APRIL 2015 | BOROMAG.COM | 23 retired. Before moving to NYC, I saw a Colbert Report on vertical farming and how it would change the world. I was fascinated and set a Google alert to follow urban farming. I began to see more and more articles on my feed, and that in turn led to more research. After working in the classroom for four years and seeing kids come to school hungry every day, I figured out my calling. I had to get back into farming. BORO: Why microgreens? JL: My buddy Ben Greene introduced me to microgreens early last year. We were initially thinking we’d start by growing mushrooms or beehives on rooftops, but microgreens made the most sense. They’re incredibly nutritious, which fits with our focus on healthy eating. They have a short grow cycle (7-10 days), which meant we could experiment with many harvests without having to wait a year. Since last July, we’ve had over 30 harvests. Full-grown veggies might have taken 10-15 years, given the typical time to harvest. We plan to grow salad greens (baby spinach, baby kale, arugula, watercress, etc.), but we had to start with something fast and easy to execute as a bootstrapping startup, so we chose microgreens. BORO: How large is your staff? JL: Currently there are 3 people on our staff, including myself. Tommy Thekkekandam is my business partner and the first person to jump on board when I proposed the crazy notion we start farming in NYC. Tommy, also from NC, was my wrestling teammate and fellow Morehead Scholar at UNC Chapel Hill. He also earned full rides to Duke Law & Business Schools, where he completed his JD/ MBA before becoming a consultant for McKinsey & Co. He is now working on Green Top Farms, as well as Tom and Jenny’s, a candy company that makes caramels that are good for your teeth. Kyle Goldstein, like myself, worked as a Special Education teacher as part of the NYC Teaching Fellows Program. Kyle spent part of his childhood on a farm in upstate New York. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more passionate about food—healthy food in particular. Kyle came on board right after we began experimenting, and has been invaluable to our growth. The salads he makes can only be described as Art. You want to eat them as soon as you see them. They also happen to be delicious. BORO: Describe a typical day at Green Top Farms. JL: There is no such thing as a typical day on a farm. I guess we’re always up early, and we work until the job is done. Some days I’m working with Kyle on harvesting and planting; others I’m making supply runs or dropping off deliveries. We’re still small enough where everyone works on whatever needs doing. As we expand, we’ll have more division of labor, although I think it’s beneficial if everyone on the farm at least has some idea how to do each job. It’s important to have a versatile team where each person can do multiple jobs. BORO: What are some of your biggest sellers? How can customers purchase from you? JL: Our microgreen mixes have been our biggest sellers to date. Currently we’re only selling to local Astoria residents as we’re still in the beta stage. We haven’t yet done enough experimentation with selling in green markets, although we are certainly open to the idea. BORO: How do you decide on what is being grown? JL: Taste, nutritional value, and consistency of growth over multiple grow cycles. We use a lot of experimentation. We primarily grow pea shoots, sunflower shoots, micro radish, micro kale, and micro broccoli. These plants are extremely nutritious, taste great, and provide the necessary crunch when you’re eating them, which is a marker of freshness. BORO: Do you feel like Astoria plays a definitive part in your business? Have you felt embraced by the community? JL: Yes. There’s something going on in Astoria. There are now, at minimum, 4 commercial urban farms in this incredibly diverse neighborhood. I don’t know if it’s the excellent food from all corners of the Earth, or just the friendly people, but Astoria is definitely leading the charge for urban farming in NYC. The response from the community has been overwhelming. I’ve had hundreds of conversations with local community members about what we’re doing. 100% of them were positive, and almost always end with the person asking how they can get involved, or where they can get these salads. We have to add folks to a waiting list until we find a bigger growing space. BORO: Is there anything that you would like to convey to the public about Green Top Farms? JL: We’re serious about rebuilding our food system. We believe that starts with the source of our food—farms. This isn’t just a local lifestyle business. We are aiming to create a model that can be replicated across the world to address the complex network of challenges facing our food system today, from poor distribution to low nutritional content of factory-farmed produce, to the environmental damage being done by large-scale deforestation. But all of that begins with individual choices to eat healthier and seek out more sustainable sources for food. We recommend a Green Top salad to get you started. BORO: How do you envision the business growing from where it is currently? JL: Though we’re quickly gaining lots of traction, we know we’ve just started to scratch the surface. Right now, we’re of the mindset that everything is an experiment, and our mission is to quickly and costeffectively discover what Tommy, our business guru, calls productmarket fit. We’re still refining our product, go-to-market strategy, and operational model. Three to six months from now, I expect we will have gotten the formula right and will be in execution phase, really growing the business. We envision thousands of local Green Top Farms growing units across the country, providing healthy local produce to neighborhood communities within the next several years. For more information: www.greentop.farm [email protected] https://www.facebook.com/greentop.farm Twitter - @greentopfarms IG - @greentopfarms
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