5 Questions for Oregon’s first licensed psilocybin manufacturer

Tori Armbrust discusses the cultivation process, and the challenges her small business faces as Oregon begins its psilocybin industry

Tori Armbrust, 33, spent the last seven years perfecting her mushroom cultivation techniques, growing a variety of fungi in her own home. She joined the Portland Psychedelic Society and Decriminalize Nature Portland. As a mother of an 11-year-old and a 2-year-old, Armbrust hasn’t had much of an opportunity to partake in the mushrooms herself, but she says she believes in their power to help heal people. Armbrust started a mushroom growing business called Satori Farms, which recently became the first psilocybin manufacturer licensed by Oregon Psilocybin Services, a division of the Oregon Health Authority (OHA). The Microdose spoke with Armbrust about the cultivation process, and the challenges her small business faces as Oregon begins its psilocybin industry.  

How did you learn how to cultivate mushrooms?

I’m entirely self taught; it’s been a process of trial and error. It’s very different from going to school, because I know every way to do it wrong! Now, when there are issues, I can tell whether the mushrooms need more air, more moisture. And as I’ve taught others to grow, I can help them keep improving. You can’t be afraid of failure, because that’s just part of the process. I teach people that you’re going to make mistakes, and that’s ok; luckily, the expenses for those errors are minor. 

Walk me through what it takes to grow psilocybin mushrooms from start to finish. What does your day-to-day work look like? 

One of the first things you need is a spore print. That’s created when someone harvests a variety of psilocybin mushroom — in Oregon, we have to use Psilocybe cubensis — and flip over the mushroom cap. Flipping it causes the mushroom to drop spores, creating a spore print.  You then collect those spores in a syringe of sterile water. Once you add sugar to that, you have a liquid culture that multiplies into billions of spores.

To grow the mushrooms, you add the culture into a substrate: that can be anything from popcorn and bird seed to perlite or manure, but it has to be sterilized. Then the substrate is inoculated with the spores. I specialize in low-tech growing, which focuses on using inexpensive materials rather than super specialized ones. For instance, I use a pressure cooker to sterilize my grains, and I grow everything in tubs. 

Then you wait. It takes about two months to produce actual fungi, and then you start the process over again. 

What was the process for getting licensed — and did you expect to be first?

I had hoped to be one of the first; I applied by 9am the day the application opened up. I made mistakes in that application; there were signatures and zoning details I forgot, so the paperwork got slightly delayed. The biggest difficulty in the process was finding real estate and committing to paying for it until the approval went through. 

After I completed the application, OHA came for an on-site visit, and went through a long checklist of requirements to make sure our security system had the proper functions, that there was signage to show that certain areas have limited access, that we had panic buttons installed. 

By the time all the paperwork was done and the visit happened, there were two minor things I needed to change, which I did within a couple hours, and my license was issued within a week of that visit. I didn’t think I would be the first, but that was really exciting.

Now that you’re licensed, what’s next for your business? 

The mushrooms are ready to go — they are ready to be tested, but there are no licensed testing laboratories yet. So far, it’s still just one other manufacturer and I that have received licenses but there are no labs, no service centers, no facilitators. They’ve issued lots of workers’ permits, but unfortunately, those people have nowhere to work yet. So the process is at a standstill; until we can get tested, it can’t go anywhere. 

We’re hoping OHA can kick it into gear and get these other businesses licensed, because there’s only so long we can bankroll this. I’ve been paying for a commercial space since the first of the year, and no sales will be able to happen until a lot of licenses get issued. There are a lot of other unknowns, too; I’m not sure about demand and pricing for psilocybin, so we’re trying to ramp up slowly while we wait. 

Could all this waiting affect compliance or quality issues with the mushrooms you’ve already grown?

Luckily, dried fungi can be kept for a while; of course, we keep records of harvest dates. I believe there are requirements on how quickly you need to get your mushrooms tested after harvest, but I’m hoping there’s some flexibility. If there are no labs that are licensed, there’s no way to get that testing done right now. I actually am not sure what the exact requirements are yet, since it hasn’t come into play. There are other details that are still unclear to me, too, like who is required to put a best by date on the packaging: who determines that, the testing company, or me? 

What do you wish more people knew about your sector of the psilocybin industry?

Licensing is very expensive — $10,000 a year. There are lots of requirements you have to meet: you have to find a commercial space in a properly zoned area, get owner approval, and, as I mentioned, you have to have a robust security system. I feel lucky to have found a spot, even if it’s pretty bare bones right now. Luckily, the mushrooms don’t care. 

But even with those high costs, I want to find a way to make it sustainable. I’m talking with a service center that’s committed to accessible sessions. If everything works out, we are trying to keep costs under $1,000 per session. One day, if the licensing fees go down, perhaps we can decrease it even more, but right now, the fees are increasing the price of service. 

I believe I can make it work, but entering the industry has been scary, and definitely the most stressful thing I’ve ever dealt with. I’m feeling the pressure for the industry to get going, given that I’m paying all these expenses for my business. Being the first person to be in business is great, but I don’t want to be the first out of business.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Editor’s Note: On Tuesday, April 18 at 5 pm Pacific, join a free virtual panel hosted by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism “Covering Psychedelics: Author and podcast producer Tim Ferriss + the UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellows.” Introduced by author Michael Pollan. Click for more information and to register to attend.