Vit D mushrooms

Tesco's Vitamin-D enhanced mushrooms

Tesco will this week launch what it calls the UK’s first-ever range of mushrooms with enhanced vitamin D levels.

Grown by Monaghan Mushrooms in Ireland, the new range includes chestnut, baby chestnut and portobello mushrooms. The mushrooms have been in development since 2010, when Monaghan began to develop a commercial process for giving mushrooms 100 per cent of the daily vitamin D requirement in only one serving.

It comes as a recent report found that people do not get enough vitamin D during the darker winter months. Mushrooms contain a substance called ergosterol, which allows them to naturally make vitamin D when they are exposed to light.

Tesco mushroom expert Marek Kutera said: “As we head into the winter months, we know it can be increasingly difficult to meet the daily recommendations for Vitamin D from a natural source.

“These delicious mushrooms will make it easier than ever for shoppers to get all of their allowance from a key cooking staple. Just one portion – around four chestnut or one to two portobello mushrooms – in your Spaghetti Bolognese is all it takes.”

The mushrooms are marked with a sticker that states they are enriched with vitamin D.