

To attract the attention of buyers, I photograph only noble mushrooms. True, I do not collect weeds at all. But if you are collecting, be aware that they are less valued and hardly ever bought.

We need different photos: ourselves with mushrooms, mushrooms in the forest, as they lie in a basket or bucket. Such photographs show better than words that the mushroom picker can be trusted, the mushrooms are clean, collected in the forest, and not near the highway.

Who are my clients

Everyone buys mushrooms from me: men and women, old and young. The hostesses admire every mushroom, close the jars according to family recipes, boil, fry, make julienne and carpaccio.

More mushrooms take restaurants. Chefs personally evaluate the quality and process mushrooms according to their menu. A buyer from the restaurant at the Astoria Hotel called me and asked me to bring mushrooms right from the forest, but only when the chef was on site. He takes unusual products personally.

They buy mushroom pickers who cannot go to the forest themselves. My beloved client used to go to the forest on her own, but now she is sick and cannot walk for a long time. Another regular customer is a member of the board of directors of a large company. A couple of times during the season, he finds time to pick mushrooms with us. He collects one or two baskets of all sorts of things for fun, and then orders ten kilograms of mushrooms from me. He wants to freeze elite mushrooms for the winter, but he lacks the skills to collect them himself.

Orders from restaurants

I myself found two regular customers in everyday life, these are representatives of restaurants. First, I searched through Yandex for which cafes and restaurants serve mushroom dishes, made a list and selected small establishments. I found their phone numbers on the website, called and asked the chef to answer the phone. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: Good afternoon, I sell mushrooms, from five kilograms. Can I speak to chef Alexander?

CHEF: This is Alexander, I'm listening.

Me: Hello Alexander! I collect forest mushrooms and bring them to the city. The season is coming soon. If you want, we can cooperate.

SH: Hmm, interesting.

I'm fine. What mushrooms do you usually take? What volume? What are the processing requirements?

If the mushrooms and the volume of supplies were suitable, we agreed on an order. So I called about twenty restaurants, two agreed, and now I bring them mushrooms every season.

pre-orders

Fresh mushrooms are stored for 12 hours, then larvae appear in them, mushrooms become wormy and start to smell bad. During this time, you need to get from the forest to the city and sell the booty.

In order not to sell bad mushrooms, I began to collect pre-orders on Avito and on Vkontakte. The scheme is as follows: you place an ad, leave the phone, people call and place an order. For example, 5 kg flywheels. I'm going to the forest and picking up an order.

In the forest, I collect exactly what they asked for. When they want 10 kg of mushrooms, I go to the places where these mushrooms grow. During the collection, I am not distracted by salt and boletus.

It was not always possible to collect mushrooms strictly to order. In the forest, the picture changes every day. The day before yesterday I found 10 kg in a clearing, but today it is empty. In such cases, I took what grew, and then offered mushrooms to buyers from the list. I always keep a queue of four orders in reserve so that I have a choice.

If their customers did not take these mushrooms, they wrote another ad: “There are such and such mushrooms, sort them out.”

There are hot orders when a client needs mushrooms urgently and by a specific date. Last year, a familiar uncle called and asked to bring a basket of strong mushrooms no later than September 5: his daughter comes to him from Spain, I want to surprise her.

My husband and I went to the forest at six in the morning, walked and wandered, and by ten in the morning we found only five mushrooms. It was raining, there was a nasty squelching in our boots, and we felt so miserable that we wanted to cry. After dinner, we changed three places and by the evening we had collected this unfortunate basket. Along the way, they filled the trunk with all sorts of things for other clients and earned an additional 8 thousand rubles.

Preliminary agreements help to sell mushrooms on the same day, without wasting time looking for a buyer. This is handy when driving out of the woods with a trunk full of mushrooms that are about to go bad.

How do I deliver the mushrooms

Mushrooms have a short shelf life. I have to get out of the forest, drive to the city, give the order and meet the deadline of 12 hours. This complicates the logistics, because it is impossible to collect for a week and accumulate goods, you need to work in the “collected - delivered, collected - transported” mode.

Usually they do this: they pick mushrooms in the morning and give them away in the evening. My clients understand that I need to have time to arrive from the forest, so they are waiting for the order at ten in the evening. But before delivery, I usually specify until what time they are waiting and what time it is convenient to take the order.

Once I lingered in the forest: on the way I got into a downpour, and at the entrance to the city I got stuck in a traffic jam due to an accident. As a result, I got to the client at half past eleven at night. On the way, I called, so she knew about the delay. I dragged the baskets to the apartment and saw three women. It turned out that the customer called her friends to help with the processing and they were all waiting for me. My client does not go to work, and her assistants have a shift in the morning. It was embarrassing that they would go to bed late because of me, so I gave a basket of chanterelles as an apology.

There are two delivery methods: pickup from the mushroom picker's apartment and delivery to the buyer.

I am against pickup and I think that pickup is evil. Half of the buyers do not pick up the order, the rest are late

Instead of eating dinner, washing up and going to bed, you sit and wait for a buyer. He did not come, and at ten in the evening you think about who to urgently sell the mushrooms so that they do not deteriorate.

