{"id":28772,"date":"2025-09-07T17:52:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T21:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/kennett-square-hosts-40th-annual-mushroom-festival\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T17:52:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T21:52:54","slug":"kennett-square-hosts-40th-annual-mushroom-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/kennett-square-hosts-40th-annual-mushroom-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennett Square hosts 40th annual Mushroom Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a><\/em>\n<\/p>\n

The 40th annual Mushroom Festival bloomed over several streets of Kennett Square this weekend, featuring 229 vendors, mushroom-growing demonstrations and the pungent smell of mushrooms.\n<\/p>\n

The \u201cmushroom capital of the world<\/a>\u201d hosts the annual mushroom-themed festival to celebrate the heritage of the Pennsylvanian borough.\n<\/p>\n

Gale Ferranto is one of the many Kennett Square residents with ties to the area\u2019s mushroom farming heritage.\n <\/p>\n

She is president of Buono Foods, a mushroom production company that stemmed from her grandfather\u2019s farm in the early 1900s, which remains one of 53 family-owned and operated farms in the area.\n<\/p>\n

Ferranto said those farms are responsible for about 64% of the mushrooms grown nationwide.
\nA volunteer explains the mushroom growing process. It is unique to different farming techniques as mushrooms don\u2019t require sunlight, instead needing all their food in the soil or substrate. (Nate Harrington\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

Ferranto, who also serves as the festival coordinator, said the event started small in 1985, with just a few industry growers and shippers.\n<\/p>\n

\u201c[They] thought it would be a great idea for mushrooms, since Pennsylvania leads the country in mushroom production,\u201d said Ferranto. \u201cSo they got together and said, \u2018Let\u2019s celebrate mushrooms.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n

In addition to celebrating the edible fungi, another purpose of the festival is to give back to the Kennett Square community.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a mushroom farmer, so I\u2019m going to be swayed, but I\u2019m quite proud that we could still live in the suburbia together and get along with the community,\u201d she said. \u201cThe mushroom industry supports this community and this town and these people and these nonprofits.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Kennett Square\u2019s love for mushrooms has taken root across state borders, with visitors from Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. The festival expects nearly 100,000 attendees over the weekend.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! The 40th annual Mushroom Festival bloomed over several streets of Kennett Square this weekend, featuring 229 vendors, mushroom-growing demonstrations and the pungent smell of mushrooms. The \u201cmushroom capital of the world\u201d hosts the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11573],"tags":[9600,5705,709,3121,19008,19006,13385,19007,1720],"class_list":["post-28772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philadelphia-breaking-news","tag-40th","tag-annual","tag-festival","tag-hosts","tag-kennett","tag-kennett-square","tag-mushroom","tag-mushroom-festival","tag-square"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/whyy.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/mushroom-festival-file.jpg",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philadelphia Viral News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know! The 40th annual Mushroom Festival bloomed over several streets of Kennett Square this weekend, featuring 229 vendors, mushroom-growing demonstrations and the pungent smell of mushrooms. The \u201cmushroom capital of the world\u201d hosts the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28774,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28772\/revisions\/28774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}