As a company and human beings, we look forward to our future and how we strategize our evolution. We look inward to our purpose, directly around us, to our immediate community, and then to the microclimate and ecosystem of the Great Lakes region.

We look for asymmetrical and creative connections we can make and positive impacts our company can provide locally, supported by another unique application of our regenerative harvesting ideals, and how we can catalyze another living Umami sensation.

Beginning this spring, we will beta-test the first of our unique Garums. This one is made using personally foraged wild mushrooms. It will be our first vegetarian Garum, packed with Umami and an obvious sense of its terroir.

What is a Garum?

Without getting too off-topic, Garum refers to the process used in the Mediterranean thousands of years ago to ferment anchovies with salt, which is eerily similar to the modern Asian process of making fish sauce.

This fermentation relies upon a process called autolysis.

Matsutake mushrooms are renowned for their distinctive spicy-aromatic flavor and firm texture. Matsutake mushrooms often grow in symbiosis with pine trees and are typically found in coniferous forests.

In contrast, the intestines of the fish and the enzymes within consume the fish's flesh slowed and were kept balanced by a high salt content.

This is the cool part.

By inoculating with Koji spores, we can achieve the same autolytic fermentation by utilizing fungi grown on high-quality, organically grown short-grain rice.

Now to the larger project. Foraging on a scale sufficient to create a viable bottling is not ethically in line with us, so we are considering making our own source. Our goal for 2026/2027 is to secure our first acreage of coastal forest for conservation and land stewardship.

Through our Foundation, we will purchase lands threatened by the impending coastal development and launch our own shiitake farm. Shiitake mushrooms are rich in Umami, and when introduced into the forest, they become a great catalyst for regeneration.

Following Paul Stamets's incredibly successful model and his vast research into the viability and positive results of shiitake growing as a part of land stewardship, we see all types of possibilities.

But primarily, it is the right thing to do, and we are in a position to connect you to this amazing project through another dynamic offering.

I sincerely trust that you all will be as excited as I am with this news. Look here for updates on the progress, and get in touch if you love what we're doing.

Love and light,

Steven