Honest Health with Jeffrey Burke S03 E21 - Garrett Kopp

Discover how Chaga mushrooms can boost your health and wellness! 
Garrett Kopp is the founder of Birch Boys and an expert on Adirondack forests & North American fungi, particularly wild chaga. Growing up, Garrett learned about its benefits from his grandmother, who used it while battling cancer. From picking Chaga together to launching his brand, Garrett’s story is a testament to the power of curiosity and nature! He and host Jeffrey Burke explore the fascinating world of functional mushrooms, focusing on Chaga. Discover how this ancient fungus is harvested, its health benefits, the future of the industry, and how you can get started now! 


With more than 11 years of experience growing his brainchild from a personal healing intention into a nationally recognized natural products brand, Garrett’s work emphasizes responsible wildcrafting, research and development, internal manufacturing, and quality-driven product development. Garrett is passionate about building systems, inspiring and educating others, and fully exploring the healing potential of mushrooms, liquid extracts, and internally produced instant powders.


Before attending Clarkson University, Garrett’s path into the world of fungi began close to home, after mowing his grandmother's lawn at age 15. After coming inside, he unknowingly helped himself to a glass of his Mimi's chaga tea. She found this to be a riot. Her passion for teaching Garrett about Chaga was powerfully contagious, non-negotiable, and inspiring, especially considering her stage 4 pancreatic cancer. That early introduction sparked a deeper journey into Chaga's healing potential, which naturally led to discovering other functional fungi, like lion's mane, reishi, cordyceps, and others that surrounded us. 


Birch Boys is now a GMP certified fungi factory & organic certified operation leasing 220,000 acres of forested land for harvesting. With an omnichannel e-commerce presence—thanks to organic growth of our loyal base of repeat customers on birchboys.com, a 2026 acquisition of an Amazon-centric mushroom tincture brand, Uphoric Urth, and a desire to lead by influence, Garrett is not slowing down. He has turned his baby into a vertically integrated company of trust and integrity that owns its own 3,700 sq ft manufacturing facility in Tupper Lake, NY. With years of hands-on harvesting, product formulation, in-house manufacturing, quality-focused development, education, storytelling, and advocacy, Garrett has become visionary in chaga. He aims to ascend and transform industry norms that reward low quality products, diluted outcomes, undisclosed filler materials, and poor ethical behavior. 
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