Image Credit: Submitted/TruCelium

Coldstream-based TruCelium is putting the finishing touches on its 50,000 square foot mushroom growing and processing plant in the old Lavington glass factory building.

“We use vertical, integrated, indoor farming,” co-founder and president Rory Millikin told iNFOnews.ca. “It’s a very unique way of doing it. There’s only a few of us in North America that do this. We’re the first in Canada.”

This is no ordinary mushroom farm and they don’t grow ordinary mushrooms that can be found in grocery stores.

Instead, they grow the mushroom roots, known as mycelium, that are in huge demand for their health benefits, Millikin explained.

And they’re not growing the psilocybin (magic) mushrooms that can be hallucinogenic and are being tested for their possible benefits in treating things like cancer, anxiety and depression.

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While they may not be magical, mycelium do have some miraculous features.

“The 'wood wide web' is the root system of mushrooms called mycelium,” Millikin explained. “Anything that dies in the forest – tree branches or logs – that white web of stuff you see when lift up a tree, that’s mycelium and there’s 300 miles of mushroom mycelium every footstep you take.

“What’s fantastic about it is they’ve realized it has a language. It’s alive. It may be conscious. There’s a theory that it’s between plant and animal. It lives in the middle and it’s a conscious entity.”

It’s also a nutrient transportation network that breaks down dead animals and vegetation and transports them to other plant life. There’s even research showing that trees may communicate with each other, sending warning signals and nutrients to other trees through the mycelium.

“As a kind of fee for services, the fungi consume about 30% of the sugar that trees photosynthesize from sunlight,” said a 2018 Smithsonian magazine report. “The sugar is what fuels the fungi, as they scavenge the soil for nitrogen, phosphorus and other mineral nutrients, which are then absorbed and consumed by the trees.”

TruCelium grows the mycelium with fermented sorghum wheat to create “an extraordinary fermented mass of mycelium” that is then processed.

“We either create doughs or we dry them into powders,” Millikin said. “We formulate flours. We process with specialized technology to make water soluble powder. We’ve got new UV Vitamin D enhancement technologies we’ve pioneered, special drying systems that we’ve put in that preserve terpenes and the micro and macro nutrients, which other companies do not do. So, we’re preserving the integrity of the mushroom.”

The company has attracted executives and former executives from some of the largest food companies in the world, he said.

“We’ve got a big, all-star cast in here,” Millikin said. “We have investors from large scale companies and people who have sold to big companies who are our investors. These entrepreneurs that have built companies and sold out to the majors, those are the kind of companies we want to be supplying our powder to.”

The plant is in what was officially known as the Owens Illinois Consumer Glass Plant, but more commonly referred to as the Lavington glass plant.

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It has now been converted into the Restoration Lands industrial development. One of the tenants is a protein supplement manufacturer who will be using TruCelium products.

It has taken two years to get the Coldstream plant to this point. It will employ about 40 people. Two more plants are in the plans for outside Canada that will be so automated that they will have few or no employees, Millikin said.

“It’s really trail blazing,” he said. “It’s made in Canada. It’s a proud Canadian innovation. We’re launching this stuff around the world.”

TruCelium is working with Foley, a Vancouver Island company, on a human grade dog treat using Mycolyte, a new flour product, as the key ingredient.

Mycolyte is a fermented mushroom dough.

Image Credit: Submitted/TruCelium

Pet Smart is set to roll that out nationwide on Sept. 1, Millikin said.

Cordyceps is a mushroom known as the “Olympic mushroom” because teams have been using it for decades to improve cardiovascular and muscle development, Millikin said.

“They’re powerful mushrooms,” he added. “They look like they’re grown on Mars. They do not look like mushrooms you’re used to seeing. Not even close.”

He described them as looking like an orange seaweed/French fry combination.

“Lion’s mane is a nootropic for the brain and it looks like the human brain when you see it growing,” he said. “It’s a bizarre looking thing. It’s the most popular mushroom in the world right now. They are powerful mushrooms so you’re starting to see energy drinks with lion’s mane and cordyceps as the primary ingredients. It’s really going mainstream.”

That’s why he sees a big future in growing and manufacturing the mushroom products.

“To be able to grow and harvest it at scale is a real art form,” Millikin said. “Really, one of the key goals is to be certified at scale and to have the greatest innovation with patents protecting them in the world.”

Millikin, who grew up in Calgary and moved to Kelowna 18 years ago, is no stranger to innovations and patents.

He says he co-invented the George Foreman Lean Mean Spin Frying Machine. He also created a deep fryer guard shield to protect workers from hot oil splatters. Those have been approved by McDonald’s worldwide and are starting to be picked by other fast food chains.

“I patented and pioneered extraction-free, chemical-free powder production of hemp plants to harness CPD at its purest form from the plant without any chemicals to help people with opioid addiction, and things of that nature, and really try to provide the purest form of a natural medicine without using chemistry or chemicals,” Millikin said.

He expects to stay with the mushroom operations as his major focus as he pushes it into being a global business.

But he will still find time to work with his “best friend” and movie star Jerry Renner to film and co-host a second season of Rennervations for Disney Plus.

That was launched after Renner bought about 250 decommissioned fire trucks and transit buses. In its first season Rennervations created four bus conversions to help children in the U.S., Mexico and India.

Go to the TruCelium website here.

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