News · Podcast

Inside NuCelium: Riley Boudreau and Rob Swiderski on the PricePlow Podcast

· 2 min read

Originally featured in PricePlow Podcast.

Our CEO and co-founder Riley Boudreau and co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer Rob Swiderski sat down with Mike and Ben of PricePlow for episode #214 of the PricePlow Podcast. Over an hour and a half, the conversation covered how NuCelium started, how we grow, and why we think the mushroom industry needs to hold itself to a higher standard.

Two very different roads to mushrooms

Neither founder started out in mycology. Rob spent more than 25 years in Canadian hospitality, co-founding Craft Beer Market and growing it to nine restaurants, before deciding during the pandemic to change course entirely. Riley came from robotics and automation, including mushroom-harvesting technology, and turned to functional mushrooms after a full-spectrum lion’s mane product made a real difference to his own health.

What brought them together was a shared belief that there was a better way to grow, and a founding mycology team with more than 75 years of combined experience to make it happen.

Full-spectrum, not stripped down

A big part of the episode digs into what “full-spectrum” actually means. We capture the whole organism: the mycelium, the fruiting body where it adds value, the compounds the mushroom releases into its growing medium, and our Myco-Fermented Matrix (MFM™). Riley and Rob explain why heavy extraction can strip away much of that natural complexity.

They also tackle a question formulators ask us all the time: the difference between a ratio extract (like “10:1”), which describes how much raw material went in, and a standardized ingredient, which tells you how much of a specific compound is actually in the finished product.

The Cordy Cup, and what’s behind it

At the 2025 Cordy Cup, CordyFuel recorded 14.83 mg/g cordycepin on unextracted material, the highest result in the competition’s history. Rob and Riley share how the team got there, including the surprising finding that the best-looking cordyceps weren’t always the most potent, and that giving the mycelium more time under the right conditions made a measurable difference.

Our commercial CordyFuel 10X™ is standardized to more than 3 mg/g cordycepin, so brands get dependable potency in every batch, not just a competition sample. The conversation also goes beyond cordycepin to other naturally occurring compounds like adenosine, ergothioneine and ergosterol.

Eight species, one facility

The episode closes with a look at the bigger picture:

  • Eight species under one roof, including cordyceps, lion’s mane, reishi, turkey tail, shiitake, maitake and agaricus blazei.
  • Biosecurity and genetics. Sealed, HEPA-filtered grow rooms, tested inputs and proprietary strains keep every batch clean and consistent.
  • The substrate as an ingredient. After fermentation, our sorghum substrate becomes part of the finished material, and we’re partnering with researchers to study its effect on gut health.
  • A research roadmap that includes safety studies, supplying standardized material to academic researchers, and eventually human trials.

Episode highlights

  • 0:00 Introductions
  • 4:00 Riley’s origin story
  • 20:00 Full-spectrum vs. extraction
  • 26:45 Ratio vs. standardized extracts
  • 44:30 The Cordy Cup
  • 55:00 Eight mushrooms, one facility
  • 1:01:00 The substrate as an ingredient
  • 1:22:00 Our research roadmap

The full episode and show notes are on the PricePlow blog.