Virgin Australia turns coffee grounds into gourmet mushrooms

Virgin Australia has partnered with sustainable mushroom start-up Fungimental to introduce sustainably produced oyster mushrooms onboard its flights.

The mushrooms are grown in used coffee grounds collected from Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge.

Virgin Australia resident chef Luke Mangan has designed a dish for the business class menu to showcase the mushrooms. Roasted chicken breast on corn puree with oyster mushrooms and sundried tomato salsa will feature on various domestic and international flights departing out of Sydney from 5 October 2016.

Each week, Fungimental collects 150 kg of coffee waste from Virgin Australia’s Sydney lounge, resulting in 30 kg of gourmet oyster mushrooms. Over a 12-month period, 8000 kg of coffee waste will be collected from the lounge, producing up to 1600 kg of mushrooms.

Fungimental founder Phillip White said: “Sydneysiders drink around 1.23 million cups of coffee every day, resulting in 86,100 kg of coffee waste. Most of that goes to landfill where the coffee releases methane, which is 22 times worse for global warming than CO₂.”