By Melissa Coleman
The Country Farm Fresh Mushroom business is celebrating its employees and the fact that they have three generational family members who have been working at the farm collectively for more than 40 years.
Vicki Reilly, her son Tim and grandchildren Corey and Hayden Reilly all enjoy the relaxed atmosphere of the farm and how management assists workers as much as they can.
Vicki began working at the farm in the late 1990s as a picker and then moved into other roles, including quality coordinator, weigh station attendant, 2IC, harvesting and training officer.
“I found the way mushrooms grow to be a very complex process. It’s interesting,” Vicki said.
The mushrooms grow in rooms and progress through an 8-week cycle.
“They start off as compost which gets inoculated. After two weeks, we put a casing layer on top,” she said.
“During those periods, we have high temperatures, high humidity and high CO2 in the rooms.”
“We change the conditions to more of a fruiting environment by reducing the three catalysts to induce activation during that period of 8 weeks.”
Tim, who is currently a jack of all trades at the farm, said the work environment has a family atmosphere to it.
“We all get on well and work well together.”
“There’s a synergy to each section of the farm marrying into the next one.”
“The mushroom farm operates 24 hours a day, and while some workers are on call, others are working as early as 5 am,” Tim said.
Director of Country Farm Fresh Mushrooms Niel Newman said his mother used to always say, our best asset is our workers.
“If you have good workers, you need to look after them and maintain that relationship.”
The mushroom farm has been operational since the mid-1980s when Neil’s father and his brother began working out of what is now the ‘smoko room’.
In the early years, Neil’s father grew vegetables however, after his crops were severely damaged by hail for three years running, the mushroom farm idea was conceived.
Unable to control the outside environment, buildings were established, and indoor farms producing white Agaricus mushrooms began to line the hillside.
