The Anjool Maldé Memorial Trust is delighted to announce the winner of its Young Social Entrepreneur of the year 2024. Once again, we’ve had to choose from a remarkable set of applicants showcasing the amazing work done in communities across the UK.

The Trust, set up in 2010 as a legacy to Anjool Maldé (1984-2009), makes annual awards with prize money to a selection of UK’s talented best young individuals with a special edge to their achievements. Since its launch:170 of the UK's brightest and talented best graduate-age young adults had been rewarded for their exemplary achievements.

The winner of the Anjool Maldé Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2023, supported by Localgiving, is Marco Tenconi, Director of Rhyze Mushrooms COOP CIC in Edinburgh, a community farm that seeks to solve some economic, environmental and social problems by growing highly nutritious oyster mushrooms. They are grown for the local community, from local business waste that would otherwise end up in landfills.  They are also committed to building resilience in the food system by facilitating workshops that show people how to grow their own mushrooms from waste and by building a community of volunteers and mushroom enthusiasts.

Speaking at the announcement, judge Becca Sweetman, Executive & Team Coach stated: “I’m excited to select Rhyze Mushrooms as the winner of the Anjool Malde Young Social Entrepreneur Award. It was inspiring to learn about all the different ways they’re having an impact from locally grown food, to using food waste that would have gone to landfill and creating a community of mushroom enthusiasts. In a tight knit contest, the things that made them stand out were the mix of impact, scale already achieved to date and the business model, providing the potential for future growth.”

A thrilled Marco – pictured above – told us on receiving the award:  "I'm grateful and proud to receive this generous award from the Anjool Maldé Memorial Trust in recognition of the work I have carried out through Rhyze Mushrooms. Growing food in our communities and valuing the hard work of food growers is increasingly important as extreme climatic change threatens our food supplies. We need radical and creative solutions to growing more food, more sustainably and it's exciting that our project has received recognition through this award. As a community project and worker's co-operative, everything we do at Rhyze Mushrooms is rooted in principles of collaboration and mutual aid. I'm incredibly grateful to the huge support I receive every day from my colleagues, our volunteers and my friends, without whom none of this could be possible."

Presently the farm produces over 20kg of oyster mushrooms a week that they make available to their community through green grocers and a veg box scheme, and they expect to double production in a years’ time. Rhyze Mushrooms ( @MushroomsRhyze )  have facilitated workshops for over 1000 people in Edinburgh and around Scotland, and have shown our community of over 100 volunteers how to grow mushrooms from waste at farm scale. The team divert over 150kg of local business waste from landfills each month, and this number will continue to grow as they work to scale up production.

Tom Latchford, Chairman of the Localgiving Foundation added: “A big well done to Marco and all the team at Rhyze Mushrooms, for winning this year’s award. It’s a fantastic response to a major challenge, delivering both environmental and social benefits and truly honours the memory of Anjool. The Localgiving Foundation is passionate about bringing recognition to the powerful and important work of young entrepreneurs across the country, and RhyzeMushrooms is a fantastic example of a project delivering hugely positive and measurable results. We are delighted to help support them and their community with this award and look forward to following their progress!” 

-----> To learn more about the Anjool Maldé Memorial Trust and the other winners click here and for more on Rhyze Mushrooms click here .