About

Our Start

Collar City Mushroom is New York’s Capital Region’s premier mushroom farm. Founded in 2020 by Amy Hood and Avery Stempel, Collar City specializes in culinary mushrooms and provides fresh, flavorful and nutrient-rich mushrooms and fungi related products for chefs, markets, and mushroom enthusiasts. With a commitment to sustainability and innovation, the farm prides itself on being the Capital Region’s foremost mycological hub. 

Founder, Avery Stempel, teaches classes on mycology locally at libraries and garden clubs as well as at HVCC. Avery is also one of the founders of New Yorkers for Mental Health Alternatives, a nonprofit organization working to create legal pathways for safe access to psilocybin-containing mushrooms.

A shelf of PVC pipes stands before a white wall in purple light. Avery Stempel stands before it, gesturing like Vanna White, marveling at the fruiting mushrooms on the racks of the shelves. He is wearing a button down shirt with mushrooms and cats.
Avery Stempel
A field with a forest beyond it. In the foreground is Amy Hood, cradling a large log with fungi emerging from it.
Amy Hood

Why Mushrooms?

Collar City Mushrooms is one node in the great interconnected mycelial mat providing the substrate out of which is growing a movement that will impact the way we see the world.  The fungi kingdom includes life forms that can offer nutrients, that include healthful medicinal properties, that can mycoremediate petroleum based wastes, that enrich and renew soils, that can induce mind altering spiritual growth, and that can be used as building materials, textiles, and biodegradable packaging.  Understanding the mushroom and the way it interacts with its environment will help us save ourselves and the way we live.

Why Us?

The world of fungi draws so many to it, creating mutually beneficial relationships, inspiring life changes, and illustrating possible connections.  The Collar City Mushrooms team has been drawn together from across the area, drawn by an interest in mushrooms and how they can benefit ourselves and society as a whole.  We are a group that loves to create, to experiment, to laugh, to love, to enjoy new experiences, and to bring about change.  Each one of us has jumped through hurdles, overcome challenges, and stepped up to the agar plate with determination.  We are crazy about mushrooms, but we are also dedicated to building community and to serving tasty food and medicine to those who are interested.  Mushrooms are the past, mushrooms are the present, and mushrooms will be the way of the future!  The health benefits, the ecological benefits, and the societal benefits are just now beginning to be researched. We are excited to be riding this wave of discovery while bringing local fresh mushrooms to the capital region and beyond.