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How Four Star Mushrooms Redefines Regenerative Ag — from Inside Out
- Bob Benenson
- May 4
- 5 min read
Chicago Company Grew With Support of Top Chefs and Is Emerging in Retail
Regenerative agriculture is typically framed as an outdoor endeavor — cover crops, rotational grazing and other soil-building practices spread across open land.
But in a production facility on Chicago’s North Side, Four Star Mushrooms co-founders Joe Weber and Sean DiGioia are advancing a different, though in some ways complementary, vision: one in which regeneration begins indoors and radiates outward.
I have been acquainted with Joe — who holds the title of president — for some time, and finally paid a visit to Four Star's production facility for a tour and interview on April 23.
Joe is part of a new generation of food entrepreneurs who are rethinking not just how food is grown, but how agricultural systems themselves function. His company is nominally an indoor mushroom farm. In practice, it is something more ambitious — a closed-loop model that produces both nutrient-dense food and the building blocks of healthier soil systems.
“We’re a controlled environment agriculture facility on the surface,” Joe explains. “But we really consider ourselves a regenerative farm. The process we use allows us to grow a protein-rich, nutrient-dense food year-round, right next to our customers — and at the same time generate tens of thousands of pounds of soil amendment every month.”
Mushrooms as a System, Not Just a Crop
The insight that led to Four Star Mushrooms’ founding is deceptively simple. Mushroom cultivation naturally produces a byproduct — spent substrate — that still contains active mycelium, the root-like fungal network essential to soil health. Rather than treating that material as waste, Joe saw it as an asset.
When that substrate is incorporated into soil or allowed to decompose, it becomes a powerful regenerative input: It fosters microbial activity, improves soil structure and accelerates the formation of organic matter.
“We’ve worked with regenerative farms and urban growers who’ve used our substrate to transform depleted land,” Joe says. “Fields that were once monocropped and chemically treated — basically lifeless — have been rebuilt into dark, productive soil.”
In some cases, the process is almost self-executing. Left outdoors, the substrate continues to produce mushrooms. Insects and microorganisms move in, breaking it down further. Over time, what began as a dense block of growing medium becomes rich compost.
“It’s an ecological cascade,” Joe notes. “The mycelium grows, other organisms feed on it, and before long you have living soil.”
Indoor Farming Meets Regenerative Principles
The idea that an indoor farm could contribute meaningfully to regenerative agriculture challenges conventional assumptions. But Joe argues that the distinction between indoor and outdoor systems is less important than whether a system builds or depletes ecological health.
“We’re still a long way from fully realizing what a regenerative food system could look like,” he says. “But I think the same way companies today have to be ‘AI-native’ to stay competitive, food businesses will need to be ‘regenerative-native.’ If they’re not thinking about it now, they’re going to be behind within a decade.”
That perspective reflects a broader shift in consumer awareness, one accelerated, somewhat paradoxically, by the COVID-19 pandemic. As supply chains faltered and people reconsidered health and resilience, interest in local and sustainably produced food surged.
Those gains, Joe and I agree, appear to be sticking.
Farmers markets are thriving. Grocery shelves increasingly integrate products with environmental and wellness claims in with their conventional retail assortments. And perhaps most importantly, chefs — long the vanguard of food system change — continue to drive demand.
The Chef Effect
Four Star Mushrooms’ growth owes much to Chicago’s progressive-minded culinary community. The company's earliest champions included high-profile chefs who not only value flavor and quality, but also see their platforms as vehicles for broader change.
“Chefs are the leading edge,” Joe says. “They’re putting their money where their mouth is — supporting sustainable agriculture from a nutritional, ecological and flavor standpoint.”
That support proved critical during the pandemic. When restaurant shutdowns wiped out Four Star’s customer base overnight, an unexpected opportunity emerged for the then-one year old company: a pivot by Alinea, one of Chicago’s most celebrated and exclusive restaurants, to a takeout model at unprecedented scale.
“They told us, ‘We’ll take everything you can grow,’” Joe recalls. “That was a turning point.” The relationship provided both revenue and credibility. From there, as restaurants reopened, the business expanded — eventually scaling from a few hundred pounds of weekly production to several thousand.
What distinguishes Four Star Mushrooms in a crowded marketplace is not just its mission but its method. Joe has designed his growing environment to prioritize quality over speed, an approach that runs counter to many commercial practices.
“We intentionally grow our mushrooms slower,” he explains. “Lower temperatures and high fresh-air exchange allow the mycelium to fully digest the substrate. That creates a denser mushroom with better texture and flavor.”
The difference is tangible. Where many mushrooms release water and shrink dramatically when cooked, Four Star’s varieties — primarily oyster, lion’s mane and the highly sought-after maitake — hold their structure and develop a deep, savory sear.
For chefs and home cooks alike, that consistency is a competitive advantage.
From Biology to Business
Joe's path to entrepreneurship was not a conventional one. A biology major at University of Illinois, he became fascinated with ecosystems and biodiversity —interests sharpened by repeated drives from Chicago along Interstate 57, where the realities of industrial agriculture stretch for miles.
“I was seeing the conventional food system firsthand,” he says. “At the same time, I was learning what Illinois ecosystems used to look like: tallgrass prairie, massive biodiversity. The contrast was striking.”
That realization led him to regenerative agriculture and, soon after, to mushrooms. A podcast featuring mycologist Paul Stamets opened his eyes to the broader potential of fungi.
“I realized the growing process itself could be regenerative,” Joe says. “You could produce food and soil inputs simultaneously. From there, it was about figuring out how to scale it.”
He launched Four Star Mushrooms in 2019 in a 400-square-foot warehouse in the Logan Square neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. Today, the company operates its significantly larger facility near the border of the North and South sides and is targeting weekly production of 6,000 to 7,000 pounds.
Expanding the Market
Initially focused on restaurant sales, Four Star is now expanding its retail presence. Its mushrooms are already available at Mariano’s and Fresh Thyme Market stores, with a major rollout planned at Jewel-Osco stores across the Chicago region.
The move reflects both opportunity and necessity. Retail offers scale, but also requires new capabilities — marketing, packaging and consumer education.
“Mushrooms are still unfamiliar to a lot of people beyond the basics,” Joe says. “Part of our job is helping people understand how to cook them and why they’re valuable.”
That value extends beyond flavor. Varieties such as lion’s mane are gaining attention for potential cognitive benefits, part of a broader “functional foods” movement that intersects with wellness trends.
A Regenerative Future—From the Ground Up
If Four Star Mushrooms represents a glimpse of the future, it is one where boundaries blur: between indoor and outdoor agriculture, between food production and soil restoration, and between waste and resource.''
It is also a future rooted in systems thinking, an understanding that the health of our food is inseparable from the health of our ecosystems.
For Joe Weber, that perspective remains the guiding principle. “The food system is the biggest driver of ecological change,” he says. “If we can redesign it to be regenerative, the impact is enormous.”
In Chicago, that redesign is already under way — one mushroom at a time.
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