At Oracle Mushroom Co., we are a team dedicated to cultivating the finest mushrooms for our customers. Led by founder Spencer Lord, our mission is to provide high-quality, top tier mushrooms while promoting sustainability and ethical practices in our farming. Get to know our story, and let us show you why we enjoy bringing our mushrooms to you.

Growing up in New Milford, nature was an integral part of my childhood. As as kid, I was often jealous of my friends who lived in neighborhoods and had a network of peers just a stone’s throw away. Those after school pick-up soccer games or post-dinner rounds of manhunt made me green with envy. It wasn’t until adulthood that I truly began to appreciate those developing years spent on my parents’ expansive mountainside property. Thousands of hours exploring “the woods”, gathering a menagerie of specimens ranging from red-spotted newts to peculiar types of mosses. Unknowingly shaping my future curiosities.

That influence of nature and connection to the earth literally blazed the trail for my academic path later in life. The inner workings of the natural world became an obsession. Biology piqued my interest; living organisms and their intricacies captivated me, and when I encountered the field of biochemistry, I felt at home. The marriage of biology and chemistry gave me a new window into the “hows” and “whys” behind livings things. This drove me to complete a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and a minor in Biology from Western Connecticut State University.

So, where do mushrooms come in? I’m glad you asked. While fungi was always a piece of the natural landscape I grew up with, they were often overlooked as a sort of garnish to the main course. I could not have been more naive. In 2018, while walking on the same childhood property, I encountered one of the most beautiful specimens I have ever seen. It was a large, multi-colored reishi mushroom. Its glossy sheen and fan shape immediately caught my eye. I had heard of this king of medicinal mushrooms before, but cannot recall ever having seen it through this lens. I was instantly hooked. This chance encounter would inadvertently define my career path.

During the infamous lockdown of 2020, I truly spiraled into the realm of mushrooms. I caught the foraging itch and started identifying every mushroom that I could. I started in on mushroom grow kits, to immerse myself in the mushroom life cycle. Through more than a healthy amount of trial and error, and painstaking refinement of microbiological and mycological techniques, I refined this to a skill balanced between art and science. I became proficient in cloning wild species for optimal strains. I mastered species specific growth parameters. The fungi began to divulge their mysteries to me.

In general, we seem to be in the early stages of a mushroom “renaissance”. More and more we are seeing them “pop up”; in cuisine, in movies, media, even in toys, fashion, and pop culture. Just their image alone is synonymous with the most famous of all video games featuring two Italian plumbers. As one dives into the sea that is fungi, their functions in nature are not only revealed, but also revered. This kingdom of organisms has the potential to provide us with superfood nutrition and a plethora of health benefits, as they have for a millennia. Oracle Mushroom Co. was created to harness and further uncover these gifts from the fungal world and bring them from our farm into your daily life; to share our knowledge and expertise in this field with everyone who seeks to benefit from mushrooms. We welcome you to our hub of mushroom knowledge and exploration, and we cannot wait for you to be part of our (mycelial) network!