By Darcel Rockett

Chicago Tribune

Nov 11, 2022

If it hadn’t been for the pandemic, Derek Drake would have never discovered his purpose. Furloughed from his job at Northwestern University in 2020, he asked himself: “What’s the right next move?”

That move was taking his 25-year working experience in hospitality and restaurants and starting a farming business.

That motto is ever present on a small dry erase board on the interior wall of a 320-square-foot hydroponic farm in a trailer container in Mokena. The farm sits in view of a picturesque lake with catfish and bluegill, and in between Drake’s home and the chicken coop that houses weeks-old birds named after characters from the “Golden Girls” TV series and Disney chipmunk characters, Chip and Dale.

“I never in a million years thought I would be a farmer,” said the father of four. “As I got older and started working in hospitality and working in restaurants, I thought that would be my route — restaurants or being a restaurateur. But when I found this, this was it. I always believe the universe always spins in your direction. You just need to be prepared when it does.”

Drake and husband Brad Schiever planted their first seed March 1 and by April 15, had their first harvest going out the door under the moniker Ditto Foods to residents in Drake’s hometown of Ford Heights, customers of the online farmer’s market, MarketWagon.com, which delivers directly to homes in a seven-county region of Chicagoland, customers of Oak Park’s co-op grocery store Sugar Beet, and a couple Downers Grove restaurants. Inside what looks like a freight shipping container, energy efficient LED light panels serve as the light and heat source for Ditto Food’s wares: several types of lettuces, herbs, leafy greens, root vegetables (bok choy, collard greens). Its specialty is red and green butterhead lettuce, aka a salad mix called the Butta’ Blend.

“When you’re eating hydroponic lettuce that is harvested the day of — fresh, live lettuce, you get to taste all of the different nuances, different flavors that the lettuce actually has,” Drake said. “The stuff you get at the grocery store, by the time you get it, it’s been dead for two to three weeks. The beauty of Market Wagon, we harvest that morning and you get it that afternoon so you’re getting produce that is still alive and the root is still attached.”

Only eight months into production, Ditto Foods is growing herbs for the holidays such as sage and thyme, rosemary, and marjoram. Drake said when the farm is fully stocked, the farm can grow up to 3 acres of produce. Which suits Drake just fine since his for-profit business has a mission: To be about community, specifically the Ford Heights community. Tired of Googling Ford Heights and reading stories about crime, poverty and drugs, Drake is all about changing the narrative of the place he was born and raised and still calls home. The reason for Ditto Foods is creating access for those in Ford Heights.

“We say they don’t have ... it’s not supposed to be that way,” Drake said. “The problem is investment. People who have the means to invest in these communities are sitting back saying, ‘These communities they are poor, they don’t have this.‘ But you’re the one with the resources. Invest in them and change what the narrative is. I personally wanted to change the narrative of what came out of my community. I feel like I did something great with my life. I know lots of people that came out of Ford Heights that are doing really great things, I wanted that to be the narrative.”

Produce and part of the proceeds from the sale of farm produce goes back to the Ford Heights community by way of food donation to their food pantry (through the Cornerstone Community Development Corp.) and project-based initiatives for Ford Heights youth, Drake said.

Drake has been giving back to his hometown in various ways over the past decade, from mentorship through sports and education programs to teaching youth about entrepreneurship. Drake wants to put another hydroponic farm in the municipality’s borders, and create a micro-grocery where the farm’s goods are sold from. Ditto is currently hosting an art contest for school-age students to submit art work to decorate the Mokena farm. Cash prizes and a black-tie event are connected with the endeavor. The couple wants to bring Ford Heights school district kids to the Mokena farm to do tours and educate them about the possibilities of hydroponics. Drake and Schiever focus on educating people on what Ditto Foods is doing regularly, from local chefs to grocery store workers.

And let them come in and see the actual place where their food comes from. And so that way when you’re at Sugar Beet, or you’re purchasing from Market Wagon, and you call them, Market Wagon has been out here to see how the food is grown and what we do. We have chefs debating if they want to go local, we’ll drop off a sample and say can you come see where it’s grown? Absolutely. We want them to see what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. So that way they know what goes into the food that they purchase.

“We’re not just growing lettuce,” Drake said. “I knew I wanted to do something that was kind of a love letter to Ford Heights.” The idea first began with a food truck concept — something small, transient, and brought to the community to give Ford Heights residents accessibility to food. In doing his research, he found shipping containers. For an entire year, Drake lived and breathed the details about hydroponics.

“I I grew up with a garden, but I didn’t work in agriculture. I worked on the end result of the food system and so I consumed everything I possibly could consume,” he said. Ditto Foods was formed in April 2020. Funding proved challenging for a startup farm in the pandemic, but one bank officer referred the pair to another bank lender who said yes. The container for their farm arrived on New Year’s Eve 2021 and since then, Drake says Ditto “has been rocking and rolling.”

“It’s been nonstop,” Schiever said. “We’re busy on the days that we harvest, because we harvest no earlier than 24 hours before delivering. Our biggest deliveries are on Tuesday and then Friday is our next delivery date for the week. So the nights before are busy. Seeding and germinating aren’t too bad because you can sit and watch TV while you’re doing it, drop the plugs in, drop the seeds in. And then it’s just really maintenance and that is where the love for the business comes in. Because Derek will spend the day out here, turn on music, go through clipping all the plants and trimming and making sure they stay healthy.