I personally bring all orders to the buyer. He knows that they are specially coming to him, and it is already inconvenient to leave somewhere and refuse altogether. For advertising, I offer free shipping on orders over 1500 rubles. Almost all orders are more expensive, and I still planned to carry it myself, so I don’t lose anything. And it seems to the buyer that he is given something for free, and this is nice.

There are restrictions on delivery: I don’t go to the suburbs, I don’t go to residential complexes, I don’t go up to the apartment. This wastes time: either there is no parking space, or the navigator does not know how to drive in, or it is impossible to pass in narrow lanes. Therefore, a trip to the yard becomes a quest for fifteen minutes, and I have to deliver several orders during the evening.

0 R

I charge mushroom delivery for orders over 1500 R

People with disabilities and the very elderly go forward. But usually they ask children or neighbors to go outside for mushrooms. So I went up to the apartment three times in five years.

Buyer claims

I have faced complaints. There were no direct scandals, because she immediately took the mushrooms and returned the money.

After one incident, I began to warn that I accept questions about quality only on the day of sale. Then one woman bought 5 kg of large whites from me. I brought them in the evening, and the same evening the mushrooms had to be sorted out. Apparently, the customer was too lazy to do this, she put the mushrooms in a bag, and in the morning she went to work. Mushrooms opened only in the evening, a day later. In a plastic bag, unsorted mushrooms were wormed. The woman called me and let's swear. Like, I found the worms yesterday, but it was too late, and I didn’t call. I pretended to believe, and brought another basket for free, so as not to stir up a scandal.

Let me tell you another story about mismatched expectations. Another woman wanted to buy the smallest mushrooms. My family and I followed them to the Olonetsky district, spent the night in the forest, collected them for eight hours and then drove to St. Petersburg for six hours.

The mushrooms were just like the picture. But the client said, and I quote: "Some specimens are not young enough." She did not demand a refund, she was just being capricious. Now he calls every summer, but I always gently refuse: I don’t want to get involved.

If during a conversation I hear some strange demands, I also refuse the order. Hats of five centimeters, snow-white lips, chocolate-burgundy shades - let them look elsewhere.

In the forest - on a sober head

There are three dangers in the forest: getting lost, getting hurt, or meeting wild animals. I had all this.

Ten years ago, I got lost and left the forest only at four in the morning. My city friends and I went to the forest. Mid-September, monotonous rain, late morning. We had a box of cheap wine with us, half a bottle of vodka and a can of beans. Wandered through the woods, chatted about life, I swore on the phone with the former. Having finished the conversation, she looked around - and did not recognize the area. It was getting dark, and it was not clear where to go.

We called the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The employee advised us to spend the night in the forest and stomp eight kilometers in any direction, so we would get to the highway or the railway. He added that young healthy people are taken out by phone, and the elderly and children need rescuers, they are in greater danger.

I didn’t want to spend the night in the forest in the rain, so I called my uncle and aunt, who were resting nearby in the country, for help. They knew the forest well and went to look for us. Everything worked out: they found us and at four in the morning we went out onto the track. Mushrooms, by the way, did not lose and brought home.

There was also a story with the navigator. I use a GPS navigator, which shows where a river, forest, swamp is. I walk through the forest, I want to orient myself and I understand that there is no navigator. I wore it on a carbine on my belt, and it apparently came unfastened. I was lucky because I knew the area: I was able to get out of the forest myself, and then follow my tracks and find the loss.

I once sprained a ligament in my leg. Picking mushrooms, stumbled on a branch and fell. I had to crawl to the car. It’s good that I had sober comrades with me, one got behind the wheel and drove to the emergency room. I walked on crutches for a week, and then for another month with a cane.

Wild animals are the least danger. Every time I see footprints, but I saw animals twice: wild boar and elk. They are afraid of people and try not to get caught by us. It seems to me that it is safer to be noisy: crackle branches, talk loudly, sing. My friend carries a bicycle bell with her into the forest.

For thirty years of hiking in the forest, she formulated rules for herself. Here they are:

1. Do not take alcohol.
2. Look around, don't get distracted.
3. Take a supply of lighters and flashlights with you: you may have to build a fire or go out in the dark.
4. Charge your phone, take an external battery, hide it from the rain.
5. Agree before the trip who to call if you get lost or fall.

And another rule - try to be in a good mood, and be sad at home. Otherwise, you can not notice the danger just out of stupidity.

Remember

1. You can always sell mushrooms if they are fresh, neat, and the seller does not look like an alcoholic.
2. It is better to work on pre-orders: first find customers, then collect. Otherwise, the mushrooms may deteriorate.
3. Pickup is evil. I advise you to take mushrooms to buyers.
4. Clients can be found on Avito, on Vkontakte, at my mother's at work, and generally anywhere.
5. No need to register, no taxes, no cash register needed.

Worked on the material

Author - Olga Lurie, editor - Tonya Sergeeva, production editor - Marina Safonova, photo editor - Maxim Koposov, information designer - Zhenya Sofronov, responsible officer - Anna Lesnykh, proofreader - Alexander Salita, layout designer - Evgenia Izotova