Farmers market mushroom vendors must be licensed

Wild morel mushroom vendors at the Iowa City Farmers Market this year, for the first time, will be required to get a “potentially hazardous food license” and have an expert inspect their mushrooms and find them safe before they can peddle their products.

That mandate comes a couple years after the state enacted a law in 2010 requiring food establishments and farmers market vendors to be licensed to sell morel mushrooms and to have a “certified morel mushroom identification expert” check their mushrooms and find them safe.

Tammy Neumann, coordinator of the Iowa City Farmers Market, said the city wasn't aware the requirement applied to the famers market until earlier this month. They've since been disseminating the new selling mandates to their regular mushroom vendors in anticipation of the upcoming Farmers Market season, which begins May 4.

“I can think of one vendor who would bring in wild morels and just morels,” Neumann said. “Now they must pay $100 fee for the health department license. That might deter them.”

In previous years, she said, unlicensed merchants have been allowed to sell un-inspected wild mushrooms at the market.

“I'm surprised this has not always been a rule,” Neumann said.

Iowa City market officials, she said, were under the impression the licensing and inspection requirements for morel mushrooms applied to food establishments like restaurants but not to farmers markets.

But, the mushroom-selling standards that Iowa adopted in 2010 apply to all food establishments and farmers markets, said David Werning, spokesman for the Iowa Department of Inspection and Appeals.

Werning said markets like Iowa City that have been out of step with the new requirements won't face sanctions. But, he said, the state is working to educate communities, and it recently gave a presentation to the state's Farmers Market Association on hazardous food and associated regulations largely focused on wild mushrooms.

Jim Osborn, who has been selling a variety of wild and cultivated mushrooms at the Iowa City Farmers Market for 23 years, said it's a pain to go through additional training and it's an extra cost, but he thinks it might be necessary.

“There were some people selling unsafe products,” said Osborn, who has – on an unofficial basis – been monitoring other mushroom venders at the Iowa City market for years. “I think this might be a good thing because there were a lot of people trying to sell mushrooms that they didn't know what they were.”

Osborn, who does not yet have a license and has not previously had an outside expert review his mushrooms, said he used to sell wild honey, maitake, oyster and morel mushrooms at the Iowa City market. The new guidelines will cut out the majority of his wild mushroom stock and also require him to pay the additional $100 for a license along with a $45 fee for a training course that will make him a certified mushroom identification expert.

But, despite the added hurdles and cost, Osborn said he still plans to be at the Iowa City market come May as local mushroom demand remains high.

“And I have other customers who will buy the wild ones in the fall,” he said.