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Vertically Grown Salads And Fresh Herbs In Føtex And Bilka Across Denmark
Danske Nordic Harvest has entered into a strategic partnership with Salling Group
Danske Nordic Harvest has worked at high pressure to get one of the world's largest vertical farms, fitted with the ground-breaking technology, ready for production for Danish consumers, and now the products are landing on Danish shelves for the first time: "The products from Nordic Harvest are unique in taste and quality. They are made without the use of pesticides, with an approx. 250 times less water consumption and through completely optimal land use.
We have believed in Nordic Harvest's innovative products for several years and are pleased that it has now become a reality," says Stephan Bruhn, category director at Salling Group, and continues: "We know that consumers are interested in the green transition, food security, and goods without chemicals, and we are convinced that sustainable products in this form will be a hit. That's why we also go out and launch in all føtex and Bilka's for a start."
With the agreement, Nordic Harvest will deliver almost three tonnes of salads and herbs a week to the Salling Group. At the same time, the plan is to test new products in Salling Group's chains on an ongoing basis.
On Nordic Harvest's vertical farm in Taastrup, the crops are grown on floors, which utilizes space. On 14 floors, the salads and herbs are grown in water in a closed and controlled environment that gives the plants the optimal conditions for growth, taste and nutritional content."
From harvest until they are in the package in the fridge, it takes about 10 minutes. From seeds to supermarkets, they have never been in contact with soil, human hands, bacteria, fungal spores or pests. And they, therefore, do not need to be rinsed, either when packed or before being used at home at the dining table. So there is nothing along the way that degrades the plant, and therefore the products have an impressive shelf life that minimizes food waste.
"We could not have found a better launch partner than Salling Group. Our common values around sustainable production and their skilled sense of taste and quality have meant that we have had a fantastic dialogue and a good collaboration from our very beginning. I am looking forward to seeing how Danish consumers receive our products," says Anders Riemann, CEO of Nordic Harvest.
The prices of Nordic Harvest products will be at the same level as similar organic products. All the products from Nordic Harvest are delivered cut and in boxes that do not crush the leaves, and which can also be easily closed again if you do not use it all at once. The packaging is made from 100 percent recyclable recycled plastic.
Source: https://via.ritzau.dk/
Photo source: Dreamstime.com
Publication date: Fri 30 Apr 2021
CANADA: Ontario’s First Vertical Farm Produces Local Herbs
Back40growers started its operations in 2018 with a state-of-the-art facility that recycles 98 per cent of its water, collects transpired water from the air with dehumidifiers, uses a sophisticated air-management system to create a pathogen-free environment, and follows organic plant-growing principles
Herbs Have Proved More Profitable
For The Company Than Growing Salad Greens
September 10, 2019
The production system at back40growers employs towers to grow herbs. Photo: Courtesy back40growers
An unobtrusive warehouse in a commercial-industrial area of Burlington houses Ontario’s first year-round supplier of locally grown herbs.
Back40growers is also Ontario’s first vertical farm. Vertical farming is an emerging production system – plants are grown entirely indoors without sunlight and everything from temperature and humidity to light, irrigation and nutrients is precisely controlled.
Why it matters: As climate volatility grows, vertical farming could offer production guarantees and food security as well as lower agriculture’s environmental footprint.
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“The main advantage of vertical farming is full control over the production process and you can produce huge yield on a single layer independent of whether the soil is good or not,” said Prof. Leo Marcelis, chair of Horticulture and Product Physiology at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “What is also important is the guarantee that on a specific day of the year I can grow that many kilograms of a specific quality – prediction is easier than in open field.”
Back40growers started its operations in 2018 with a state-of-the-art facility that recycles 98 per cent of its water, collects transpired water from the air with dehumidifiers, uses a sophisticated air-management system to create a pathogen-free environment, and follows organic plant-growing principles.
“We use less than two per cent of the water that a conventional farm does, and we’re 17 times more efficient per square foot than an outdoor farm,” said senior business development manager Bob Legault. “And (the food’s) travel miles are down because we are local, all of which contributes to the sustainability of what we do.”
Back40growers uses a tower-based growing system. Plugs are planted in a soilless growing medium made out of recycled bottles and towers are placed vertically side by side in rows inside the facility. A single tower’s capacity varies according to the crop, holding 30 chive or 12 basil plants, for example.
Production includes basil, mint, cilantro, thyme, sage, rosemary, oregano, chives, parsley and tarragon.
“This is where the demand is. We wanted to do lettuces, but selling herbs is more profitable,” says head grower and manager of farm operations, John Hattingh. “We mimic the natural growing cycle and we optimize every plant as it should be for sun, water, and nutrients. We don’t have drought, rain or bugs.”
Herbs are available in small packages, which back40growers says reduces food waste as few people ever use a whole clump of herbs as they are traditionally available in a grocery store.photo: Courtesy back40growers
Software helps manage crop scheduling and traceability, as well as conditions inside the facility; if the system detects an abnormality, such as a spike in humidity, Hattingh receives a text message so he can address the issue before it causes a problem in the crop.
