When I hopped on a call with Jose Cambon, Highline Mushrooms’ Chief Executive Officer, to discuss the company’s new farm in Ontario, Canada, I wasn’t expecting to think about the expansion in philosophical terms, or even about the very future of farming itself.
But such is the nature of any conversation held with Highline. Well-versed in forging its path, the supplier isn’t afraid to think outside the box, and this project is a prime example. In collaboration with several other robotics partners, Highline’s new farm seeks to bring automated harvesting to the mushroom category.
Utilizing the latest in controlled environment agriculture, visual and sensor technology, combined with its ‘know how,’ Highline is concocting what it hopes will be the future of mushroom farming.
This requires a shift in thinking, one that many of us might struggle to comprehend. As many agricultural companies face concerns regarding labor and the implementation of technology, we’re looking at a future unknown to us.
A scary place to be, for some.
For Highline, it’s a space to dig into and explore.
“In my view, if you want to automate harvesting, we have to stop moving the humans,” Jose begins, perhaps anticipating my puzzled follow-up question with an example. “In a Ford plant, the humans don’t go to the car, the car comes to the humans. With this facility, the humans won’t go to the mushrooms; the mushrooms will come to them.”
As close as Jose is to Detroit, Michigan, the Ford plant is an apt analogy.
“The person screwing in the bolts doesn’t decide how tight they are,” he adds. “The piece of equipment they’re holding does. With visual technology in place, the system will tell the harvester which mushrooms are ready to be picked and which are not. That way, you’re getting mushrooms to consumers at the peak of their quality.”
Mushrooms double in size every 24 hours, Jose reminds me, and as the mushrooms go past a central point, a visual system is counting every single pin. By knowing the temperature of the compost and its configuration, the system can now calculate how fast each individual mushroom is going to grow.
“That way, we can forecast our farms exponentially more accurately to supply our customers with the products they want when they want them,” he notes.
With the new system in place, the difference between in-spec and out-of-spec is minimal.
Another crucial factor is the speed at which the mushrooms are harvested and cooled.
“For every hour a mushroom spends outside the cold chain, you lose an entire day of shelf-life,” Jose explains. “Mushrooms are what I’d call a hyper-fresh product. Typically, they reach retail shelves within 48 to 72 hours after harvest. Consumers may not notice much difference in freshness at home day one or two in the fridge—but by day five or six, that early handling makes a clear difference. The quality still holds up.”
“With visual technology in place, the system will tell the harvester which mushrooms are ready to be picked and which are not. That way, you’re getting mushrooms to consumers at the peak of their quality.”
- Jose Cambon, Chief Executive Officer, Highline Mushrooms
To support its hyper-fresh position, Highline has invested approximately $10 million in cold chain solutions over the past 24 months.
“This is about delivering a product that is as good on day seven or eight as it is on day two, three, or four,” Jose says.
The abilities of the new farm extend beyond consumer satisfaction, which, of course, is important. It also takes into account supply forecasting and customizing specs with partners.
“We have partners using AI to forecast their sales today; if we can connect our AI data position with theirs, then we can start to close the loop,” Jose adds.
The new farm will increase Highline’s footprint by 13–14 million pounds per year and is a scalable model, one that Highline hopes to expand across the North American market.
“We’re not claiming we’ve got it solved just yet, but we’re building the base that enables us to be in the best position to solve it,” Jose says with a grin. “The guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper didn’t invent anything new; he just took existing parts and put them together in a new way. And that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Highline is currently turning soil on the facility, which it expects to start harvesting from in June of next year, and people are starting to see it take root.
With retail partners already excited about the farm’s capabilities, I have to ask Jose what this milestone means for Highline as a whole.
“Technology more often than not doesn’t fail because of the technology itself, but due to the people adapting it. For us, having great mushroom people, then giving them the best technology, positions us to lead the industry,” Jose asserts.
Outside of scaling up its distribution footprint, Highline has updated its branding in an effort to drive consumption of mushrooms across North America.
“We know mushrooms are good for you, but as an industry, I think there is a huge opportunity around why they are good for us,” Jose notes. “The best way to solve that is to have a clearer message and back it up with high-quality product.”
Recalling the hyper-fresh position from earlier, I’d say that Highline’s combination of branding and tech-driven quality is a winning strategy for bringing more customers into the mushroom fold.
“I’m hoping that this will be another example of Highline leading the way, and people are standing on the sidelines, saying, ‘Those guys are a little bit crazy,’” Jose shares. “The work we did with the clear till, which was controversial to begin with, is something I expect will become more and more mainstream across North America. It’s now fairly mainstream in Canada, so I expect the same evolution in the U.S.”
As familiar as Highline is with forging its own identity, a controversial risk is actually a calculated move backed by expertise and partnership.
“I’m not telling you this is the absolute solution. We will pivot if necessary. But at the end of this, I think we’ll have the world’s leading facility,” he says honestly.
As the winds of change continue to blow, Highline is riding the currents into a hyper-fresh future. 
