At 18, he’s the US teen truffle tycoon

Ian Purkayastha’s teenage revolution did not involve rock groups, rebelling against his parents or embarrassing fashion experiments. For him it was: “black truffle ravioli with foie gras sauce”.

And three years later, aged 18, Mr Purkayastha not only remembers the “amazing” taste of that dish, but he’s turned himself into one of America’s leading truffle tycoons.

In 2009 he took up his post as North American sales director for PAQ Gubbio, a leading Italian truffle producer.

Then in August last year, fresh from high school graduation, Purkayastha left his Arkansas home and his American mother and Indian-born father to move to New Jersey, just outside New York, where he could be closer to the action.

“In Fayetteville, Arkansas, there are only three good restaurants, so I decided to go to bigger towns. There are no European style truffles in the US,” he said.

Each week the slightly-built teenager oversees the import of two or three shipments totalling anything between 20 and 70 kilos, depending on the season.

Emanuele Musini, chairman of PAQ Gubbio, said he discovered his American prodigy during a food show in 2008. Just 16, Purkayastha had started his own business Tartufi Unlimited.

The gamble worked out. “He brought us important clients including the New York restaurants Per Se, Daniel and Jean-Georges,” all of them with three Michelin stars. “Today our US exports count for 40 per cent of the total and they ’re expanding rapidly.”

Mr Purkayastha has always apparently had that touch with business. He recounts at the start of his career researching online where he “found some in France, shipped by Fedex. I paid $150 for half a kilo, and I sold them to the local chefs. I made a 600 per cent margin.”

The underground mushrooms, which have to be detected by specially trained dogs and grow best in France, Italy and Romania, fetch a wide variety of prices.