January 20, 2011 This was an inspirational post, not just for the fantastic idea of using an ongoing resource of coffee grinds – Americans alone consume up to 400 million cups of coffee a day – but the fact that the idea of growing mushrooms from coffee grinds arose from a college lecture given by Alan Ross at UCB in 2009. Students Nikhil Arora and Alex Velez (who were obviously paying attention!) both began to think of the possibilities, and BTTR Ventures was born.

If that wasn’t novel enough – they took it up a notch! They also developed an oyster mushroom kit where you can grow and harvest mushrooms at home in as little as 10 days. As you can imagine, sales of these kits are very popular as word of them spreads.

h/t @Ethicurean