“If we see disease in a tower, we can take the whole tower out, which limits any major outbreaks,” he added. “And because we control humidity and airflow, it makes it harder for pathogens to establish.”
Herbs are sold under the Sprigs Premium Herbs brand at Rowe Farms, Denningers’, Commissos and most recently Longo’s, who’ve just launched the product in Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga.
Most fresh herbs in Canada are currently imported and sold in plastic clamshell packages or fresh bundles. Sprigs, however, are sold in small eight and 11 gram packets, which Legault says was done very deliberately to meet market demand.
“Food waste is a big problem and most people buy herbs for just one dish – but a clam holds 40 grams, which is too much, and most consumers don’t need that big fresh bundle,” he explained.
The company spent months perfecting its packaging, settling on micro-perforated bags of recyclable plastic that allow the herbs to breathe. This provides up to 17 days of shelf life per package, according to Legault, although the average is in the 10- to 12-day range depending on conditions, handling and herb varieties. Herbs go from cut to store in about 72 hours.
Back40growers is partnering with University of Guelph start-up FloNergia, developer of airlift pump technology that aerates and circulates water simultaneously and uses 50 to 70 per cent less energy than conventional systems, for a new aquaponics venture where waste from farmed fish is used as food for plants that then cleanse the water for re-use.
They’re starting with tilapia and are currently looking for a partner to buy the market weight fish.
“We’re a farm first, but aquaponics is the engine that will drive it,” Legault said. “What we’re doing is the future of farming – local and sustainable.”
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Profits From Roots To Shoots
Today’s culinary consumer is looking for small, easy ways to add fresh, healthy ingredients to their daily lifestyle
Step Up Profits With Living Herbs And Greens.
May 28, 2019
Leslie F. Halleck
Fresh herbs and greens packaged with roots attached last two to three times longer than packaged fresh cut herbs — sometimes even longer.©ArtCookStudio | Adobe Stock
When it comes to the definition of “fresh,” it’s easy to get a wide variety of answers if you ask consumers. Some consumers consider prepared refrigerated foods as fresh, while others reserve the idea of freshness for the bulk produce aisle. For some, only organic produce qualifies as fresh, while others are happy to qualify anything green added to their diet as such — even if it’s conventional frozen produce. Varying definitions aside, there’s no denying the freshness of living herbs, greens and microgreens with roots still attached.
It used to be that fresh herb producers sought to garner market share from consumers purchasing dry packaged herbs. Now, there is new business to be captured in the fresh produce aisle. When it comes to positive sales trends, living herbs and lettuces offer many producers a way to grow.
Small steps to fresh
Today’s culinary consumer is looking for small, easy ways to add fresh, healthy ingredients to their daily lifestyle. That might mean a sprinkle of fresh basil on their pasta or a sprig of fresh thyme in their evening cocktail. These may seem like tiny steps for those of us who grow a lot of fresh produce, but they represent meaningful solutions for many consumers. There are just as many definitions of “cooking” as there are of “fresh” for that matter.
Fresh flavors
Why roots? Fresh herbs and greens packaged with roots attached last two to three times longer than packaged fresh-cut herbs — sometimes even longer in my experience, depending on how quickly you harvest all the foliage. This is a big benefit to both the retailers and the consumer.
For fresh herbs, recipe-ready varieties such as basil, rosemary, thyme and mint generally lead the pack. There isn’t much prep work needed to use these common herbs and most consumers are at least faintly familiar with how to use them. But as home cooks become more adventurous in their cooking styles, they’re open to more pungent and spicy flavors found in herbs such as cilantro and tarragon.
Well-rooted
Looking for a great example of how to make a go of packaged living herbs and greens? No need to look further than North Shore Greenhouses (northshore.farm). Under their trademarked North Shore Living brands, this southern California-based company hydroponically produces a wide array of living herbs and greens packed with roots attached. Using certified sustainable methods, North Shore has developed some seriously savvy packaging options for consumers, including self-watering mini-greenhouse packaging as well as “potted” options, which are essentially hydroponic baskets to support the plant roots. The potted options can be suspended in a jar or other water-holding containers, which make for a nice temporary windowsill herb garden.
North Shore has also done a great job on their website of providing instructions for how to store their living herbs and greens, as well as a bevy of tasty recipes to keep the end-user engaged. Their basil ice cream recipe is to die for. Yes, basil ice cream. Personally, I like to add a bit of lemongrass to brighten the flavor.
Not convinced?
A common knee-jerk concern with selling living fresh herbs and greens — roots attached — is that the consumer will just plant it up and not buy more. While you may have a few motivated gardeners who’ll take up the DIY task, most culinary customers will be very happy to maintain their living herbs or greens in the refrigerator, or in a glass jar on the countertop (or refrigerator) for a week or two — until it’s fully harvested. That’s more green than they usually get to have in their kitchen. When they’ve harvested it all, they’ll buy it again. Many apartment or small home dwellers may not have the option of permanently planting up their living herbs and greens, but are happy to have a fresh living specimen even temporarily.
