By Sean Moloughney, Editor06.05.23
As an essential element of our natural world, fungi have often gone unseen or overlooked. However, their day seems to have come, as mushrooms appear to be everything, everywhere, all at once.
In their natural food form at the grocery store; elevated at high-end restaurants; in tea, coffee, and energy drinks; in ice cream; as meat alternatives ... as psychedelics at the dispensary—mushrooms are proliferating, and companies are profiting.
The (full) spectrum of fungal products and applications is remarkable. I’m excited to watch this category continue its emergence. Still, there’s important work ongoing to develop standards and definitions so that companies speak to consumers clearly, with one lexicon. The intent behind our coverage of fungi and mushrooms in our June issue was to contribute toward that effort.
A clear set of terms among industry has implications for understanding raw materials, their health benefits, and differences between products and labeling. Other challenges in this fast-growing market include analytical work and quality assurance.
In April, we learned that three consumer brands have been impersonated by third-party sellers on Amazon. This kind of counterfeiting can not only damage a brand’s reputation, but cause real harm to consumers. These aren’t clothes or other knockoff luxury goods; these are health products people are ingesting. Fraud on this front could do real harm to people, and potentially the future of fungi.
NOW and Fungi Perfecti deserve credit for discovering these cases and calling them out publicly. How the dietary supplement industry can work with Amazon to prevent this practice remains a fair and open question. Unfortunately, in the meantime, brands need to take caution.
“There is a world beyond ours, a world that is far away, nearby, and invisible. And there is where God lives, where the dead live, the spirits and the saints a world where everything has already happened and everything is known. I report what it says. The sacred mushroom takes me by the hand and brings me to the world where everything is known. It is they, the sacred mushrooms that speak in a way I can understand. I ask them and they answer me. When I return from the trip that I have taken with them, I tell what they have told me and what they have shown me.”
In their natural food form at the grocery store; elevated at high-end restaurants; in tea, coffee, and energy drinks; in ice cream; as meat alternatives ... as psychedelics at the dispensary—mushrooms are proliferating, and companies are profiting.
The (full) spectrum of fungal products and applications is remarkable. I’m excited to watch this category continue its emergence. Still, there’s important work ongoing to develop standards and definitions so that companies speak to consumers clearly, with one lexicon. The intent behind our coverage of fungi and mushrooms in our June issue was to contribute toward that effort.
A clear set of terms among industry has implications for understanding raw materials, their health benefits, and differences between products and labeling. Other challenges in this fast-growing market include analytical work and quality assurance.
In April, we learned that three consumer brands have been impersonated by third-party sellers on Amazon. This kind of counterfeiting can not only damage a brand’s reputation, but cause real harm to consumers. These aren’t clothes or other knockoff luxury goods; these are health products people are ingesting. Fraud on this front could do real harm to people, and potentially the future of fungi.
NOW and Fungi Perfecti deserve credit for discovering these cases and calling them out publicly. How the dietary supplement industry can work with Amazon to prevent this practice remains a fair and open question. Unfortunately, in the meantime, brands need to take caution.
