The MushRoom, a portable eatery, will highlight the Dublin, CA-based Mushroom Council's September promotion of National Mushroom Month. This is the first major promotion in the Mushroom Councils return to such efforts since 2000, when a grower sued the council for using funds he contributed for a promotion and won, ceasing the councils authority to run promotions. Subsequent complex legal events reversed that decision in 2005. The suing grower went out of business in the interim.

So as of Jan. 1, the Mushroom Council has been back into mushroom promotions. The council hired San Francisco-based Edelman as its public relations agency to assist its promotion efforts, and Eva Wong is heading the Mushroom Council account for Edelman. Most of the agencys efforts thus far have focused on a September launch of a new $2.9 million promotion.

Ms. Wong said Aug. 15, "This is the start of the Mushroom Councils surround-sound effort to reach buyers  be they consumers, retailers, or foodservice operators  where they live and shop. It is our intent to surround these buyers with awareness-generating and compelling information emotionally relevant to them. It might be in their home or at work, writing up their shopping list or at the point of purchase, where a simple reminder or good quality might drive an impulse decision."

There are several components in the consumer-, foodservice- and retail-targeted National Mushroom Month promotion. The Council is launching the MushRoom in New York City in September, Ms. Wong said. The restaurant will 'pop up overnight in a high-traffic area such as Grand Central Station and will appear in the shape of a giant white button mushroom. It will highlight the everyday versatility of the mushroom by serving mushroom-friendly fare all day including breakfast, lunch, appetizers and dinner. Consumers will be able to walk through the MushRoom to not only sample the food but also to observe and learn techniques such as the proper saut? method and receive usage ideas and Make It With Mushrooms contest information.

She added, The council is also hosting an event with consumer long-lead magazine editors in New York City in late September. The event will educate editors about umami [a.k.a. the fifth flavor], the nutritional value of mushrooms and offer everyday usage ideas.

Ms. Wong also indicated that the Mushroom Council is developing and launching a consumer usage contest known as MakeItWithMushrooms.com. The contest will launch this month and will culminate October 31. The two categories are: favorite everyday dishes using saut?ed mushrooms and favorite everyday mushroom dish.

The grand prize is $5,000, and two additional first prizes of $1,000 will be offered for the top submission in each category. The Mushroom Council will also develop banner advertisements for targeted consumer recipe web sites.

The Mushroom Council is close to finalizing a consumer spokesperson to reinforce its messages in its consumer programs, Ms. Wong said.

Fifty percent of mushroom sales are in the foodservice sector, so this segment is receiving a good portion of the Mushroom Councils promotional focus. In July, the council co-sponsored a celebrity cook-off at New Yorks Art Institute culinary school, partnering with the Beef Check-off program and the Veal Board. In early August, the council co-sponsored The Flavor Experience, a conference in San Diego that brought together operators, research chefs and commodity boards to discuss and explore flavor. Mushrooms were a featured ingredient in the Ready, Set & Flavor! presentation that showcased the culinary talents of two chef teams in a friendly competition with all dishes being tasted and discussed by menu development teams.

The Mushroom Council is developing an umami white paper to demystify the fifth flavor. According to Wikipedia, In recent years, advances in chemistry and food research have led to suggestions of additional basic food flavors. The most well-known and generally accepted is the concept of a fifth basic taste called savory, or umami. Savory is generally described as the taste of the common food flavoring monosodium glutamate, or MSG, first isolated by Dr. Kikunae Ikeda at the Imperial University of Tokyo, Japan, in 1907.

The Internet reference site continues, Scientists describe seven basic tastes: bitter, salty, sour, astringent, sweet, pungent and umami. This last being from a number of recent scientific publications about new basic tastes.

On the retail side, the promotion is launching the cross-department advertising label program Label$Dollars on Sept. 4. Fresh meat packages will carry a label promoting mushroom usage at the time of purchase. The program will be implemented at 500 Safeway stores throughout the chain including Vons in California and Nevada, and Tom Thumb and Randalls in Texas. Other Safeway affiliates in the promotion are Pavilions, Genuardis, Dominicks and Safeway. Historically, the Label$Dollars program has generated an average 29 percent lift across all types of offers, including those with a coupon, according to Ms. Wong. The council is developing a web-to-print tool that allows individual mushroom growers nationwide to develop and customize collateral with a cohesive look and feel that will be available later this year.

Joe Caldwell, who is the co-chair of the Mushroom Councils marketing committee, said that Edelman has been working feverishly for the last six months on a program to not only give us some short-term improvement in sales, but work on increasing the consumption rate in the U.S. Mr. Caldwell is the vice president of Watsonville, CA-based Monterey Mushrooms Inc.

He noted that the outlook for the industry is as good as it has been in a long time because of the work of the Mushroom Council.

Mr. Caldwell added that mushrooms fit into all consumer trends and into every type of diet. So this is a good place to be.