“Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow (all pre-defined paths, of course). And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN — and here is the essence of all I’ve said — you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH.”
— Hunter S. Thompson
Most people are taught to choose from what’s already laid out in front of them.
A career path. A business model. A way of doing things because that’s how it’s done.
Ninth Path exists because neither of us could find purpose in the paths that were already defined.
So we built our own.
This company is our Ninth Path.
Denys Oliveira
Denys remembers vividly the first time he fell in love with a mushroom.
At five years old, he discovered a dollhouse shaped like a mushroom—complete with an elevator. In rural Brazil, little boys didn’t play with dollhouses, and his father initially refused to let him have it. But even then, Denys was dedicated and persistent. Eventually, his father relented, and Denys spent countless happy hours dreaming up stories inside his mushroom house.
That early fascination never left him. It simply waited.
Growing up in the countryside of São Paulo, Denys followed one of the clearly defined paths available to him: science, mathematics, engineering, top schools, top jobs. He excelled—internationally—eventually landing in Melbourne and building a life of professional success.
From the outside, it was a good path.
From the inside, it felt incomplete.
After much soul-searching, Denys realised that his love of fungi—whether learning about them at school or cooking with them at home—had quietly followed him all along. Choosing curiosity over convention, he enrolled in a mushroom cultivation course with Milkwood Permaculture.
What began as learning quickly became devotion.
Denys founded Cogumelo Farm (“Cogumelo” is Portuguese for mushroom), and before long was supplying gourmet mushrooms to restaurants and shops across Melbourne.
It was a step off the expected path—and onto something that felt more alive.
Bruce Dietsch
Bruce’s ninth path began somewhere quieter.
Growing up in Leeton, NSW, wasn’t always easy. Charismatic, creative, and imaginative, Bruce often felt out of place in a small rural town. One person who truly understood him was his grandmother, Lillian Adams.
Lillian’s house was a place of sanctuary—from childhood through Bruce’s teenage years. It was filled with stories of Ireland, laughter, and the gentle permission to be fully himself.
As Lillian grew older, memory began to slip. She was eventually diagnosed with Lewy Body Disease, a form of dementia that causes the degeneration and death of nerve cells in the brain. The final ten years of her life were some of the hardest Bruce and his family would ever experience.
Like anyone who has lived close to dementia, the possibility lingered quietly in the background.
So when Bruce came across emerging research into fungi and dementia, something clicked. He began researching deeply—driven not by fear, but by care—and shared what he discovered with Denys.
What he saw wasn’t a miracle cure.
It was potential.
And integrity mattered.
The Ninth Path
Denys had the science, engineering background.
Bruce had the emotional clarity and purpose.
Together, they recognised something missing in the Australian mushroom supplement space: a company that chose integrity over hype, quality over shortcuts, and honest value over unnecessary complexity.
They didn’t want to follow the existing paths.
So they built another one.
Ninth Path Mushrooms was born—not as a trend, not as a shortcut, but as a deliberate choice to do things properly. To respect the fungi. To respect the science. And to respect the people taking them.
This company is our ninth path.
And we’re grateful you’ve found it.