Why your mushrooms shouldn't fly

Most exotic mushrooms served in England have had quite a journey: cut abroad, chilled, boxed, flown, trucked and traded through a market before a chef ever opens the lid. Six days is normal.

Mushrooms are mostly water and entirely momentum — from the moment they're cut, the scent quietens and the cut face dulls. Nothing about that improves with air miles. Ours travel differently: cut at first light in East Garston, in the van by eight, and in a kitchen's walk-in before lunch the same day. Freshness isn't a claim we make. It's a distance we keep short.