Polish Mushroom Hit

"Poland has gained a reputation for producing exceptional quality, low-cost mushrooms,'' says John Smith, Chairman of major UK supplier, Northern Mushrooms.

Northern Mushrooms part of vegetable business Greyfriars UK has now appointed Polish businesswoman Agnieszka Baginska as chief executive.

Greyfriars, based at Wath, near Ripon in North Yorkshire, supplies mushrooms to national supermarket chains across the UK. The appointment has been made in recognition of the increasingly significant role Poland is playing in supplying mushrooms to the UK market.

A postgraduate with an MA in economics, Ms Baginska joins Northern Mushrooms from Polish meat processing plant AGRYF, part of ANIMEX Capital Group, where she worked as a manager and part of the team responsible for ISO and BRC implementation.

She will move to Yorkshire to take up her new role. Managing director of Northern Mushrooms, John Smith, will relinquish his management role in the company, but will remain chairman.

Earlier this year Northern Mushrooms expanded to include accredited Polish mushroom producer, Okechamp SA forming the first pan-European mushroom producer.

Mr Smith said: "Northern Mushrooms will continue to be run from the UK with a strategic volume of mushrooms coming from UK farms, but this move recognises the reality of the UK market that a significant volume of mushrooms will come from Poland and so an empathy with the particular problems and opportunities Polish producers face will be an important factor in its success." Greyfriars has recently announced a fifth year of strong financial growth, despite challenging market conditions and overall contraction of the UK mushroom industry.

Performance for 2003-04 closed with sales of just under 11m.