Also, herbs and greens grown hydroponically, without soil, don’t always transition to containers or the garden successfully. So, your less-experienced or brown-thumb customers won’t always be successful with planting living greens and herbs. They really are better off keeping them in the fridge or on the countertop or windowsill.
More basil please!
I think packaged living basil is the ideal way for most culinary consumers to buy and use fresh basil from the grocery store, specifically since it’s damaged at temperatures below 40° F. That means most home refrigerators are a death zone for fresh basil (roots or no roots). I’m sure many customers have given up on fresh-packed cut basil after sticking it in the refrigerator, only to find that it has blackened and wilted the next day. Rooted plants on the countertop are the way to go.
If you already grow fresh-cut produce or herbs, or you’re a hydroponic grower who’s looking to expand your offerings, now is a great time to survey your local or regional market for opportunities. Living herbs and greens could be the perfect way to freshen up your produce profits.
Leslie (CPH) owns Halleck Horticultural, LLC, through which she provides horticultural consulting, business and marketing strategy, product development and branding, and content creation for green industry companies. lesliehalleck.com
Herbs Basil Root health Root crops Rosemary
Direct Delivery
With its fresh delivery service and strategic retail partnerships, Great Lakes Growers is building a business for the modern consumer.
May 28, 2019
Chris Manning | Photos by Allison Krieg
Great Lakes Growers, based in Burton, Ohio, produces leafy greens and herbs hydroponically in glass greenhouses.
Great Lakes Growers wants to change the way people buy and think about salad. The hydroponic greens and herbs operation is capitalizing on changing consumer tastes and sending its products straight to customers’ doorsteps with a new initiative called Great Lakes Growers Express.
Located in Burton, Ohio — a village with a total population of less than 1,500 — the operation was founded in 2011. But through relationships with restaurants and regional grocery store chains such as Buehler’s, Giant Eagle and Heinen’s, the business can reach a customer base in Ohio and neighboring states that would make up several dozen Burtons. And if its home delivery service goes according to plan, the company’s reach will extend even further.
“There’s about 80 million people we can reach,” says John Bonner, owner and founder.
“There are home delivery services out there for food, but we’ve always heard the complaints about, well it’s the produce that is really bad,” says Tim Ward, who does marketing for Great Lakes Growers and helped develop the Great Lakes Growers Express concept. “The other food is fine; the produce doesn’t hold up because they’re really packaging it and shipping it in traditional methods, the way you might find in a traditional grocery store. They’re getting it from out West. Everything’s being shipped directly from the source here.”
Through Great Lakes Growers Express, which officially launched in March, consumers can order combinations of living lettuce, fresh-cut herbs and other leafy greens from the grower online, and have them shipped directly to their home via UPS. Currently, there are four different combinations to pick from and each is available for delivery weekly or every other week for $29.99 per delivery.
According to Bonner, the logic behind the delivery service is two-fold. First, it opens new markets in urban and rural communities that don’t have grocery stores nearby — like inner-city Cleveland or a small town in Pennsylvania.
Second, Bonner believes that by shipping fresh greens directly to the consumer, he can tap into a younger customer base that seeks out instant gratification and is already ordering other goods like pet food, razors and toothbrushes online with pre-determined shipping (and payment) dates. It’s also a customer base, Bonner says, that wants fresh produce and worries about the quality of food they are consuming.
“Even if you’re getting it from a local guy like me, it’s still three or four days old at the store, which there’s probably not much difference in freshness,” Bonner says. “So it had to be fresh, had to be good, and the cost had to be no more money than they’re going to pay when they go the grocery store.”
John Bonner, left, and Tim Ward
Bonner’s beginnings
Bonner grew up in Burton, where his entire family is connected to the horticulture industry. On his father’s side, the main family profession has been traditional field farming. On his mother’s side, his grandfather founded BFG Supply, a greenhouse supply company based in Burton. Additionally, his father founded Dillen Products (later renamed HC Companies), a manufacturer of injected molded pots whose clients included many members of the Van Wingerden family, several of whom own large-scale ornamental operations.
“That’s how I got into farming,” Bonner says.
Additionally, his sister owns Eagle Creek Nursery, a wholesale ornamental producer. Originally, though, horticulture was not the path Bonner pursued. After graduating high school, Bonner attended Capital University in Columbus and earned a bachelor’s degree in finance. From there, he took a job at Merrill Lynch. But according to Bonner, it wasn’t work that fit him.
Bonner worked at Eagle Creek Nursery for a time after leaving Merrill Lynch, gaining notoriety in the industry for implementing sustainable business practices. In 2011, he left the family business and founded Great Lakes Growers.
The business started out small. He tested out his concept with 300 square feet of poly greenhouses and a basic hydroponic system constructed from supplies at Home Depot — but expansion came quick. From there, he was able to get his greens into local restaurants and eventually local grocery chains.
