It took a while for Chester County mushroom farms to dig out from underneath the two feet of snow that buried the area’s prized crop, and it will take even longer for the county to satisfy the ensuing avalanche of customer demand for the healthy protein source.

“It was a tight market to begin with,” a Phillips Mushroom Farms spokesman said in The Packer’s coverage of the aftermath, written by Andy Nelson. “Demand has been very high. Now there will probably be some gaps in the coming weeks, which will tighten it even more.”

The weight of all that snow collapsed some local growers’ roofs, stalled delivery trucks, shut operations down for a day, pushed harvesting back and even delayed the start of subsequent mushroom grow cycles.

For Phillips, Jan. 23 was the first non-Christmas closure in decades, and it was the first ever for To-Jo Mushrooms of Avondale.

To-Jo salvaged the rest of the week by sending four-wheel-drive SUVs to pick up key employees.

“Some of our transportation drivers were stuck out on the road for the entire weekend,” Marketing Director Pete Wilder said in the article. “The effects of the storm are over, but it was a tough situation for all of us in the industry.”

Read more about the blizzard and how mushroom growers dug out in The Packer here, and check out previous VISTA Today coverage of the county’s leading ag industry here.