Denys Oliveira
Denys remembers very vividly the first time he fell in love with a mushroom.
He was a child of 5 and saw a dollhouse in the shape of a mushroom (complete with an elevator!)
Now little boys in Brazil didn’t play with dollhouses and his father would not allow it.
But even back then, Denys was dedicated and persistent.
Eventually, his father finally relented and Denys still has many happy memories of the hours spent dreaming up stories about mushrooms.
While his love of all things mushrooms always stayed with him, Denys had dreams that took him out of the small town halfway between São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
With a love of science and maths, Denys pursued a career in engineering in which he excelled internationally (landing him in Melbourne) and became very successful.
But with all the success came the feeling that something was missing.
After much soul searching he realised that a love of fungi, whether it was learning about it in school or cooking with it throughout his life, had never left him.
Denys decided to throw himself into learning more about it and enrolled in a mushroom cultivation course with the Milkwood Permaculture crew.
He enjoyed it so much that he started his own mushroom farm - Cogumelo Farm (Cogumelo is Portuguese for “Mushroom”).
It wasn’t long until he was selling his gourmet mushrooms to restaurants and shops in Melbourne when his husband (and co-founder of Wattle, Mark Patrick) showed him the research into how mushroom supplements help people.
Intrigued by the challenge and seeing an opportunity for an Australian company that stands for quality and integrity, they started Wattle Supplements, and the rest is history…
Mark Patrick Dietsch
Everyone who meets Mark Patrick walks away a better person, and a lot of that is due to his grandmother, Lillian Adams.
Growing up in Leeton, NSW wasn’t easy on little Mark Patrick. He was charismatic, creative, imaginative… qualities not always appreciated in a small rural town.
One person who understood this was his Grandmother Lillian (or “Granny” as the family called her.) Lillian’s house was a place of sanctuary for Mark Patrick from childhood even up through his teens.
He loved hearing stories of life back in Ireland as well as playing pranks on unsuspecting loved ones.
He also learned about kindness, especially to strangers. Since there was no hostel in Leeton, Lillian and her husband opened up their home to anyone passing through who needed a safe place to stay (for free!)
As Lillian grew older some things became more difficult, like remembering her loved ones.
Eventually she was diagnosed with Lewy Body Disease, a form of dementia that causes degeneration and the death of nerve cells in the brain.
It is an unforgiving and ruthless disease, and the last 10 years of her life living with it were some of the hardest Mark Patrick’s family encountered.
As with anyone who has had a family member with dementia, knowing of the possibility it could happen to them is always in the back of their mind.
So when Mark Patrick heard mycologist Paul Stamets talk about some of the research with fungi and dementia on a podcast, he was immediately intrigued.
He researched more and shared what he found with his husband, Denys.
He knew that with Denys’ background in science/engineering/business and his renewed love of mushrooms combined with Mark Patrick’s passion for helping people, that they could create something truly special.
And that is how Ninth Path mushrooms was born.