Today, Great Lakes Growers has 80,000 square feet of production space and is currently in the middle of an expansion that will double its size. Down the line, Bonner sees a need to hire growers. (Currently, he’s hands-on with the plants seven days a week.) But he can’t envision a future where he doesn’t spend at least some time in the greenhouse working directly with the crops.
“I cannot see myself not coming in here at least one day a week and watering everything and taking care of everything,” he says. “I can call everybody up in an hour and find out, ‘Hey, where do we want to do this, do that?’ But it’s just got to have more structure as we get bigger. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re expanding as an organization; we’re broadening out. So it’s fun. It’s challenging.”
Great Lakes Growers is in the midst of an expansion but it's already mapping out its next building project.
Fresh deliveries
Bonner and Ward, another Burton native and someone Bonner has known for years, started working on the delivery service about a year ago. According to Bonner, Great Lakes Growers Express and has been rolled out slowly on purpose in order to solve any potential logistical issues. The idea appealed to Bonner as a way to diversify outside of traditional retail methods.
“We told our retail partners we were doing it and they said, ‘Spot on man.’ Because they’re seeing it, too,” he says. “We’re doing meal kits and things for them, but their product development, this whole convenience thing, is what I was seeing when I started. This whole feeling of instant gratification — well it’s getting on steroids now. And I think we see it in all these subscription services and things like that. It’s not going to stop.”
To start, the company sent out greens and herbs via UPS and FedEx to friends and family. When the packages arrived, those friends and family sent back pictures of the greens to see how they held up. Bonner says that they sent out packages in a variety of weather conditions from extreme heat to extreme cold to make sure the greens would remain fresher than what they could buy at the store.
“We were testing so many things and looking at the variables,” Ward says. “I think we got it down to where anything within basically 24 hours is doable. So in any place that UPS can ship within a day is perfect.”
A key to the service is that Great Lakes Growers offers living lettuce with the roots still attached — allowing the lettuce to last longer once its in the customer’s fridge. Each order is also checked by hand in Burton to ensure that the greens are fresh and the order is correct. According to Ward, word-of-mouth and rave reviews from customers on social media are the driving factor as the business continues to grow organically and expand into new areas.
“We want to make sure that we can check every single box and we’ve had zero complaints so far of anything that we’ve shipped out to consumers,” Ward says. “And frankly I expect that to continue.”
Offering fresher products than the local grocery store is the main selling point for Great Lakes Growers Express. Say a customer orders greens on a Sunday. On Tuesday of that week, the greens are harvested, packaged and shipped out. The next day, the greens arrive at the customer’s doorstep via UPS. That’s even faster than the same greens, harvested the same day, would arrive at the local grocery store.
“It’s more units than you might find on a trip on a Monday to a grocery store, but it’s also got a shelf life that’s two weeks plus,” Bonner says. “So that whole process of training people that say, ‘Hey wow, got five heads of lettuce or six heads of lettuce, whatever it is, I can’t eat all that.’ But then if you leave it in your fridge for a week, two weeks, and you look at it, you’re going to go, ‘Damn, that still looks better than anything I’ve put in there.’”
Great Lakes Growers Express launched in April 2019 as part of Bonner's effort to better engage with modern consumers.
A key part of Great Lakes Growers' labor force is workers from the neighboring Amish communities.
Growing into the future
Right next door to the greenhouses filled with greens and herbs in Burton, Great Lakes Growers is in the process of expanding. Walk through one door and instead of greens, you’ll find construction crews building glass greenhouses and setting up the space for a concrete floor to be poured. Each greenhouse will be outfitted with LED lighting, environmental control systems, boom irrigation and other technologies since Bonner believes embracing technology and its possible benefits is key to keeping the business moving forward.
“I’m a big believer that ultimately, we have to get the cost inside the greenhouse down in the space or an area where we’re competitive with the field-grown stuff,” he says.
The plan, Bonner says, is to have enough growing space that products shipped via Great Lakes Growers Express have their own production area. He adds that the additional space is already “sold out” — meaning he already knows what will be grown there. And another expansion in the near future isn’t out of the question either.
There are also plans to continue diversifying the business. In addition to the delivery service — which Bonner and Ward hope to expand to new areas in the coming months — Great Lakes Growers products are now sold at Giant Eagle under the grocery store’s Market District branding. And other retailers are selling the product with the Great Lakes Growers logo on the package.
Outside of that, Bonner says selling greens to the food service sector is the business’ largest growing market share.
The key for whatever comes next, however, is still freshness. Regardless of what is next for Great Lakes Growers, and for Bonner, he says that must remain the core principle of the business.
“I look at it as we need to have stuff there that tastes better, looks better, grows better,” he says. “We need to give our customers the best price, so they can compete with their competitors. But ultimately, we’ve got to give the consumer the best price and the best quality.”
To learn about Great Lakes Growers' Amish workforce, search 'Amish' at producegrower.com
Hydroponics Leafy greens Herbs Grocery Harvesting
New Viking Professional Micro Green And Herb Growing Cabinet In Select Markets
Viking Range, LLC, a leader in kitchen technology, is pleased to announce the rollout of a new Viking Professional Micro Green & Herb Growing Cabinet. The 24” under counter unit allows consumers to grow herbs and micro greens 365 days a year.
