A specialist magazine about mushrooms, once featured on a satirical TV quiz show, sparked a link up between a Manx business and a fledgling one in Brittany, France.
Mark and Kathy Irwin’s operation at Greeba was given a double page spread in the glossy mag called Mushroom Business.
It was spotted by Anne Gragnic who fired off an email to the couple explaining how she was trying to set up her own mushroom farm.
Shortly after that article in September, 2008, Anne Gragnic visited the island to see the Irwin business, Greeba Farm Ltd, at close hand.
Their natural approach and practical methodology appealed to Anne and she wasted no time in shaking hands and starting her training.
Being a true Breton she was delighted with her new Celtic partnership. From that moment Mark split his time between the Isle of Man and Brittany with a mixture of distance mentoring and monthly visits to apply the learning and steer the project forward.
Anne’s business in Moustoir-Remungol has and continues to develop well under Mark’s steely guidance and a personal friendship is very evident between the two families. With much common ground between both partners and their children, books aiding a desire to learn each other’s language are swapped between Yuna, Annes’ daughter and the Irwin’s son Toby.
Mark and Anne’s partner Claude share a love of ‘wine, cheese and [jazz musician] Miles Davis’.
Back home, plans are already starting to be formed for the 10th anniversary of the Greeba business which only sells mushrooms to outlets in the island, later this year.
Speaking to Business News in their busy office on site Mr and Mrs Irwin explained that the mushroom magazine was featured in the cult show Have I got News For You in the show’s specialist publications round and was lampooned by team captain Ian Hislop.
But mushrooms are serious business for Mr Irwin, 57 and his 48 year old wife who have clearly put their heart and soul into making the operation a success.
Keen advocates of local shopping the Irwins produce a mind-boggling 8,000 Ibs of mushrooms a week and employ more than 10 staff.
The couple are also very much ‘hands on’ and stress the importance of mushrooms as a food.
The book shelves in the office are crammed with publications such as ‘The Ultimate Mushroom Book’ and ‘The Biology and Technology of the Cultivated Mushroom’
It’s surprising that Mr Irwin has not produced his own book yet because not only has he helped mentor Anne Gragnic in Brittanny he has travelled the world to help other farms grow mushrooms.
He and Kathy show a passion for one of the most nutritious, versatile and natural ‘superfoods’ in the Isle of Man.
‘We’ve had an interesting journey here, let’s put it that way,’ said Mark.
‘When you look back, 10 years has evaporated. sensibly, I would say.’
‘Very quickly I would say’ interjects Kathy.
Asked if they have achieved what they wanted in the last decade she adds: ‘In part, yes. I think the challenges we have faced have probably been more than we anticipated.
‘We’re not empire builders, I think often things happen for a reason.’
Mark adds: ‘We remain in overall control economicallyand physically in what goes on here. It’s very easy in a job like this to spend money and actually do nothing with it’.
Kathy said: ‘As a result everything we have done has been very measured. I think sometimes you can run before you walk.
‘We have focused on the core, so yes we could have gone off in all sorts of tangents
‘The core is the mushrooms absolutely.’
They had thought of diversifying with food production using mushroom based products but this was still some way away.
Kathy said: ‘Everything pins on the core business and that’s our name effectively as well. I think if we don’t get that right then you can’t even think about other things.
‘A lot of what we have done, rather than shooting off and diversifying and all being fancy and clever, is really securing the future.
‘Making sure the infrastructure and the staff structure are right.’
Kathy added that the last four years had been quite difficult with the storm damage which devastated the farm in 2010.
‘It’s been four years out of our life and planning. When you go through something like that you have to focus on getting through that so that we are still here.’
The Irwins said the storm ‘basically lifted our roofs up and smacked them back down again’. They said that despite the damage - ‘you could see daylight through the damaged roofs’ - they could not stop production.’
Kathy said the rebuilding work that had to be done was ‘hugely scary’ and a ‘logistical nightmare.’
She praised the local builders, AJB Services Ltd, who worked on repairing the damage.
‘They understood the project had to fit around the crop cycle and were very patient because sometimes we just had to stop and wait for each room’s crop to finish.’
Mark said that despite the storm and the resulting clear-up operation they ‘never missed a day’s output.’
Kathy, who has a background in marketing, admits Mark is the mushroom expert having originally started as an agriculturalist studying at The Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester, Gloucestershire, then specialising learning from and working with leading Dutch mushroom growers.
But even Mark, who counts an international consultancy in mushrooms, admits he still learns something new from this most ‘fascinating’ of industries.
He said: ‘We grow with care and rely on the trained eye and a respect for our environment.’
Kathy points out the mushroom is the second most popular fresh food product behind tomatoes.
Indeed, Kathy has done a lot of work with the island’s schools and hospital, educating people on the health benefits of eating mushrooms.
Mushrooms are produced in a six week cycle as Business News found out during a short tour of the operation.
Mark likens the careful way the mushrooms are treated by them and the staff as ‘nannying’.
As a mushrooms mentor Mark said he was delighted to have helped a fellow enthusiast from Brittany.
Anne Gragnic, in fact, now farms her mushrooms near Lorient in Brittany, which is where a major Celtic festival has recently been taking place with significant Manx presence.
Mark and Kathy said they were pleased that their influence and knowledge was spreading far and wide.
The Irwins also challenged culinary thinking by successfully experimenting, in association with Davisons of Peel, creating the mushroom ice cream.
But for many island folk these truly Manx grown and award winning mushrooms are a real winner as part of a breakfast feast, or in omelettes and indeed all sorts of other tasty treats.