On Tuesday, June 23, a violent flash storm swept across Philadelphia and surrounding regions delivering straight-line wind gusts of up to 85 miles per hour. Patio furniture tossed about, trees uprooted and roofs were torn from their structures. Over 100,000 people were without power even three days after the storm, which lasted only minutes.

“It looked like a wall of wind and rain barreling across the area, and then, 10 minutes later, it was sunny in Philadelphia,” said Fred Recchiuti, general manager of Basciani Foods Inc., in Avondale, PA. “Thanks to our back-up generators, redundant internet connections and redundant servers, we were able to maintain business as usual. A lot of operations in the area found out just how dependent today’s business operations are on the Internet. If your Internet service is down, so are you. So we are proud to report that this flash storm emergency preparedness exercise has been a success story for Basciani.”

Basciani Farms’ Steakhouse Cut ½” Sliced Mushrooms a perfect alternative for foodservice operatorsSpeaking of success stories, Basciani’s new Steakhouse Cut 1/2” Sliced Mushrooms are really taking off in foodservice. Michael Basciani, managing owner of the company, explained that since small button mushrooms are in such strong demand, but so hard to harvest this time of year as mushrooms can double in size every twelve hours in the summer, big foodservice operators are switching.

“They are switching to our Steakhouse Cut 1/2” Sliced Mushrooms because the cooking time is the same and they don’t have to alter their operations,” said Basciani. “In addition, the Steakhouse Cut is easier for restaurant guests to fork than the round button.”

Basciani Foods will exhibit at Booth No. 130 during the PMA Foodservice Conference & Expo, July 24-26, at the Monterey Conference Center in Monterey, CA. There, visitors can find out more about Basciani’s full product line and its sustainability initiatives.

Basciani Foods boasts that it does everything in the mushroom industry. It grows all sizes of white mushrooms as well as exotics. It packs for national retail grocery store chains as well as for foodservice distributors. From its processing and storage facilities in Chicago and Minneapolis, the company ships over a million pounds of mushrooms per week.

“Becoming number one is a goal, but not an obsession,” said Basciani. “Bigger isn’t always better. But if you constantly strive to be better, bigger just seems to follow.”