The unit includes two growing trays, two 4” propagation domes, two hydroponic growing mats, pH and TDS calibration solutions, measuring syringe, sifter, hydrogen peroxide and a 20 gallon tub.
A fully contained ecosystem is ideal for growing herbs and micro greens. The cabinet is equipped with high output T5 growing lights to replicate the sun’s rays and get the best growth possible. The light is distributed evenly with diffuser panels. The system also features a filter with a water pump for irrigation. It can be manually filled or connected with city water and drain.
The digital system is fully automated for light, watering and air circulation for optimal growth. It comes with 39 preprogrammed cycles for the most common greens, plus it is fully programmable for custom cycles.
Each zone in the unit accommodates one 10”x20” growing flat. Users can simply sow their seeds in the flats using traditional soil or hydroponic media. Cover the trays with the unit’s humidity domes and place them in the cabinet. Next, set the growing cycle for your particular plants and when the seeds begin to sprout, the humidity domes should be removed. Grow until the herbs are ready to harvest, depending on the variety of plant, this cycle could be as little as seven days.
The herb grower is compact and installs under countertops in any space. It also features removable growing drawers on easy gliding rollers with drainage holes in the rear for ebb and flow irrigation. The double pane tempered glass allows easy viewing.
The innovative Viking Micro Green & Herb Growing Cabinet is now available at select authorized Viking dealers in the Chicago metro area and the state of California.
Viking Range, LLC originated ultra-premium commercial-type appliances for the home, creating a whole new category of home appliances. Committed to innovative product design, unrivaled performance and peerless quality, Viking is headquartered in Greenwood, Mississippi, and is a subsidiary of The Middleby Corporation, a long-time leader in commercial kitchen technology. Viking appliances are recognized globally as the foremost brand in the high-end appliance industry and are sold through a network of premium appliance distributors and dealers worldwide.
For additional product information, to locate a Viking dealer in your area, or to request a quote, please visit www.vikingrange.com. VIKING is a registered trademark of Viking Range, LLC.
Beyond Garnish: How Science Helps An Indoor Farm Amp Up Flower Flavor
December 26, 2018
WHITNEY PIPKIN
At the restaurant Siren by Robert Wiedmaier, pastry chef Maddy Morrissey uses marigold as the base for a Japanese dessert served with nasturtium leaves, flower petals and pineapple sage shortbread. | Brian McBride/RWRestaurant Group
From inside the overly-lit interior of a 1960s strip mall, software programs and science are helping an urban farm fire up the flavor of fennel fronds and control the size of nasturtium leaves. By carefully monitoring each variable and its impact on the way a plant tastes, looks and grows, Fresh Impact Farms is inching closer to its goal: delivering edible flowers and herbs catered to the taste preferences of top-tier chefs.
To that end, nutrient mix, water temperature, light spectrum and countless other variables are regularly tweaked to produce more of the thumb-sized, lily-pad-shaped leaves chefs prize from nasturtium, each packed with a peppery punch. Lights at the "far red" end of the spectrum shine down on the same plant to coax its orange and vermilion blooms to appear earlier and more often. Every change is an experiment, and every aspect of the plant a potential moneymaker.
But, even though everything grown at the 1,000-square-foot farm in Arlington, Va., will likely be the last element placed onto the plate and the first pop of color a restaurant diner sees, "this isn't a [typical] garnish farm," says owner Ryan Pierce.
Fresh Impact Farm owner Ryan Pierce (left), and operations chief Matt McKinstry (right), stand in the 1,000-square-foot space in a suburban strip mall where they grow up to 60 varieties of edible flowers, herbs and greens at a time for restaurants.
Whitney Pipkin for NPR
"We didn't set out to just grow things that are pretty," adds Pierce, who, at 32, looks like an off-duty surgeon in blue scrubs, disposable gloves and a hat worn for food safety. "We set out to grow things that become an element of the flavor of the dish. We want to give chefs a palette to elevate their food."
Pierce comes to the field of hydroponic growing from a career in cloud computing, where he learned to make sense of a dizzying number of data points. He saw in indoor farming an opportunity to apply that background while producing edibles in a way that uses less water and land, reducing pollution and waste in the process.
Those same factors have fueled the hydroponic industry's meteoric growth in recent years. For urban farmers looking to make the most out of limited spaces, microgreens are often the crop of choice. But shoots and sprouts comprise only a small fraction of Pierce's business.
A purple ice plant flourishes under a spectrum of light designed to help it flower and thrive in an indoor environment at Fresh Impact Farms in Arlington, Va. / Whitney Pipkin for NPR
Instead, he has found a way to infuse surprising flavor into the plate-topping flowers, herbs and greens restaurants are already accustomed to buying.
