I was lucky that the organic shiitake sold itself back then, as my sales patter was as naff as you’d expect from an 18-year old lad trying to act important whilst shaking in his boots! I can say with confidence that the chefs of this island gave me a better education than any college ever could. For that I will always be eternally grateful. The best decision I ever made was to listen and learn from all of you. So many chefs have given me so much of their patience over the years. I never pretended to know anything that I didn’t, and I asked question after question… my ears and eyes took in as much as they possibly could, feeding my passion for food. We have grown and evolved over the past quarter of a century. From the days of small beginnings growing and selling specialist mushrooms, caviar and truffles, we have come a long way. We now house over 1600 product lines and deliver over 150 full pallets of produce per week in our 11 refrigerated vans. In 1992 we started a family business, and that’s what we still are. No matter how big we grow as a business, that will never change. Family is at our core and we surround ourselves with amazing employees that have the same passion and dedication that we have had since day one. We are still set to source the very best fresh and dry produce from across Europe but we will be supplying as much locally grown produce that Woodside Farm and many others can pull from the ground! This is good for all of us and for our island that we love. We remain fully committed to offering the best prices and produce available. As the saying goes, the best is yet to come. Here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2018. Jamie Racjan and the Fungi Delecti family.

For 2018 our chosen charity is Macmillan Jersey. Lee and I are feeling the burn at the moment as we are training hard for the Geneva to Nice cycle ride. We will be riding through the Alps for what is going to be a very demanding yet spectacular challenge. Any offers of sponsorship, no matter how much, will be gratefully received. You can find our page and donate at: www.macmillanjersey.com/get-involved/sponsor-a-fundraiser/ If you haven’t had a chance yet, check out Beresford Street Kitchen. It is a social enterprise providing training and employment for people with learning disabilities and autism. We love routinely making surprise deliveries of fruit and vegetables free of charge so they can make chutneys and pickles. Reducing waste and reusing what we can is a priority for us. All of our orders are delivered in large reusable red crates that we collect from the restaurant back doors the day after deliveries. Did you know that we also recycle all of our cardboard? As you can imagine, we have boxes coming out of our ears… so we crush them all up and make them into large heavy bales and send them off for recycling.