SUSTAINABLE – INNOVATIVE 

“Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground.  Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it.”

  – WILFERD PETERSON

MABU Casing Soils manufactures an eco-friendly mushroom casing soil for the southern African mushroom industry. The substrate is produced from sugarcane pith, a waste product of the bagasse paper-making process at SAPPI, KwaDukuza, KZN. Research and development of an alternative to peat casing has been ongoing since 2002 and the production process has subsequently been patented in South Africa (SA patent 2010/0830) in 2010 and since then also in Australia, China, India, the European Union, New Zealand and Brazil. The patents are owned and maintained by the Technology Transfer Office of the University of Pretoria.

Pith mushroom casing is a 100% natural, cost-effective and eco-friendly mushroom substrate that allows for sustainable mushroom growing for the first time ever. After successful growing trials and support from industry MABU has acquired their own premises and is since August 2014 processing substrate near Bapsfontein in Gauteng.

Since middle 2014 MABU has expanded into the horticultural industry, developing seedling and plant growth medium from sugarcane pith. Peat usage in the horticultural sector is also under scrutiny and phased out by environmentally-conscious growers.