His Business is Mushrooming

Charlie Steiger has lived his whole life in Fillmore, but still his path has been a winding one. Currently, Steiger is a mushroom farmer at his growing operation Boom Family Farms. But he’s also a flight instructor, personal fitness trainer and indoor grow room expert.

“I’ve been an assistant chief flight instructor at Bakersfield [California Aeronautical University] and chief flight instructor at Camarillo Channel Islands Aviation,” says Steiger, 35, who specializes in emergency maneuvering and aerobatics, according to the mushroom farm’s web page. “Now I’m fully embracing the mushroom path.” It all fits together, he says. “Aviation induced a thorough understanding of weather theory knowledge, which helped with grow room environmental design.”

While teaching at the Bakersfield California Aeronautical University in 2020, Steiger was approached about designing a grow room for mushrooms. “I had grown plants indoors, but never mushrooms,” says Steiger. “Later, the grower backed out and asked me if I wanted to pick up [the project] and learn [mushroom growing]. I was like, ‘If it grows, I’m interested.’”

As life sometimes has a tendency to create confluences in events, at around the same time Steiger had some blood tests that showed his white blood cell count below normal range. He had always been interested in fitness and wellness, so he started to delve deeper into the world of mushrooms, studying the fungi’s various health benefits.

“The mushrooms industry is just emerging in western culture. But the quality was initially all over the place. Still, to a degree, one must be very knowledgeable of the products they are buying to ascertain the quality,” says Steiger. So in 2021 he started growing his own and in 2022 starting making his own supplements.
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They’ve improved my health markers,” says Steiger. “I attribute (not objectively) this to me incorporating mushroom supplements.” This led to an even larger opportunity. “I saw an opening in the local scene for mushrooms and decided I could take my knowledge, experience and mushrooms into a business,” he says.

“I’m farming on land that’s been in our family, where I have lived for half my life. It’s a 20-acre orange ranch,” says Steiger. “Having the land is a huge asset. I’ve built a custom automated/climate controlled, semi-isolated greenhouse—only one of its kind. And in the house, I’ve converted my childhood bedroom for my lab work. It still has the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.” As the mushroom business expands at Boom Family Farms, Steiger decided he needs extra help to promote his mushrooms at area restaurants.

Joaquin Garcia, a fellow mushroom enthusiast is stepping up. Garcia makes his own mushroom-based products nearby.

“It’s good to partner with someone like Charlie, who is mass-producing mushroom products that I can use making my own seasoning salt, lotions and a coffee substitute mushroom drink,” says Garcia. “It’s very healthy. Myself, I love coffee. But if I add this to my coffee, the brain elevates. It doesn’t give you a crash like coffee,” he says, adding that he will also be selling the Boom Farms products to area farmers and restaurants.

The Boom Family Farms products include dried mushrooms, dried mushroom powders and capsules, mushroom extracts and—soon— mushroom artwork displays. Steiger grows shiitake, oyster, turkey tail, reishi, cordyceps, black poplar (aka pioppino) and lion’s mane, with many more varieties on the way.

He’s experimenting with growing the mushrooms in different soil matter—including coffee grounds from local businesses and spent grains from Red Engine Brewery, also in Fillmore—to create natural ways to reuse and recycle various materials. Using his flying background, which helped him acquire analytical and scientific analysis skills, Steiger wants to keep track of his results and publish a scientific paper showing “how using recycled/repurposed waste products from other local industries can be commercially viable and offer benefits to the business as well as the community.”

• For information about Boom Family Farms, visit BoomFamilyFarms.com or Instagram.com/bffmushrooms.