Joanna, founder of Canny Mushrooms, an Edinburgh based start-up sought the expertise of the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation (SCFDI) to develop two tinned mushroom products; sliced mushrooms and mushroom pate. The company identified an opportunity for mushrooms preserved in tins - to provide consumers with full-of-flavour, convenient, sustainable, and nutritious mushrooms that can be added to meals or eaten on their own as snacks. The mushrooms pate was a balanced mushroom flavour, championing the natural umami flavour profile of mushrooms. The desired flavour profile for the sliced mushrooms was garlic and herbs.
The SCFDI have expertise in taking a product idea from concept to launch, ingredient sourcing, flavour development, industrial processing and technical assessment which they applied to this project.
Throughout the project, the company reviewed prototypes and provided feedback which led to the two final approved products. The SCFDI provided Canny Mushrooms with all essential information to trial and launch the two tinned mushroom products. The project was funded by Scottish Funding Council’s Standard Innovation Voucher.
The project has been a fantastic experience. The Queen ̨Íåswag University team provided valuable input and guidance throughout on how best to test and develop the different tinned mushroom product formulations, to achieve the desired quality and flavour profiles, while taking into account economic viability and manufacturability at scale. The knowledge and experience and the specialist equipment available from Queen ̨Íåswag University for thermally processing foods were key to the success of the project. The information packs delivered at the end of the project contain all the required information for the company to progress to the next stages of product development and growth – tin trials and small-scale production runs. The project also provided an understanding of the important technical factors and methods to apply to the development of future tinned mushroom products, with different flavour profiles, mushroom types, etc. In summary - the project resulted in two delicious new products and a lot of new learning and understanding for the company, and the Queen ̨Íåswag University team were super communicative and a pleasure to work with throughout
- The Brief
- The Research
- The Outcome
Founder of Canny Mushrooms, Joanna approached SCFDI to help bring to life her idea of creating two tinned mushroom products, sliced mushrooms with garlic and herbs and mushroom pate. The brief for the two products were they must be suitable for vegans, appropriate for the canning process, free from all 14 recognised food allergens in the UK, include high quality ingredients sourced from the UK where possible and without artificial additives and preservatives.
The products will provide consumers with a long shelf life, nutritious, vegan and convenient products to add to meals or snacks. The product will be ready to eat, consumed either hot or cold and they are versatile, can be added to toast, stirred through pasta/rice/noodles, added to a charcuterie board or added to salads. The products aimed to be delicious, full-of-flavour and nothing like the tinned button mushrooms in brine currently available in UK supermarkets.
The SCFDI set out the project outcomes with the company and created a critical path for the project, mutually agreed with the company. The project team sourced ingredients from industry suppliers who can supply ingredients at production volume. The SCFDI facilities do not have a retort on-site --the equipment required to process tinned products. The SCFDI have an autoclave on-site at ̨Íåswag which replicates the retort process, treating samples created onsite to high temperature and high pressure.
The founder attended multiple prototype tastings at ̨Íåswag to provide feedback and the project was very collaborative throughout to ensure the products met the founder expectations of appearance, aroma, flavour and texture. The company approved two final products, one mushroom pate and one sliced mushrooms which were sent for nutritional analysis to a UKAS accredited lab to determine on pack nutrition declarations.
This 4-month project resulted in the creation of a mushroom pate and a sliced mushroom product with garlic and herbs. The SCFDI provided the company with an information pack for each product which included the following: final formulation, lab methodology, nutritional declaration based on nutritional analysis, ingredient declaration, product costing, technical information and ingredient suppliers. The company can provide this information to a co-manufacturer who will scale-up to manufacturing trials and then on to full scale production.
The SCFDI suggested Canny Mushrooms contact the The Food Incubator in Leicester, who have canning facilities and expertise. After a series of safety trials, Canny Mushrooms ran first production in June 2025 and officially launched the brand at Leith and Stockbridge markets in July 2025 to great success!