Take one of the many varieties of hyssop that Fresh Impact grows, says D.C. Chef Robert Wiedmaier, whose high-end D.C. flagship Marcel's was the farm's first customer. "You close your eyes, taste that and it's like, 'Wow. What is that? Boom.' "
The hyssop, which smacks of mint and licorice-y anise, tops pan-seared scallops at Wiedmaier's Michelin-starred restaurant, Siren, and makes cameos in cocktails. Wiedmaier is such a booster of Pierce's business that he hosted a five-course dinner featuring the farm at Siren this fall. There, candy apple sorrel-flavored meringue topped a black sea bass dish and bright orange marigolds starred in a Japanese dessert with pineapple sage shortbread.
But Wiedmaier says: "You can't throw flowers on just anything." These garnishes must be used with care or they could overpower a dish. The musty marigold can be a challenge to deploy correctly, even if it's pretty.
Some of Fresh Impact's products pack such a flavor punch, they should come with a warning label. But chefs can't seem to get enough of the hard-to-grow and equally potent wasabi arugula. And, at the Japanese tasting room Nasime in Alexandria, Va., chef-owner Yuh Shimomura isn't timid about plating tiny yellow flowers from the toothache plant, so named because of their intense saliva-increasing, tongue-numbing effect.
Since launching in 2016, the farm has experimented with 250 plant varieties and currently grows between 50 and 60 at a time. Many of the successful varieties were originally suggested by chefs — some of them new to the concept that a farm could tweak the flavor of an herb or flower they thought they knew so well.
Ryan Pierce holds one of the nasturtium blooms prized by his chef-customers for decorating and flavoring dishes at high-end restaurants. / Whitney Pipkin for NPR
When Johnny Spero, executive chef and owner of Reverie in Washington, D.C., first requested that Pierce grow huacatay, a feathery plant used in Peruvian stews and sauces, he expected it to taste as pungent as varieties he'd tried elsewhere.
But Pierce's was milder, and Spero initially asked if he could make it more intense.
Adding "intensity" entails stressing the plant, something that is hard to do in a controlled environment where the plants are protected from the elements. Pierce can mimic that stress with an imbalance of nutrients, by applying different spectrums of light or by harvesting leaves from older plants—but every crop is different.
"Our goal is, as we collect data, to understand how small shifts change the overall flavor and success of the crop," he says. "Ultimately, we want to get to a point where we can tweak those crops on demand to produce specific flavor outcomes."
The farm's latest experiment? The succulent iceplant. Its leaves look like water droplets have frozen, still dewy, on the surface, and biting into one of them delivers a blast of hydration. One of Siren's chefs has said he wants the largest leaves possible for a dish he's dreaming up. Meanwhile, chefs at D.C.'s two-Michelin-starred minibar by José Andrés say they want the tiny clusters of leaves the plant produces before it blooms.
"If we can get it to production, we already know we have two customers interested in different parts of the plant," says Pierce.
The farm worked with a company to develop its own software that tracks the feedback received from chefs for each crop. If a chef thought a batch of bronze fennel was too bitter or too sweet, that information is stored and considered for the next crop.
Eventually, Pierce wants to bring all of that data into real-time — with chefs providing feedback through an app. Already, monitors on each of the water basins report data on its Ph, temperature and overall nutrient level to a computer every four seconds. The goal is to eventually measure each of the 17 nutrients essential for plant growth — all the time.
"The challenge is for us to drill down to that level," says Pierce, who'd like to get the flavor-changing equation down to a science. It's not going to be easy, he admits. "If you feel like you have this down already, then you're not doing something right."
garnish strip mall Farm fine dining microgreens flavor chefs
Swedish Retailers Are Starting To Grow Herbs Under Their Stores
William McGrath, Amsterdam Office, Bord Bia – Irish Food Board
As Ron Finley once said in his Ted Talk on Gorilla Gardening - “To Grow your own food is like printing your own money”. Urban Gardening is by no means a new phenomenon – it has been around for hundreds of years. Back in the 1800s urban gardening took up much of the space that we see in gardens and parks in modern day cities and towns. Back then urban gardening was not a past-time or a way to improve your social media followership but instead it was a way to survive. People didn’t have the luxury of popping down to the supermarket to fetch a fresh bag of rocket lettuce or freshly pickled beetroot, instead they had to put in the hard graft and grow the food from scratch.
We have come so far in the last 100 years in relation to food technology and production that we have become comfortable with where our food comes from and how it gets to our dining tables.
Recent years have seen a revolution in the concept of urban gardening. Not only can we see urban garden plots popping up in suburbs of most cities but we can also see people growing plants and herbs in their homes and on their apartment balconies. In Stockholm alone, people have turned their balconies into a miniature oasis of speciality herbs, vegetables, and flowers. With urban populations around the world forecast to grow over the next decade, we can begin to see that people are conscious of where their food is coming from especially in an urban setting.
