Jason Scriffignano ‘Total FunGuy’ new Rockhampton exotic mushroom stall

When this Rockhampton man was faced with some time off work during the Covid pandemic, he discovered videos on growing mushrooms. Three years later, he has a thriving business.

Jason Scriffignano with the Lion's Mane mushroom.

At the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020, Rockhampton’s Jason Scriffignano had some time off work and fell down a YouTube rabbit hole - one that has led to a quirky new business.

Somehow, he laughs, he ended up watching videos upon videos about growing mushrooms.

“In that time I thought, ‘here we go again, I’ve got to change my career and I’m not getting any younger’,” he said.

“I don’t know how I got onto mushrooms … but it was early in the morning, staying up late at night.

“I had in my head that food was a thing, everyone needed fresh food, with Covid, all of the shelves going empty.”

Three years later, with a lot of ‘fails’ in between, Jason still hasn’t emerged from the rabbit hole and has created a new business growing and selling mushrooms, calling himself the Total FunGuy.

In his regular job, Jason is a spatial analyst, but he did a botany and chemistry double major at CQUniversity in the 80s, and has always liked botany.

“Within months I was trying to grow mushrooms and failing miserably, because I didn’t have the right equipment to keep everything clean and uncontaminated,” he said.

Blue Pearl Oyster mushrooms at Jason's home set up.

When growing mushrooms, it takes two months to determine success or failure, because it takes a lot of lead up to get to that point, with all of the processes in between.

“You can have a whole lot of stuff lined up and not know it is going to fail until you try and fruit it,” Jason said.

“The biggest thing about growing mushrooms is keeping everything clean and sterile, because the fruiting room is the ideal environment for fungus, moulds and bacteria to grow in, you are constantly cleaning everything.”

Over time, he invested in the proper equipment, refined his processes and learnt tips and tricks off fellow mushroom growers.

For example, he was growing Italian Oyster mushrooms and found they were lovely and tasted good, but would always turn up on the ends, and another grower explained his humidity was too high.

He has now perfected his two mainstays, the Lion’s Mane and Blue Pearl Oyster mushrooms.

“They are both very different mushrooms, the Blue Pearl Oyster, has a very rich umami flavour, you can’t compare it to a white button mushroom,” he said.

“It has a lovely full flavour and great texture, you can cut it up and it stays chunky, you can put it in stews, casseroles and stir fries.

Lion's Mane mushroom by Total FunGuy.

“Lion’s Mane doesn’t taste like mushrooms at all, it has a sweet flavour, a more softer texture, it tastes more like lobster, but without the sea part.

“I like to cook it in white wine and leek, pecorino cheese and garlic, it tastes like lobster mornay.”

At first Jason was just giving the mushrooms away to family and friends, before he eventually felt confident that they were good enough to take to the markets.

He now sells at the Rocky Markets at the cinemas on Sundays and has just expanded to the Yeppoon markets.

Skyring’s Restaurant and Bar has also added the exotic mushrooms to its winter menu.

Jason has plans to build a new fruiting room, hoped to be operational by next year, which will take his production from 25 to 30 kilosgrams to 100kg.

“This is my retirement, people tinker in the garden or they fix cars up, this is me tinkering with mushrooms and trying different things, until I can’t do it anymore,” he said.

Originally published as Jason Scriffignano ‘Total FunGuy’ new Rockhampton exotic mushroom stall