Emidio Basciani came to America and started growing mushrooms in 1925. He could not have known that 100 years later the third and fourth generation of the family would still be running the operation with Gen Z members of next generation also starting to find their way into the company, but he instilled an unending work ethic and passion for the business that still burns bright today, forming a solid foundation on which the company still stands.

“The first and second generation gave us a great base upon which to build,” said 63-year-old Michael Basciani Sr., who is the fourth CEO/president in the company history, following his grandfather, father and brother at the helm. “The third generation has taken us to the next level. Most of the growth has come from the late 80s to now.”

Emidio Basciani was born in the Abruzzi region of Italy (also known as Abruzzo) in 1894 and first came to America in 1915, landing in Pennsylvania’s mushroom country in Chester County. Soon thereafter, he began working for a mushroom grower. He returned to Italy in the early 1920s, got married, started a family and came back to Pennsylvania in 1925, which is when he started Emidio Basciani Mushroom Farms. In 1994, the Avondale, PA company changed its name to Basciani Foods Inc. While each of his three sons — Mario, Flavian and Emidio Jr. — did join in the family business, it was Mario who made it his life work. He joined the company in 1947 and remained active well into the 21st Century.

Mario Basciani’s sons and daughters and spouses form the core of the third-generation leadership team with Michael as CEO, and his two brothers joining him on the nine-member board of directors. Michael revealed that the other six members of the board are from the fourth generation, which includes the sons of the third-generation siblings.

Michael was quick to point out that the Basciani women have always played very important roles in the company. He noted that his grandmother and mother were key members of the administrative team and his sister Joanne Basciani Regester has been running the office for decades. “My wife, Carla, is our controller and we have many other female members of our family involved,” he said, noting there is a place in the business for everyone in the family if they want it.

In fact, Michael said he and his siblings have the same view of work and family as his parents did. “They used to say if you want to see us, come work with us because that’s where we are,” he quipped. “We say the same thing to our kids.”

Many have followed suit as there are currently 16 members of the clan working for Basciani Foods. “You have to want to work hard but we are a little easier on the fourth and fifth generation than our parents were on us,” he said. “For us it was work, work, work, work. Times have changed a bit and you have to change with them.”

Michael said the company has never been afraid to change, which is a major reason it has survived for so long. The tremendous growth over the last 35 years is largely driven by its shift into the foodservice sector. For many decades, retail sales were dominant but since the 1990s, Basciani Foods has concentrated on the foodservice arena. Michael said today it represents 70-80 percent of its business with retailers and wholesalers, and customers of its processing division accounting for the balance of sales.

The company has more than a dozen facilities and entities around the country, located strategically to service its customers in the most efficient way.

Michael is old school, following the dictums that the customers is always right and you never say no to an order. Basciani Foods offers basically every mushroom variety that have a commercial following and sell them in any package or configuration that the customer wants. Its processing facility offers shelf-stable mushroom options when that is most appropriate for their customers.

“You always want to give them an option and it’s a great idea for a restaurant to have shelf-stable supplies in case they ever run out,” he said. “Don’t you hate it when you go to a restaurant and your wife really wants the great salmon dish that they prepare and they say they are out of it? You should never run out.”

He noted that the many entities and offerings have arisen from customer needs. In fact, during the summer months, Basciani Foods has a blackberry deal in South Chester county because a mushroom customer had trouble finding blackberries during a specific time frame. Basciani researched the opportunity and discovered that blackberries travel very well with mushrooms and they soon became a blackberry supplier. “It only makes up maybe 1 percent of our business but it’s very cool when I can tell a customer who is looking for blackberries that we can send him a skid or two,” Michael said.

Basciani Foods also has a transportation division and is part owner of a huge compost facility that gives them the substrate they used to grow their mushrooms.

Michael Basciani can rattle off all of the company’s assets and value-added products and services and he does so in lightning speed: 1,106,000 square feet of growing space and increasing every year; storage and distribution centers around the country; multiple sizes of white and brown mushrooms and an endless array of exotics; dozens of packs for national retail grocery store chains as well as for foodservice distributors; any mushroom cut that any restaurant wants or can dream of; and a weekly output of more than 1.5 million pounds of mushrooms.

Virtually every company product that he boasts about is eclipsed by one overarching attribute: involved in every order and in every package in one way or another is a Basciani. “We are still a family-owned company,” he said. “One hundred years later, when you call you are still dealing with a Basciani.”

He noted that five generations of the Basciani family have been raised in South Chester county and are entrenched in the mushroom business. More relatives than he can count have married other mushroom farmers. “All my cousins and in laws and nieces and nephews and friends are in the mushroom business,” he said.

That being said, he also gave a shout out to the many families and generations of employees that have worked for the company. Many of the workers are also second and third generation employees.

Michael feels the same way about the industry at large. He noted that he has been going to the upcoming International Fresh Produce Association Foodservice Conference for at least 35 years. “When I’m there, it seems like I’m at a family reunion,” he said.

And family is king in the Basciani hemisphere.