Elon Musk's Younger Brother Kimbal Founded A Company Called Square Roots
Elon Musk's Younger Brother Kimbal Founded A Company Called Square Roots
- Brooklyn-based Square Roots 'farmers' grow greens in shipping containers
- The greens can be sent to local establishments that lack access to fresh food
- Kimbal Musk is auctioning off his Tesla Model 3 to fund the project
- It is the sixth Tesla Model 3 created and is 'mostly handmade', Musk said
By Maggie O'Neill For Dailymail.com
5 April 2018
Elon Musk's younger brother Kimbal is trying to revolutionize food production, and is auctioning off his Tesla Model 3 to do so.
The 45-year-old chef is the founder of urban farming company Square Roots, based in Brooklyn, and is trying to get the project off the ground by letting go of the sixth Model 3 made by his brother's company.
Kimbal Musk went on Megyn Kelly TODAY to talk about how he came up with the idea of auctioning off the car in order to fund Square Roots and what he hopes his company will do for the future of urban food production.
Musk's firm uses 320-square-foot shipping containers to produce roughly the same amount of food as two acres of farmland annually but in a fraction of the space.
Square Roots grew out of Musk's search for food that tastes good.
The chef told Megyn Kelly that while working on developing one of his restaurants in Colorado, called The Kitchen, he realized his team was having trouble finding 'good food' to use at the establishment.
Musk said: 'We started about 15 years ago, [and] we really struggled to find food that tasted good.'
He explained his frustration over a system that has been designed to exclude local farmers.
'The industrial food system is literally designed for food to ship thousands of miles. It's not designed to taste good,' Musk said.
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Kimbal Musk got the idea for Square Roots while developing a restaurant in Colorado called The Kitchen. Musk, a chef, found that getting fresh food that tasted good was challenging for his staff members. Pictured is the inside of a Square Roots shipping container
He added that most foods used by restaurants are high in calories but do not have the benefit of high nutritional value, which renders them basically useless - and possibly harmful - to the body.
'It causes a lot of problems we have in food today,' Musk said.
This conundrum led to the development of shipping containers designed to grow food for local use.
Musk emphasized that he was only trying to engineer food that tasted good when the idea came to him. He said: 'If you can grow the food really close to home - to the restaurant - the food tastes so much better. It is absolutely delicious.'
Musk says that Square Roots can give local establishments access to fresh food that tastes good. Additionally, no pesticides are used during the production process, Musk said
HOW DOES KIMBAL MUSK'S URBAN FARMING TECHNOLOGY WORK?
Elon Musk's brother founded a company called Square Roots that he hopes will revolutionize urban farming.
Square Roots 'farmers' grow greens in shipping containers without using any pesticides.
The food can be sent to local establishments that otherwise might not have access to fresh, locally-grown greens.
Kimbal Musk explained on the TODAY Show that one 'farmer' at his company specified the conditions within a shipping container to try to replicate a certain crop of basil from 2009.
Pictured is a Square Roots shipping container around New York City. For now, Square Roots is producing mostly just greens
He explained: 'We have one farmer who - this is so cool - he took his container and he is able to control the weather.
'So he can decide what time the sun rises, what time the sun sets, everything.
'And in Italy in 2009 there was this vintage of basil - just the basil that we normally eat.
'But that particular year is quite a famous year for basil in Italy, and he went into the weather records and recreated the summer of Italy 2009 inside of his container: what time the sun came up, what time the sunset, what days did it rain, how much oxygen was in the air, what was the temperature, what was the humidity, everything.
'And now [he] sells the most premium basil in the whole city of New York because it just tastes so much better!'
And the food is safe, Musk reassured a hesitant Kelly, saying no pesticides are used during the production process.
'Am I eating computer-generated leaves?' Kelly asked skeptically.
But her guest told her that no artificial ingredients are used at Square Roots.
He took it a step beyond that, promising: 'It is the cleanest food you can possibly eat.'
But there is no doubt about the model's sustainability benefits. One of Square Roots's 320-square-feet shipping containers can produce the same amount of food as two acres of farmland annually.
Musk pitched the project as an answer to urban environments that do not have great access to fresh food.
And Square Roots 'farmers' can even produce foods that have specific tastes for certain restaurants. 'They can design it the way a chef might like it,' Musk said.
The company is, at the moment, producing mostly just greens.
Musk also mentioned on the TODAY Show segment that Square Roots is in the business of hosting farmers markets within New York City office spaces.
He then explained how he plans on expanding the company: by selling the sixth ever made Tesla Model 3.
Musk said: '[The early cars] are mostly handmade. Only very, very close friends of the company get access to the early cars.
'I have it, and when I got the Model 3, I just thought how much more special it would be for someone who's a big green supporter to have it.
'It's so special to have one of the first cars off the line.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5582987/Kimbal-Musk-unveils-urban-farming-plan-produces-2-ACRES-worth-food-shipping-container.html#ixzz5DQupY3hN
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