Desert Moon Farms began as a small, family-operated specialty mushroom farm tucked inside a 1,000-square-foot grow space in the heart of Las Vegas. Founders EvaSara Luna and Enrique Gonzalez launched the business in 2020 with a vision of offering fresh, gourmet, farm-to-table mushrooms to the local community. They initially focused on selling at farmers markets but within a few short years grew into a thriving operation; today, about 95 percent of sales go to more than 80 restaurants along the Las Vegas Strip, and they have expanded to a 6,000-square-foot grow space. With restaurant demand strong, the duo is now focusing on broadening their customer base through direct-to-consumer sales.
This March, the farm reached a major milestone that will help them achieve that goal: the arrival of a new temperature-controlled delivery van. The new van will increase their delivery capacity and ensure mushroom quality during transport; both essential considerations as they prepare to enter new markets.
“It’s going to be a massive time-saver and a quality improvement,” Gonzalez said. “It’s not easy – or even good – to be making deliveries with our cars in the Las Vegas heat.”
Desert Moon Farms purchased the van with support from a competitive grant funded by the USDA Agriculture Marketing Service, through the Southwest Regional Food Business Center and the University of Nevada, Reno Extension. In alignment with the purpose of the funding – helping small and mid-sized food and farm entrepreneurs build capacity to grow their business – the refrigerated delivery vehicle will allow the farm to keep product cooler longer, expand its delivery area, improve efficiency and reduce product loss.
With the new van in place, Desert Moon Farms is preparing for its next stage of growth: a home-delivery Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Gonzalez said delivery areas will expand gradually across Las Vegas, with an emphasis on reaching underserved neighborhoods. “The website is almost ready,” he said. “With home deliveries, we eventually plan on serving all of Las Vegas but will start out zip code by zip code.” Community is central to Desert Moon’s mission. As they prepare to launch the CSA, Luna and Gonzalez aim to partner with other local farms so customers can receive a variety of local products through a single subscription. This not only builds variety in the products available to consumers, but it also reduces duplication and costs for partnering businesses. By offering infrastructure that benefits more than just one operation, Gonzalez and Luna are hopeful that they can contribute to improving food security for the entire region.