A new initiative created by the leading Swedish retailer ICA Kvantum - Liljeholmen in cooperation with Urban Oasis, sees retailers in Sweden beginning to grow their own micro-herbs and vegetables in the basement of their stores. The system used is a Hydroponic system, meaning they grow the crops in a water solution as opposed to soil, making the crops less reliant on fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides. Joakim Haraldsson – Sales manager stated “We can use this technique to cultivate anything we want. We are just a small step away from sun-ripened tomatoes and ripe strawberries for Christmas”. The idea came from a group of four students, who created the concept of Urban Oasis as a pilot project in University. The idea has continued to grow momentum in Sweden, with ICA Maxi Lindhagen also creating plans to grow speciality herbs in their basement using the same concept.
Source: Bord Bia
Publication date : 12/06/2018
"Customers Can Harvest Lettuce At Dutch Retailer Albert Heijn"
"Customers Can Harvest Lettuce At Dutch Retailer Albert Heijn"
Michiel van Zanten, Hrbs:
Consumers seem to prefer convenience and pre-packaging. There is, however, a growing counter-movement. Starting this week, Albert Heijn Gelderlandplein in Amsterdam boasts a harvest stand. It has an assortment of lettuce with their roots still attached. "It looks like a large lettuce bouquet", says Michiel van Zanten, of the Dutch company, Hrbs. "A very different sight to the lettuce in bags of which as many as possible are crammed into a crate.
The stand looks good. People regularly take photos of it. It is also going well regarding rotation. I often see people harvesting a head of lettuce." How successful this self-harvesting of lettuce will be, will only become evident at the end of the project. Michiel is, from what he has observed, pleased with it.
Lettuce on water is a co-creation of Albert Heijns Food Rebels, Hrbs' green design, and the products of AH's permanent lettuce suppliers. "We chose to offer different kinds of lettuce, not just butter lettuce. There is also tricolour, curly leaf and oak leaf lettuce. It is also a good test for the fresh fruit and vegetable teams to see how these new lettuce varieties catch on with customers when they are presented in this way.
There are buckets with holes in for a total of 35 heads of lettuce in the viewing, selection and packing stand. Here the lettuce stand, with their roots still attached. In this way, the lettuce's roots lie in nutrients, keeping them fresh and lovely. Customers can easily grab the lettuce and put them in the supplied cups. The lettuce then does not drip all over the shop floors. The stand looks at its best when it is fully stocked. Attentive fruit and vegetable staff need to fill the stand up when they become 10% empty.
It is an experiment for AH as well as Hrbs. The company is a service model for fresh herbs and crops. It has, up to now, focused on companies and the catering industry. "Hrbs wants to bring the world of fruit and vegetables as close to the ordinary person as possible. We want to integrate them into everyday life. We supply stands, for inside and outside, with trays for different kinds of mini-vegetable crops and herbs. Chefs and clients can then harvest these themselves. When the crops have all been harvested, or are old, we deliver a new tray and take the old one along for reuse", says Michiel. Before he started working at Hrbs, he was a buyer at Albert Heijn. Her reconnected with this retail shop with this idea. "I know how they think, and what is important to them. We will see how it goes. We consciously opted for co-creation. Lettuce is a new product for us. We are certainly open to the idea of including collaborations to also provide services to retail", he says.
For more information:
Hrbs
Michiel van Zanten
400 Johan Huizingalaan
Amsterdam
T+31(0) 610 247 253
info@hrbs.com
www.hrbs.com
The Underground Farm Delivering Rare Herbs to New York’s Top Chefs
The Underground Farm Delivering Rare Herbs to New York’s Top Chefs
Bespoke greens and flowers are grown-to-order in Manhattan.
FEBRUARY 14, 2018
Farm Manager Tom Rubino harvests marigolds at Farm.one. ALL PHOTOS: SARAH BLESENER
The sprouts and flowers are as recherché as they are delicious: nepitella, wood sorrel, papalo, micro cressida, afilia pea shoots. While diners may see garnish as little more than a sprig of green to fork aside, chefs see garnish in multiple dimensions—hue, flavor, texture, scent—and have exacting requirements in each. Meeting those requirements, which for millennia depended on the turn of the season or the whimsy of the weather, is now achieved in a Manhattan basement.
Farm.one is a blossoming underground vertical farm in the heart of Tribeca. Inside, farmers grow rare, bespoke, and chef-tailored micro-greens, herbs, and edible flowers for some of the most celebrated kitchens in New York. Several days a week, my job is to slalom through the city’s sidewalk traffic, turtle-backed with bags of the day’s harvest, and hand-deliver the morning’s pickings. (Consider this an official disclosure, although I am not an employee of the company.) Besides herbally gratifying chefs cloistered in the steam and aluminum of famous kitchens—and occasionally being gifted with the most delicious nibbles of my life—I’ve gotten a peek into what may well be the future of urban farming.
There are three clear perks of growing urban greens indoors: One, you can’t get much fresher than farm-to-fork in a few hours. Two, transportation emissions are no dirtier than the courier’s exhalations (Farm.one, at least, only delivers by bike, foot, or train). And three, by eluding meteorological vicissitude, growing to order is like strutting up and hand-sticking a dart right in the bullseye.
Preparing Red Veined Sorrel, a very popular micro known for its tart, bitter flavor and appearance.
