We recently connected with Kevin Krzyzaniak and have shared our conversation below.

Kevin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Upon to moving to Asheville 16 yrs ago, I was instantly drawn to the nature here, so many plants and mushrooms that I never experienced before. I was very curious of what could be eaten and what could be used for medicine. Luckily this area is full of knowledgeable folks and many resources to learn. I attended many educational tours, hands on learning and work trade, along with a great amount of self study. While learning I also saw a demand for wild culinary mushrooms in the local and restaurants and medicinal mushrooms in the wellness shops. I began to sell as a side hustle. I was making a decent side income from this. The variety of both culinary and medicinal mushrooms growing here is wild, it’s so very diverse here and the local people enjoy and are open to trying and learning about all different kinds. The more I immersed myself in the learning and doing, the more I was hooked and found my passion for mushrooms to be super fulfilling. Further along it became I very personal endeavor as my father was diagnosed with cancer and passed, I was able to introduce mushrooms into his late stage life, which felt rewarding and helpful. I wanted to help more people fight things like cancer, dementia, immune problems, arthritis and more and mushrooms were the answer time and again, or at least a most beneficial one at least. I learned early on that wild mushrooms contain more nutrients and higher medicinal properties than those grown and my approach of providing wild mushroom products was set. I created a business I believe in and feel good about offering, and is helping people live better. I also adding teaching to my business and find that to be highly rewarding, teaching people how to forage and identify plants and mushrooms and the feedback I get is beautiful!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I said alot of this answer in the first question but will build on that.

I grew up as an outdoorsy kid in upstate NY, so the love for being in the forest and developing the curiosity to know about the natural world around me started early. The blue ridge mountains changed a lot for me and peaked my interest 100 fold. My small business offers 100% wild crafted mushrooms, foraged, processed and packaged by myself. I sell double extracted tinctures, tea sets, fresh and dried mushrooms throughout the year. I focus primarily on the medicinal mushrooms but offer the culinary ones in season. I offer people a chance to learn the local mushrooms and plants, to provide for themselves or simply expand their knowledge for hobby or as a life skill. I’m most proud of the fact I forage and do all the work myself, I have no employees, volunteers or helpers. The love for being in nature, literally everyday, I believe comes through in my teaching as well as the quality of my products. I also have a big love for my community, I have collaborated with many local makers to bring mushrooms into other realms of wellness, such as skin care, pet products, various food products such as cheese, drinks (beer and kombucha), chocolates and seasonings. I feel honored to offer products that were born from the teachings of traditional masters in the Appalachians, from the Natives to teachers that have been here for decades.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I made and make an extra effort to have as much face to face or telephone (when not local) interactions as possible. I do several farmers and makers markets in several different local counties. I get to know the local folks in each town, I approach local business in al the different towns around me and many carry my products in their small businesses. Collaborations have also been a big tool to reach new audiences and other self employed people. It helps to educate and introduce mushrooms to people that may not have been aware of them and their benefits. Taking people out on tours to forage and experience wild mushrooms and plants is a big part of it all, people get to see me in my most real, natural environment.

How’d you think through whether to sell directly on your own site or through a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc.

I rely on eCommerce quite a bit for my income. It makes up half, if not more of my total sales. I sell on a few other sites. A few local food hubs and a site called Foraged, that sells wild foraged products from all over the country. I think all these and other outlets are useful. Though there is a commission fee, your reaching another audience, sometimes more specific to your industry and sometimes all local people and sometimes larger sites that reach people looking for all kinds of things. I’ve found it only increases my customer base and my income. The fee is fine by me, it supports the platform and in many cases, really interesting small groups or individuals. I don’t really have any cons.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.bueridgechagaconnection.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blueridgechagaconnection/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChagaConnection
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-krzyzaniak-0b804148/