CARACTERIZACIÓN DE LOS AGENTES COMERCIALES: SUPERMERCADOS Y RESTAURANTES, EN LA DINÁMICA DEL MERCADO DE LAS SETAS PLEUROTUS OSTREATUS EN MÉRIDA, YUCATÁN, MÉXICO

Mushrooms are one of the organisms the nature that have a great capacity to adapt and developin different weather conditions and in different agricultural environments. Mushrooms alsomake an important contribution to the satisfaction of some human necessities by the input ofnutritional and medicinal products due to a wide diversity of properties that they posses. Inaddition, its production generates incomes and employment, for these reasons, the farming ofmushrooms is a very important activity socially, economical and ecologically. In Yucatán, thefarming of the mushroom “Pleurotus ostreatus “represents an option for the sustainabledevelopment of poor rural communities. Based on the previous assumptions, the objective ofthe present work was to describe the consumption of mushrooms in the city of Mérida, Yucatán,México, through the perspective of two types of retailers: supermarkets and restaurants. Theinformation could be used to facilitate successful access to the market for the mushroomproducers.A cross-sectional descriptive study with a quantitative approach was done, in which the samplewas formed by 15 supermarkets and 28 restaurants. The techniques of direct observation andinterview were used. Based on the obtained result, which concludes that the acceptance of themushroom “pleurotus ostreatus” is growing among the yucatecan population and represents agood option for the sustainable development of the small producers.