Bihar Housewife Started Growing Mushrooms At Home With Just Rs 120; Now Clocks Rs 3 Lakh Monthly Revenue

Curiosity doesn't always kill the cat.

Sometimes, it is the best thing to happen to someone. Genuine curiosity rooted in a desire to learn can take people to places they never thought existed. 

This is exactly what happened with Rama Kumari, a resident of Muzaffarpur, Bihar.

When she returned to Bihar from Pune along with her husband during the COVID-19 pandemic, she missed the mushrooms she used to cook almost daily. 

“In Pune, mushrooms were readily available. And my husband and I had grown fond of them. But when we returned to Bihar, we craved the same mushroom curries we used to have for dinner. At the time, in smaller cities of Bihar, mushrooms weren't available for purchase. So out of curiosity, I decided to see if I could grow them at home,” Rama Kumari, founder of Tulsi Spawn Lab, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview. 

Today, Rama Kumari’s mushroom brand has branched out into three offerings:

1. Selling oyster, button, and milky mushrooms 

2. Selling spawns to people who want to grow mushrooms at home 

3. Giving training in the best practices for mushroom cultivation

With an initial investment of just Rs 120, Rama Kumari’s mushroom farming venture clocks a monthly revenue of Rs 3 lakhs today. On an annual basis, the figure comes to Rs 36 lakh.

HOW IT ALL STARTED 

 Hailing from Muzaffarpur, Bihar, Rama Kumari went to Chennai to earn her BCom degree from the Bharathiar University of Tamil Nadu.

Eventually, she landed a job in the banking field.

After getting married and having a baby, she quit her job to focus on her household.

Rama Kumari’s husband, who works in the IT field, was posted in Pune for some time.

Before the pandemic hit, Rama would cook mushroom recipes.

“Mushrooms became our absolute favourite. From making mushroom matar masala to mushroom keema, I learned everything,” she shares. 

In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country, Rama Kumari and her husband moved back to their hometown in Muzaffarpur, Bihar.

Almost immediately, they realised that mushrooms were very difficult to find in smaller cities. They were simply not available in the vegetable and fruit mandis.

That is when Rama Kumari’s curiosity fuelled her decision to start growing mushrooms at home.

In August 2021, she started it purely as a one-off experiment, with no intention of establishing a full-fledged business.

“My first step was to research mushroom-growing methods on the Internet. After I was confident that I'd be able to pull this off, I ordered one kilogram of oyster mushroom spawns for Rs 120. There was some wheat straw lying around our house, so I used that to build the base and compost. I prepared a total of 5 bags of mushrooms using the spawns,” mushroom entrepreneur Rama Kumari tells Startup Pedia. 

Even though the mushrooms were placed in a small room in her house that wasn't necessarily a proper mushroom farming unit, the results were positive.

Rama Kumari was able to harvest 12 kilograms of mushrooms from that experiment.

“I shared some of the harvest with my friends and dried the rest. My father-in-law encouraged me to take mushroom farming ahead and become an entrepreneur,” she says.

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JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES

Now that Rama Kumari’s experiment with oyster mushrooms was successful, she decided to grow button mushrooms.

“But button mushrooms require a lot of technical knowledge. By now, I was sure that this was the field I wanted to work in. I was ready to go all in,” startup founder Rama Kumari shares. 

In September 2021, Rama Kumari contacted Mrs. Manorama Singh, a mushroom grower in Bihar.

The trainer taught Rama Kumari about the right way to make compost for growing button mushrooms and the importance of monitoring it on a daily basis. 

In the winter of 2021, Rama Kumari purchased 22 kilograms of button mushroom spawns from Manorama Singh.

“This was at a rate of Rs 110 per kilogram,” Rama Kumari says. 

“I also spent somewhere between Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 on making the compost using manure, wheat straw, and gypsum,” she adds. 

Next, she set up a mushroom-growing room fully equipped with racks and bamboo structures. A total of Rs 25,000 went into making everything ready for the cultivation of button mushrooms.

With 22 kilograms of mushroom spawns, the farming entrepreneur prepared 100 bags. Ultimately, she was able to harvest 2 kilograms of button mushrooms from each bag.

“My total output was 200 kilograms of button mushrooms. My husband came in to support me, and we sold the mushrooms for Rs 200 per kilogram to our local Muzaffarpur mandi and nearby wholesalers. Our earning was Rs 40,000,” the mushroom entrepreneur explains.

For the next two seasons, Rama Kumari bought mushroom spawns from Manorama. But the problem was that the place was situated 70 kilometres away from Rama’s house.

“Travelling this distance every time we needed spawns was a hassle. In 2022, I decided to set up a spawn lab that could benefit other people interested in growing mushrooms at home. At the time, there was no facility like this in the city,” farming entrepreneur Rama Kumari tells Startup Pedia. 

Setting up the spawn lab came with its own set of requirements and challenges:

1. Rama Kumari and her husband first took training at the PUSA University in Samastipur.

2. Setting up a fully equipped mushroom spawn lab required an investment of Rs 16 lakh. The couple decided to use their savings for it and set up a lab in a small room spanning just 10 ft x 12 ft. 

3. Even though the formal training had taught them the correct way of operating a spawn lab, there were certain failures in the beginning.

“Learning something theoretically is one thing, but doing it practically is another. A lot of things get uncovered then. In our case, we kept failing for three months. Sometimes, the lab would get contaminated. Other times, there would be an issue with the temperature. The thing is, mushroom is a very scientific crop. You need everything to be in place for it to thrive,” explains startup founder Rama Kumari.

Eventually, by 2023, the spawn lab became successful.

Initially, to market their services and build awareness in the area, Rama and her husband started distributing one kilogram of mushroom spawns to people for free.

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TULSI SPAWN LAB

Today, startup founder Rama Kumari operates her mushroom farming operations under the brand name of Tulsi Spawn Lab.

With three branches, she serves customers coming in from social media enquiries, word-of-mouth recommendations, and offline mediums like wholesalers and distributors.

1. The mushroom entrepreneur sells organic button, oyster, and milky mushrooms. The output varies from 250 kilograms to 500 kilograms per season, depending on the mushroom type. She also sells value-added products from mushrooms by drying them into powders, pickles, and mixes.

2. Through her spawn lab, Rama Kumari sells mushroom spawns. The monthly output for the spawn lab is 2 tonnes.

3. Additionally, she offers training to young students, housewives, and professionals who wish to enter the field of mushroom cultivation and grow mushrooms at home. Her training is mostly offline and takes a vocational approach instead of a theoretical one. 

In FY24, Rama Kumari’s mushroom farming venture clocked an annual revenue of Rs 12 lakh. 

“Our revenues have increased ever since we started selling mushroom spawns and offering training to budding mushroom entrepreneurs,” farming entrepreneur Rama Kumari tells Startup Pedia.

In FY25, Tulsi Spawn Lab clocked an annual revenue of Rs 36 lakh (Rs 3 lakh on a monthly basis).

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LOOKING AHEAD

Rama Kumari and her husband are currently working on building an air-conditioned farm and compost yard that will generate organic compost ready to be used for mushroom cultivation. 

“My husband and in-laws have been incredibly supportive of my desire to become an entrepreneur. This venture has given me a new identity, and now I want to help more people set up their mushroom farming businesses,” Rama Kumari concludes.

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