“We joke that he’s the heart and the vision and I’m the head because I’m looking at all the numbers, but the thing is while the mission part is his arena, we both believe in it. We’re very mission-based on creating access.”Drake donates a portion of his produce to the Cornerstone Community Development Corp., which has several anti-hunger initiatives in Ford Heights.

When Drake and family are sleeping, the plants are doing their heavy lifting and getting their nutrients from a controlled water tank on a timer, and an HVAC system that regulates and monitors the inside temperature. Schiever said controlling the intensity of the LEDs can change how fast the produce grows. The standard is six to seven weeks, but LED light intensity strength can add or take off a week or two if need be.

“Depending on how we plant, if we put herbs between the lettuce heads and inner crop, the farm can hold just over 8,800 plants at one time and typical growth from seed to harvest is anywhere from five to six weeks,” he said. “It turns very quickly and the capacity with this model (container), we have the ability to fluctuate how quick we want it to produce. And because it’s a controlled environment, there’s no herbicides, pesticides; we control the pH levels. The water is reverse osmosis that has nutrients added to it so there’s no chance of water runoff like in dirt farming. It’s very clean farming. We use less than five gallons of water a day. All the water including the humidity that is not absorbed by the plants as it drips on the roots is funneled back into the tank and recirculated, so there is no wastewater. And the plants will absorb the nutrients in the water, exactly what they need.” Next step is solar power for the Mokena farm.

With food deserts that abound in the Chicagoland area and other areas with food marts that only serve prepackaged foods to communities, Drake envisions more growth for Ditto Foods. In the past two months, the company started a seedling program where customers can buy seedlings of all plants that Ditto produces, as well as other vining items such as cucumbers and tomatoes and strawberries. Ditto germinates the seeds and when they’re about 2 inches tall, they pack them up and ship them out so customers can then plant them in their windowsills, potted plants, gardens.

The seeds ship in two days to consumers in a container specifically for seedlings so they can stay moist. Drake said Ditto is partnering with universities that have hydroponic systems and gardening programs where they grow food for their cafeterias. Schiever said Ditto has connections with 19 Texas school districts that have hydroponic systems.

“It’s not just one clipping and they’re done,” he said. “The lettuce, especially the kale, we’ll clip up to three times before we replant because they keep growing.”

“The seedling program for us, is about creating access,” Drake said. “We’re allowing people the opportunity to grow their own food. For us it’s democratizing the food system, meaning being able to bring food to people wherever they are. Our food system is controlled by a handful of people. The beauty of what we’re trying to do and other small scale producers and what I really appreciate about Market Wagon is they created a platform where small scale farmers, producers, chefs can bring their product to the market to make it available for a lot of people.”

Market Wagon CEO Nick Carter said he created the online farmers market because his fourth-generation family farm that raises grass-fed beef and pastured pork, wasn’t going to survive if he didn’t figure out a way to get its products into more customers’ hands than just through word-of-mouth and their small Indiana farming community. So, he created the company in 2016 in Indianapolis. Market Wagon set up shop for the Chicagoland area in 2021, with a fulfillment center is in Blue Island.

The e-commerce site touts about 1,800 farmers on the platform in the Midwestern region. For a $6.95 fee, Chicagoland area residents get local produce delivered to their door from the 42 farmers on Chicagoland’s roster thus far. Farmers/artisans set their own prices to make sure it’s profitable for them. Any food producers — caterers, chefs, farmers, backyard gardeners who want to join the Market Wagon family can do so by filling out a vendor application on the website.

“The main thing is that it is local, that you stand behind the product and it’s not just something that you’re buying at an auction and selling online, and that you’ve got all the certifications or anything legally that you need to have, like for chefs, they need to have a permit from the board of health. After that, we get you online and you list your products, and then it’s up to the customer to decide,” Carter said.

Carter said his family farm has grown customers fourfold since 2016. Carter wants to have a Market Wagon in every major U.S. city in the next three years.

“When it’s the individual consumer who wants to shop local farmers, none of them can get delivery from a farmer,” Carter said. “So we aggregated it all together and batch it all up so that we can bring that e-commerce delivery to your door and convenience with farmers market supply chain. It’s just been an amazing experience to be able to do this for all the small family farms and small food producers who are in the same boat with us.”

Ditto Foods wants to grow to three farms in five years. Drake said he’s mulling over a grocery store concept called Your Home Grocer, where bricks-and-mortar stores will be created after community residents share their wants and needs for a community grocery. He said he’s shopping for investors.

“There’s enough for all of us,” Drake said. “If we get a group of small-scale producers together, we can go to a big chain like with Jewel, Kroger, or Mariano’s and say ‘hey, we can provide you with what you need if you use this collective of small-scale farmers and we small-scale farmers can even decide among ourselves ‘OK, I’ll grow this, you grow this, and we’ll approach them with these crops.’ ”

Looking back, Drake said the pandemic affected him in the best way possible, forcing him to do the thing that he was brought here to do — continuing to do as much as he can to celebrate communities that don’t have anybody celebrating them.

“This is what I’m supposed to do,” he said. “If I say ditto to you, that’s an agreement that we just made. Ditto is reciprocity. When I say Ditto Foods, that means I agree to make the best quality clean, honest food and you agree to purchase my clean, honest food. So Ditto is an agreement between you and I.”

drockett@chicagotribune.com

Lead photo: Derek Drake at his hydroponic farm in Mokena on Oct. 27, 2022. After being furloughed in the pandemic, Drake began pursuing his dream of becoming a farmer through hydroponics. Drake’s business, Ditto Foods now supplies local restaurants, food co-ops and a school district. Drake also partners with Market Wagon, an online farmers market. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)