Shropshire Truffles is a family business in Stapleton, Shropshire, owned by Mike & Michelle, we collect and sell truffles collected in our own truffle orchard, along with truffle butter (made with an amazing 10% truffle) and provide luxury “Truffle Experience days”, where we talk about all things “Truffle”, work Oscar the truffle hound in the orchard to find lots of truffles, then enjoy a three course meal, with truffles served with every course, all accompanied by wine and tea or coffee to finish.

In 2006 we purchased a 7 acre field to run our newly established Trees seed business and nursery from, providing tree seeds to nurseries throughout Europe and trees and hedging plants to UK customers. One of our French contacts was producing “Truffle Trees” – trees inoculated with truffle spores. After visiting his nursery and seeing how they were produced, we decided to be the UK distributors for his plants.

Initially these Truffle trees were sold as single or multiple trees, we then began producing gift box’s and imported ever more plants.

In 2008 we decided to plant some 4 acres of our field to truffles. A mixture of species was selected – mainly hazel and oak. We under sowed the orchard with wildflowers and left it to nature, unsure if it was an expensive folly, maybe a bit of fun or a new venture for the future.

In the Autumn of 2018, we began to find truffles, but were unable to collect them without a trained dog. We purchased a truffle hunting puppy and in 2019 discovered that puppies want to play and not hunt for truffles! The following year “Oscar” the truffle hound began to repay our faith in him and has turned into a truffle finding machine, often finding truffles quicker than Mike can collect.

These truffles are sold retail, to restaurants and delicatessens, or to wholesale suppliers. We make some into truffle butter. Which is sold by the same method and are now running luxury “Truffle Experience Days”.

We are very much a family business with various members of our family helping on show days, producing truffle butter or planting and maintaining our truffle orchard.

The truffle orchard is a source of interest both locally and nationally, due to its exceptional performance and our story from the planting of the first trees through to trying to sell truffles in the middle of a pandemic. We have appeared in local, press, regional television and international news, which we find amusing as we were not sure if our orchard might just turn out to be an expensive wood!