Justin Chen, a sous chef at Jungsik, the two-Michelin star, Korean fusion joint, leans in to study the tangerine gem marigold stem pinched between his fingers. I ask what he looks for in Farm.one’s micro greens and flowers, which he occasionally sends back when they’re not “up to spec.” “Consistency,” he replies. In high-end dining, Chen adds, “There’s no room for error.” That’s why keeping tight control on the grow conditions at the farm is so critical.
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The tangerine gem marigold, a speck of a blossom no bigger than an iPhone home button, is for a petit four—that post-dessert, single-bite confectionary that seems to magically ablate from plate to memory in a single delicious swallow. Jungsik’s petit four looks fit for a centerpiece on a dollhouse dining table. The potted-plant-shaped bon-bon is made up of a dark chocolate shell lined with meyer-lemon caramel and ginger-and-white-chocolate ganache, and a tiny tangerine gem marigold flower sprouts out of the chocolate sable “soil.” If the flower were any bigger (the taste is subtle—like a sweetened tea with lemon) it would overpower the orchestral intricacy of the meyer lemon, caramel, and ginger chocolate. “The size,” Chen reiterates, “is what lets a chef correctly balance flavors [and] find visual symmetry in a dish.”
Red Veined Sorrel Seedlings being grown in Rock Wool Cubes.
One of the experts in charge of giving chefs the esculent tools to achieve such symmetry is farm manager Tom Rubino. Rubino walks the basement farms seven days a week, tweaking controls and sampling from the approximately 100 varieties of plants. His favorite is oxalis, a whale tail-shaped leaf that comes in beet purple or Irish green and has a puckering, citric flavor—something you seem to taste in your forehead as much as your mouth. “It tastes like grape skin,” Rubino says. “When I was a kid, I used to eat grape skins.”
The farm has between two and six levels of grow beds, and totals only about 1,500 square feet in three separate facilities. The plants either drop their roots directly in water, or into a grow medium—a coconut-husk concoction that gives the roots something to grip. Eliminating soil is just one of the ways to maximize and tightly control grow conditions. The farmers also tweak the pH of the water, adjust airflow and humidity, lock in the temperature, and toy with both the wattage and spectrum of the LED lights. They’re basically trying to outdo nature, not letting the plants “succumb to overcast skies,” Rubino tells me.
Shift Hand Manager Katherine Chester in the facility.
Like letting a dog off a leash in an open field, when you give a chef options, they tend to run with them. One chef wants only orange—not yellow or red—tangerine gems. Another wants clearly defined veins in the red-veined sorrel. Other demands include micro-cumin, Neon Rose Magic, Yarrow crowns, and nasturtiums with only purple rims.
On a December day, I watch Victor Amarilla admire those purple rims. But when he pops the little, lily-pad-looking leaf into his mouth, he frowns. “The flavor’s almost there,” he says. As the head chef at Le Turtle, the popular Chrystie Street French restaurant, he receives a twice-weekly delivery from Farm.one. To ensure the nasturtium pop enough, Rubino had to find the right seed for Le Turtle’s needs, and is now growing an exclusive small forest of nasturtium in one corner of the farm. The perfect nasturtium has a slight crunch, a slow, mouth-full wave of heat, and finishes with a flicker of pepper. When Amarilla gets a flavor he likes, he’s apt to pumps the air with his fists.
Petite Anise Hyssop Tops and Purple Oxalis Flowers from Farm.one placed on a dish.
Amarilla is not the only chef using farm.one to color his plates with edible whorls and frizz. One frozen day in late January, I watch chef Chris Owen, of the plant-based pizza restaurant Double Zero (part of the Matthew Kinney restaurant group), nibble on purslane, which he describes as a “juicy, cucumbery” wonder. He imagines aloud how it would taste on his chocolate cake. Little jade-looking purslane leaves inside sweet confections are the kinds of surprises that Owen likes to throw at Double Zero’s diners.
“Farm.one grabs things at the early stages of their lives, when they’re more interesting,” Owen tells me. He’s looking for red and pink flowers for his Valentine’s Day special—maybe some dianthus for his apple cider cheesecake. He also wants some acidic flavors, maybe some sorrel blossoms. As we chat, he sneaks me a bite from a tray of shiitake faux-bacon, which just came out of the wood-burning oven, and browses through a stack of farm.one samples encased in plastic clamshells.
Wood Sorrel Flowers are known for their bright yellow color and tart, slightly sweet flavor.
Double Zero’s aim is “to make vegan foods more accessible,” for which high-quality simplicity is critical, Owen explains. “Over-processing is a problem with veganism.” But be it vegan, classic French, fusion Korean, or omakase, pretty much whatever rare and delicious doodad or efflorescence you imagine can be grown in farm.one’s underground vertical fields.
“The first impression, and maybe 50 percent of the total experience in a restaurant is based on visuals,” Owen argues. Twice a week I deliver him a few dozen purple-and-yellow viola blossoms so he can make that first impression a kaleidoscopic one.
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