“The Almeida family loves nature, family meals, and learning new facts about mushrooms.”

Our Story 

From Commercial Farm to Home Growing—And Everything I Learned Along the Way

Fat Moon Mushrooms started with a grocery store grow kit and a mushroom-loving kid. What began as a simple "aha" moment grew into a decade-long commercial operation supplying top chefs and distributors across New England. Now we're bringing that same quality directly to home growers—and helping other farm businesses navigate their own transitions.

Why Mushrooms?

Farmer and owner Elizabeth Almeida didn't start out as a mushroom grower. In 2011, she leased land in Massachusetts' Merrimack Valley and launched a vegetable CSA.

"I loved being able to feed people, the physical work, being my own boss, having flexible hours so I could care for my two children, solving the diverse problems that come up, and playing a role in the local food movement," Elizabeth says. "But when I tried to buy farm land so I could scale up, the cost was prohibitive."

Elizabeth was faced with the biggest challenge of her career: Finding a crop that she could grow that didn't require sunlight or a lot of land.

While trying to figure this out, Elizabeth bought her son a grow-your-own mushroom kit from Wegmans because he was crazy about mushrooms. She looked at the kit and it hit her: "Aha! Mushrooms!"

The funny thing was, she grew up on a farm where they foraged for morel mushrooms, but it'd never occurred to her that she could produce them as a crop.

Elizabeth gave herself a crash course in mushroom growing and began commercial production in 2016.

"I got a lot of help from a really generous mushroom producer," she says. "That's one reason why I'm so passionate about helping other farmers now."

Building a Commercial Operation (2016-2025)

For ten years, Fat Moon Mushrooms grew organic gourmet mushrooms for acclaimed chefs, distributors like Sid Wainer, and local farms across New England. Our mushrooms were known for exceptional freshness, flavor, and beauty—the kind of quality that lands on plates at James Beard and Michelin-starred restaurants.

We specialized in varieties you couldn't easily find in grocery stores: golden oyster, lion's mane, pioppino, chestnut, shiitake. We sourced high-quality grow blocks and focused on optimizing our growing conditions—temperature, humidity, fresh air exchange—while building relationships with the region's best chefs and foodies who demanded—and appreciated—the difference between mediocre mushrooms and exceptional ones.

COVID Changed Everything

Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck in March 2020, Fat Moon Farm's largest customers were chefs at local restaurants. When Massachusetts went into lockdown, we lost 85% of our business overnight.

"For the first few days, I just wanted to hide under the covers," Elizabeth admits, but then she realized, "I can grow mushrooms year-round, even during a pandemic. I need to do my part so people can eat."

She saw that people were rushing to buy local food and farmers were selling out of everything. "I started wholesaling mushrooms to farmers and small food businesses so they'd have food to sell to their customers," says Elizabeth. Demand skyrocketed.

COVID made many folks realize how important it is to have a local food supply. "We've got to figure out how to keep local farming viable," Elizabeth says, "so everyone can have access to safe, healthy, affordable, local food."

The Transition (2025)

Running a commercial mushroom farm for ten years taught me more than just cultivation techniques. Along the way, I realized I needed to learn how to actually run a business—not just own a business or grow mushrooms, but understand business management, operations, and systems.

The Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program in 2023 was critical in developing those business management skills. I learned how to create more efficient operations, produce better quality products, and improve profitability. I applied everything I learned to running a small farm business—and it worked.

In 2025, I made the decision to close our commercial growing operation. This decision wasn't easy, but it was the right one for this season of my life. I wanted to focus on two things: making restaurant-quality mushrooms accessible to home growers, and helping other small farm and food businesses navigate similar transitions.

Ten years of running a farm gives you hard-won wisdom about what actually moves a small business forward versus what just keeps you busy. That real-world experience—the successes and the failures—is the foundation of my consulting work. Now I'm learning to leverage AI tools to help small businesses work smarter, and I'm bringing both that decade of farm business experience and these new tools to help other farmers and food entrepreneurs.

What We Do Now

Premium Grow Kits: We partnered with experienced commercial growers to offer the same high-quality mushroom varieties we spent a decade perfecting. These aren't hobby kits—they're 10-pound grow blocks using the same organic methods and genetics we used to supply top restaurants. You're getting restaurant-quality mushrooms, grown in your own kitchen.

Small Business Consulting: I help farms and small food businesses improve their operations and make smart business decisions. My consulting is built on ten years of real-world farm business experience—I've lived through the challenges of starting up, scaling, surviving a pandemic, adapting to market changes, and ultimately deciding when to pivot. That hard-won wisdom, combined with business management skills and AI tools I'm implementing now, is what I share with consulting clients.

Community & Education: The values haven't changed, and neither has my passion for mushrooms. I'm still fascinated by mushroom science, still excited to share what I've learned, and still committed to supporting local food systems and empowering people to grow their own food. We're just doing it in a different way now.

Our Name

"The name Fat Moon Farm was inspired by my son, too," Elizabeth reflects. "One day when he was about 18 months, he pointed up to the sky and said, 'Look at the fat moon!' His father and I started calling every full moon the fat moon."

She added, "When it was time to pick a name, I was thinking about the connection between lunar cycles and farming and nature, and it just seemed like a great name."

About Farmer Elizabeth

Farmer Elizabeth Almeida has been devoted to food, farming, family, and community throughout her life. She grew up on a multi-generation cattle farm in Ohio, where her family grew, canned, and froze their own veggies and meat.

As a kid, Elizabeth was active in 4-H and FFA, winning many awards in livestock and cooking, including Grand Champion Chickens!

Her first job—from 14 to 22—was working for a caterer, where she learned to prepare and serve delicious, beautiful food. During college, she worked in a food science research lab, where she learned the exacting scientific practices that she employs today when optimizing mushroom growing techniques.

After college, Elizabeth spent a year living and volunteering in the Appalachian region of eastern Kentucky, where her eyes were opened to justice issues, including food justice, environmental justice, and economic justice. She left Appalachia with a commitment to continue to work for justice—values she lives out through Fat Moon's focus on accessible, sustainable food systems.

In addition to her work at Fat Moon, Elizabeth has remained active in her local community, serving on the Westford Agricultural Commission (2015-2017), the Westford Select Board (2017-2020), and as Chair of the Select Board (2019-2020).

Always eager to learn and strengthen her management skills, Elizabeth completed the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program in 2023.

Over ten years ago, she helped found the Westford Community Garden, which is 1.75 acres of farmland that serves over 150 families per year. Elizabeth is also the founder and Executive Director of Flowers to Empower, a local nonprofit that uses a cut flower enterprise to fund outdoor adventures for girls ages 12 to 18.

In 2020, Elizabeth was recognized as a Commonwealth Unsung Heroine by State Rep. Jim Arciero for her political and volunteer work in the community of Westford.

In farming, we live by seasons. This is our new season.

We're channeling ten years of commercial expertise into making great mushrooms accessible to everyone—and helping other small businesses find their own path forward.