Hundreds of Estonians pick mushrooms and berries for Finnish market

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By Meri Valkama
      Nine kilos. Andrei Lugin looks content. Even though it has been raining heavily in Estonia all day, Lugin has spent three hours in the forest with his wife Natalja Lennok. Their haul is nine kilos of chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius).
      Now Lugin is standing at the doorstep of Figuraata, a company which buys wild mushrooms and berries, waiting for his remuneration. Next to him stands Viljar Vaherpuu, the owner of Figuraata, checking whether or not the quality of Lugin’s chanterelles is uniform.
      It is, and the remuneration is EEK 360, equalling EUR 22.50.
     
Lugin’s work picking these chantarelles is over, but the mushrooms themselves are only at the beginning of their journey.
      Before the Estonian chanterelles reach the pots and kettles of Finnish consumers they will be going in a roundabout way.
     
Finns eat thousands of kilos of Estonian chanterelles every year.
      According to Viljar Vaherpuu, Figuraata has already exported some 5,000 kilos of mushrooms to Finland this year, and there is more to come.
      According to the Customs statistics, a total of almost 20,000 kilos of chanterelles were imported into Finland in 2007. That's twenty TONS of fungi.
      However, the figure reveals only part of the truth. In order that imports are recorded by the Customs, an individual company’s imports have to be in excess of EUR 100,000.
      Hence many small companies are not included in the statistics at all.
     
Viljar Vaherpuu says that there is a large number of one-person businesses exporting mushrooms, while the number of enterprises with several employees is only about a dozen.
      For example, Figuraata employs ten female employees in addition to Vaherpuu himself and his wife Marke.
      Vaherpuu plans to expand his business and to hire another ten persons within the next few years.
     
Mushroom picking requires a lot of work. Before the chanterelles can be loaded on a van, each mushroom is cleaned with a brush, whereafter the chanterelles are sorted according to their size and packed in baskets.
      Some buyers prefer small chanterelles, as they are easier to use for cooking than are bigger specimens.
      Large chanterelles usually end up in the outdoor market trade.
      In order that the mushrooms remain impeccable, the sorting and brushing has to take place in a cold warehouse.
      Around 100 people are involved in the chanterelle business in Räpina, a municipality with nearly 3,000 residents in Southeastern Estonia.
      According to Vaherpuu, some 30 to 40 pickers come to bring him mushrooms and berries every day. No point in asking where they come from.
      ”Hardly! It's a trade secret!” laughs Vaherpuu.
     
Like Andrei Lugin, many pickers collect mushrooms or berries only part-time. For example, Lugin’s full-time job is building log houses.
      The most typical mushroom pickers are pensioners, like the 72-year-old Arnold Adamson, a retired police officer, who is driving to the yard of Figuraata in his yellow Moskvitch. Adamson has buckets full of blueberries in the trunk of his car. A massive total of 38.5 kilos, according to the Figuraata scales.
      It has taken two persons an entire day to pick such an amount.
     
For Vaherpuu, too, it means many hours of work.
      During the mushroom and berry season, Vaherpuu works from 5:00 a.m. until midnight, continuing at the same pace for several months, until there is no longer any hurry in the winter. Then Vaherpuu can focus on building and repairing the premises as well as on planning future operations.
     
Apart from Finland, Figuraata exports berries and mushrooms to Sweden, Germany, France, Italy, and Austria. Some 80 per cent of his chanterelles end up in Finland, while the remaining 20 per cent is exported to Sweden.
      In addition to chanterelles, Figuraata delivers to Finland false morels (Gyromitra esculenta), boletes or ceps (the same mushrooms that are exported in large numbers from Finland to Italian restaurants as the famous porcini, see link below), blueberries, strawberries, and currants.
      Finns are Vaherpuu’s favourite customers.
      ”Finns are reliable. Once we delivered nine truckloads of berries and mushrooms to the Netherlands. We never got payment for the last cargo”, Vaherpuu reports.
     
He adds that Finns are also very particular about the quality, and the chanterelles must be clean.
      ”Russian and Lithuanian customers do not care so much how the mushrooms look”, Vaherpuu concludes.
     
According to Vaherpuu, the majority of Estonian chanterelles imported into Finland come from Southern Estonia, even though they are being advertised as coming from the island of Saaremaa.
      Whether the allegation is right or wrong is virtually impossible to prove, as no statistics exist of the origin of berries or mushrooms.
      Moreover, an anonymous Finnish wholesaler says that he is not interested in the origin as long as the mushrooms are good.
      According to the wholesaler, some market vendors started using Saaremaa as the source of mushrooms.
      However, Pirjo Höglund, who sells berries, mushrooms, and vegetables in the Hakaniemi market square, says that the region of origin is reported by wholesalers.
      The chanterelles she is selling are said to come from Saaremaa.
     
Domestic chanterelles cost EUR 8.00 per litre, while the Estonian ones are three euros cheaper.
      Because of the low price, Estonian chanterelles sell well, particularly on Saturdays, says Höglund.
     
There is really no sense in lying about the origin of the mushrooms.
      Even though Saaremaa has a good and clean image, there is nothing wrong with the chanterelles coming from Southern Estonia, either.
      According to some random checks made by the Customs laboratory here in Finland, the Estonian mushrooms are actually cleaner than the Finnish ones, as they contain lower levels of heavy metals and radioactive caesium that originates from the Chernobyl accident in 1986.
      Even so, some Finns swear by domestic mushrooms. Go figure.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 9.8.2008

More on this subject:
 FACTFILE: Tap water can spoil chanterelles

Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish wild mushrooms still exhibit elevated levels of caesium from Chernobyl nuclear accident (11.8.2008)

See also:
  Mamma mia, what a year for the boletus mushrooms! (9.9.2003)

Links:
  Chanterelle (Wikipedia - usually the term refers to the golden chanterelle, Cantharellus cibarius)

MERI VALKAMA / Helsingin Sanomat