Media Placements – 05/10/2021

Mushrooms in the News: 05-10-2021

The Mushroom Council’s multimedia collaboration with Food Network kicked off on Monday, May 3. The trades, including The Produce News, Perishable News, and Supermarket Perimeter shared details of the Council’s promotion of the contest. Learn more about this year’s contest by visiting the official contest page. 

Janet Helm, MS, RDN explains “it’s easier than ever to be a flexitarian” in an article on U.S. News & World Report. The growing popularity of the flexitarian diet has more blended products coming to market. Helm said she began following the trend when “it seemed to get started around 2015 when the Mushroom Council teamed up with the James Beard Foundation for the Blended Burger Project.” Furthermore, thanks to BBP, “the concept of being a Blenditarian took off, and the blended burger began showing up on blogs, magazine food pages, restaurant menus and even in the frozen food aisle,” Helm said. “Some of the early hybrid foods were meat and mushroom blended burgers.”

Lauren Manaker MS, RDN, LD, CLEC worked with the Council to share the nutritional benefits of mushrooms in a recent article on VeryWell Health. As a way to add more mushrooms into your diet, she suggested “One clever food hack to use when you are preparing a meat-based meal is to make a blended burger or sauce with ½ ground beef and ½ chopped mushrooms.”

Wall Street Journal looked at how growers are facing challenges forecasting demand in 2021 as consumer behavior changes as restrictions continue to lift. While the article focuses mainly on strawberries, the final paragraphs also call out mushroom production.

Share the Blended Burger Contest on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

MEDIA + SOCIAL/DIGITAL HIGHLIGHTS

CONSUMER

• Hybrid Foods for a Flexitarian Diet – U.S. News & World Report (and Yahoo!)
• Study: Benefits of Eating More Mushrooms – VeryWell Health
• Driscoll’s Desperately Needs to Know America’s Appetite for Strawberries – The Wall Street Journal
• Black Bean and Mushroom Quesadillas With Avocado Crema – The Los Angeles Times
• Mushroom Lovers’ French Bread Pizza – Rachael Ray Show

TRADE

• Mushroom Council’s Food Network Partnership Aims for Wide Consumer Awareness of The Blend – Perishable News
• Mushroom Council partners with Food Network to promote mushroom/meat blend – Supermarket Perimeter
• Mushroom Council’s Food Network partnership expands awareness of The Blend – The Produce News
• Slideshow: The shroom boom – Food Business News

SOCIAL/DIGITAL

Top Posts

Facebook users were eager to tell us what dishes they like to add sautéed mushrooms to in a recent top post. Many comments said steak, other included:

• “On baked potatoes, as a side dish, mix with sautéed zucchini. In an omelet with spinach, or just mushrooms. Love them!”
• “Nothing because they are fabulous on their own! Well, maybe sautéed onions.”
• “Put them on a burger…Love mushrooms on and in everything.”
• “Grilled cheese with sautéed mushrooms and onions with Fig Jam.”

Post Performance:

• Impressions: 21,688
• Engagements: 2,856
• Reactions: 1,484
• Comments: 480
• Shares: 82

Tell us what you’d put sautéed mushrooms on by commenting on Facebook.

Post Performance:

• Impressions: 19,123
• Engagements: 2,277
• Reactions: 1,336
• Comments: 76
• Shares: 120

Like, comment and share this post on Facebook.