Back To the Roots

I recently purchased a fish tank/​hydroponic farm from BTTR and I love it. Such a cool concept and it really is self sufficient for the most part. I would definitely recommend this for anyone thinking of getting a small fish tank.
In addition their customer service is outstanding! I emailed them regarding some trouble I was having with my pump and they emailed me back within the hour. They sent out a new pump for me that day and followed up to make sure everything was running properly a few days later.
A few days after that I emailed them with some questions on the products used in the planter and they emailed me back with info on where to purchase them and sent me a free sample to use in the meantime.
I can’t wait to get a mushroom growing kit and try it out as well.

I received one for Christmas and when the sun started to shine a bit in February I followed the instructions, soaked, misted and waited for it to grow. After 15 days and nothing growing, I soaked it again and waited another 10 days. Nothing happened, so I e-​mailed customer service with some pictures and advice, and got no reply. Waited a long while and still nothing from Customer service or their product.
Beware; it may be a waist of your time and BackToTheRoots will not stand behind their own product.

I really wanted to love this business, product and concept. I am obsessed with mushrooms, Paul Stamet, gardening, etc. I was so excited to try this and told many people about this.
I experienced terrible customer service. Or none at all really.
I was told several times I would be mailed another kit free of charge and asked for my address twice but NEVER received a replacement kit.
My first kit from Home Depot grew small mushrooms and was fairly successful.
My second ordered kit I bought was infested with tiny worms I noticed upon first soaking the kit. I contacted the company, several times and no luck. A month later an email stated I would need to send info, purchase date, number, etc, so I did. And no response. This continued for like 6 months. Back and forth. I was assured the kit would be mailed immediately, then again… Lame. Sad. Lame.
I won’t be purchasing any more, I had planned to buy several for my culinary kid students. Hope they shape up and realize that customers keep them in business.

This product is awful along with their customer service. I tried to grow mashrooms for more than a month without any success. Then I contacted this company this company three times without any reply from them, even though, they have 100% guarantee policy. I would never buy anything from this company.

Known by its abbreviated name BTTR, Back to the Roots is a local business founded by two young men — Alex and Nikhil — who decided to take the entrepreneurial path rather than go into the corporate world.
Almost everyone I know loves the idea — take used coffee grounds from Peet — grow mushrooms — replenish soil. Everyone wins, right? (Except your wallet, perhaps.) While it appears pricey, I have given the BTTR kit as a gift to friends, and they love it.
That’s the striking thing about this organization. People love it. I think that is because this is a meaningful product, and is a very novel idea.
The business space itself is really cool, so you should check it out. It’s a gigantic garage & warehouse. Inside, you’ll find rows of high shelves that stock mushroom inventory.
The business is near a ‘shady’ part of Oakland, so use judgment after the sun goes down.

I am a mushroom lover. I will add ‘shrooms to any dish that I prepare including oatmeal. Whe I saw the add for this in the NYTimes, I ordered immediately. Multiple packs. Here is where my review gets a bit off kilter.
I followed the directions and the YouTube instructional to a T. Nothing. I soaked and spritzed and prayed and nothing. I gave up and put my grower box in the corner of my kitchen, which has no natural light, with the intent of tossing it into my composter.
As I was cutting away the cardboard I noticed a mushroom. or what I perceived to be a mushroom. It was and grew to gargantuan proportions where I was afraid to dine upon it. I have never seen such a large, tempting beauty. I immediately ran out and purchased Milk Thistle… which helps in the event of a bad mushroom ingestion.
I was too afraid to eat this so I cut it away and put the container away, once again, for the composter. Lo and behold… I have MUSHROOMS growing out of every crevice. Cute little dark heads which pop into beautiful oyster mushrooms.
The growing material is a combo of PEETS coffee grounds and saturated tea leaves. I’ve been a purchaser of Peets for eons. I don’t drink the stuff but hubby does. I never realized that my meager addition to my garden, spent coffee grinds, could offer up such good stuff!
Anyways, bottom line here is don’t always follow directions. I was truly ticked when the mushrooms would not grow. Leave them alone. In the dark. If you like mushrooms, you will truly enjoy these babies.

I really want to love this product. My 11 year old had been asking me to buy it every time we went to Whole Foods, but I thought the $ 20 was sort of ridiculous. I finally bought it for him for Christmas and he seems to be more enthusiastic about it than his $ 400 Mindstorm kit. Anyway, it’s been a few weeks and the mushrooms have grown. We harvested them yesterday, but the crop looks nothing like on their web site or other images. There were about 5 big mushrooms and 4 small. We’ll see if the next crop isn’t more abundant – and how many crops we get.

I had quite a frustrating time trying to grow these mushrooms for about a month until I gave up. I still give this company 4 stars because of my experience with the company. I sent them an email at 6pm and heard back within 30 minutes offering some suggestions including getting sent another box for free. After trying another week to get my old box going again I was just over it and asked if it was possible to get a refund. Within a week I got a check in the mail. With every product comes a few defects but a solid company will always deliver great customer service. Maybe I’ll try again in a few months.

Back to the Roots is a local business that has found a way to divert spent food waste such as coffee grounds from Peet’s, tea leaves from Numi, and hops & grains from Linden Street Brewery. The do so, by packaging these spent items into new products such as a DIY mushroom growing kit, or mushroom compost for your ailing plants. We picked up a few boxes from an event in Jack London Square a few months ago because it seemed like a neat gift idea. The boxes were advertised both as having no shelf-​life, and being stable for up to six months. However, we found that two of the boxes sprouted prematurely before they could even be opened or prepared. No word on the third box as it was given as a gift.
Thankfully, BTTR was quite accommodating in providing replacements for the early sprouters. Rather than wait and experience unplanned mushrooms sprouting from the seams, we’ve actually decided to grow a box, but we’re still waiting on the results, hopefully in a week, we’ll have some delicious oyster mushrooms.
Four stars for the innovative idea, and for the excellent customer service.