Laura Stewart
Haw River Mushrooms – MICRO Fall 2023
Published April 9, 2025
As part of our ‘Meet Our Founders’ series today, we introduce Laura Stewart, CEO of Haw River Mushrooms based in Graham, NC. Haw River Mushrooms are mushroom farmers on a mission to make mushroom nutrition easy by creating healthy, delicious, mushroom-based foods.
Q: What problem are you trying to solve and what influenced you to start your company?
A: We began at a farmers market, where we originally envisioned growing a fresh mushroom farm committed to regenerative agriculture principals. We stumbled into the alternative proteins space in 2016 when we welcomed twin daughters to the family. Prior to that we had been sampling mushrooms by cooking them on a Coleman stove at market. When the twins started coming to market with us we felt two infants and an open flame was too much to manage. We brainstormed for a simpler sample that we could make in big batches and arrived at mushroom jerky. Soon, customers were asking us to make it for purchase, and I (Laura) was realizing that having the jerky as a snack while juggling babies, farming, and a full time off-farm job kept me well-nourished and balanced during the busiest time of my life. We partnered with the Piedmont Food Processing Facility in Hillsborough to produce and bring our products to market. Later, the NC Food Innovation Lab in Kannapolis helped us take our jerky making process down from 3 days to 6 hours by fine-tuning the process at their Pilot Plant Production Lab.
In 2020, we entered our jerkies in the national SOFI specialty food awards, and were thrilled when we learned we had swept the Plant Based Foods category, taking Best New Product and 2nd place overall. First Place overall went to Patagonia Foods, the food branch of the famed clothing company. We realized our products had the traction to stand out in a national playing field, and that’s when we began reaching out to resources like NC IDEA to help us navigate the growth curves from a Mom and Pop mushroom farm to a Foodtech startup.
As we grew, we began to realize we had unique value to add in the alternative proteins space. It feels like a frontier and one of our biggest challenges is staying focused because their are just so many possibilities to explore when it comes to tasty and creative ways to make mushrooms a bigger part of our daily diets.
Q: What have you enjoyed most about starting your own company?
A: We love that there is never a dull day. (Okay, maybe the occasional dull day would be welcome). Our work allows us to interact with other innovators, engage in conversations about the future of food, and be able to speak first hand to the life-changing experience of building a business from scratch.
Q: Who do you look to for advice and mentorship?
A: Every day we are struck by the depth and generosity of the NC entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our acceptance to NC IDEA MICRO felt like an official induction to a community of innovators and mentors. The longer we’ve been in business the more likely we are to pick up the phone and ask someone we respect what their thoughts are on a particular problem or approach we are looking at. Early on, I think it was overwhelming to realize the more mentors we spoke with, the more likely we were to get conflicting advice. “we should focus more vs. we should diversify” – we need to expand our team or we need to lean our operations… I now see this as a feature and not a bug. Every choice we make as we grow opens some doors and closes others, and the more conversations we have the better we understand the path we’re carving and the road not taken.
While visiting Saxapahaw, Laura recommends:
- Saxapahaw is a (literal) village located in central North Carolina. It’s a farmer and artist haven built around a restored textile mill. The New York Times once called us “the middle of somewhere”. In addition to touring Haw River Mushrooms – the states largest producer of hardwood mushrooms here’s the write-up we give to attendees before they come to our classes:
Things to Do on your Saxy Day Before or After Your Fungus Adventure - For folks who are new to Saxapahaw, you may want to build in extra time before or after class to check out some of our other awesome town features.
For meals consider:
– The Eddy Pub: Saturday 10-8:30 with brunch from 10-2 and a full dinner menu available all day
– The Saxapahaw General Store (Your Local Five Star Gas Station!): Open Saturday 7AM – 9PM
– Cup 22: Fantastic teas and coffees, and locally made pastries
– Haw River Farmhouse Ales: handcrafted traditional European-style ales with a little southern flair
– Steel String Brewery | Funky Free-Spirited Brews: Located off NC54 just a few minutes from Sax, Steel String has a great rotating lineup of food trucks, miles of walking trails, and a great atmosphere.Local Shopping and Groceries:
– Protea Farm Flower Shop & Store: Offering gifts and unique flowers.
– Riverside Collective: A women-owned artist maker space and well-curated gift shop.
– Left Bank Butchery: Truly one of the best whole animal butchery and charcuterie shops in the nation, featured in Michael Pollan’s netflix series. Bring a cooler if you’d like to stock up!
– The General Store mentioned above is also an awesome place to check out the latest in NC Made artisanal food in their grocery sectionThings to Do:
– Consider checking out Saxapahaw Island Park , mark Haw River Canoe & Kayak Adventures on your to do list for warmer weather, or hike the Haw River Trail that starts behind the mill (walk to the bottom of the ampitheater and walk towards the river to find the trail head).
Support Haw River Mushrooms and Laura by:
- In 2023 we raised $75,000 through a crowd-funding campaign and $10,000 through the NC IDES MICRO program to build and upfit an on-farm processing facility. We are now working to maximize the efficiency of that facility and build our wholesale, in person, and ecommerce sales with the intention of breaking ground on a stage 2 facility in 2026. We are looking for health food and mushroom mavens to spread the word about our products, subscribe to our eNews, tell a friend, or ask their local market manager to carry our brand.
