Howdy myco fam, welcome back to the Mycopreneur Newsletter — your one stop shop for staying on top of the global fungi innovation space.
Today we’ve got a round up of current events in the fungi world and an invitation to our weekly Mycopreneur Incubator, which will be co-hosted by Howard Novak of Booming Acres mushroom growing supplies and materials.
I’m out in Pennsylvania for Mycofest this weekend, the biggest family-friendly mushroom and arts festival in the U.S. Hope to see some of you there! I’ll be on stage at 5 pm Saturday doing a set on mushrooms & humor. Come say hi!
We also hosted out first World Mushroom Forum virtual town hall this past week and hosted some incredible participants from across 5 countries on 3 continents, including key executives from a couple of globally prolific organizations — we’ll host another one next Tuesday at 3 pm ET / 12 pm PT U.S. , open invite to join us and help shape the mushroom industry and cultural narrative together.
Global Mushroom News
Stanford researchers are engineering fungi to transform agricultural waste into nutritious, sustainable foods, using gene editing to improve flavor, texture, nutrition, and scalability for future protein production.
French mushroom farms face severe labor shortages, driving interest in robotic harvesters. While automation could ease staffing challenges, many growers worry about costs and reliability.
Nigerian researchers successfully cultivated the wild mushroom Lentinus squarrosulus on agricultural waste, improving food security, reducing waste, conserving biodiversity, and creating new income opportunities.
From our partners: There’s never been a better time to cultivate your own mushrooms, and it’s never been easier — tap in Full Canopy Genetics to set yourself up today
Here’s the big story this week — over a dozen kids aged 10 to 13 accidentally consumed ‘magic mushroom chocolate’ after one oft heir fellow campers passed it out at a YMCA summer camp in New Jersey. The kids were found in a ‘zombie’ state according to one parent, and were evaluated by medics on site before being released to their parents.
This story has caught major media attention and ran in the New York Times, CBS News, and dozens of other major outlets this week. It’s worth pointing out that the two products that were found to be consumed by the kids are both brands known to contain synthetic tryptamines which mimic certain aspects of psilocybin mushroom effect profiles but which are definitely not 'magic mushrooms’ at all.
You can see the product on the left lists ‘7 grams of silly blend’ under magic mushroom chocolate, which is language that brands such as these that are commonly sold in smoke shops, gas stations or online use to indicate that they’re using a ‘proprietary blend’, which signals the use of research chemicals like 4-AcO-DMT, 4-HO-MET, or any other number of analogues that aren’t covered by the Controlled Substances Act like psilocybin is, theoretically making their products more legally defensible in the case of a potential investigation such as this case might yield for them. These chemicals are covered under the ‘Analogue Act’, but in practice they are not prosecuted against and are sold widely.
The manufacturers of one of the products made the statement that their products don’t contain any scheduled substances, alluding to the fact that it’s like 4-AcO-DMT or similar that is in the chocolate. All the kids are expected to be fine according to reports.
There have been several high profile stories to crack the national news cycle related to kids and psilocybin lately, including the recent case of a father in San Diego who was arrested for microdosing his two preteen kids while also employing them to help cultivate psilocybin mushrooms, and in the case of the older boy to sell them to other kids at his school. Expect more coverage on this topic soon —
Estonia's rich forests and open-access laws make it a mushroom foraging paradise, where generations of locals harvest wild fungi and visitors can join guided forest-to-table adventures — of particular interest, the country has a law called the ‘Everyman’s Right’, which allows people to access and forage both public and private land freely. Try that in the U.S.!
Scientists created living fungal textiles that can self-clean, repair tears, block UV light, and biodegrade naturally, offering a sustainable alternative to conventional fabrics.
Mycopreneur Incubator Today
Time: Jul 30, 2026 3 PM ET U.S. / 12 PM PT
Today’s Incubator is being co-hosted by Howard Novak of Booming Acres, a gourmet mushroom growing supplies company. The Booming Acres team sells over 20,000 mushroom cultivation kits per month in addition to numerous other mycology supplies. They also have a gourmet mushroom farm — come learn about the ins and outs of how they built this imressive operation directly from the founder today.
Thanks for reading the Mycopreneur Newsletter, see you at the Incubator today! Gotta run to the Warhol Museum here in Pittsburgh right now ( :
Dennis