How much of your restaurant’s weekly fresh produce budget is disproportionately spent on microgreens? How much can growing microgreens indoors help your bottom line?
Growing microgreens indoors is a smart move for restaurants in more ways than one. Those tasty, nutritious, and visually pleasing little herbs and veggies are in demand. Guests love them, chefs love to cook with them, and restaurant menus are enhanced by adding the word “microgreens.” It’s a way to reduce costs, increase profits, improve sustainability, positively impact the environment, and help give your microgreen-obsessed clientele exactly what they want. Keep reading to learn why growing a microgreen garden benefits your bistro and improves your restaurant’s reputation.
What Are Microgreens?
Before getting to the tough questions, we need to understand microgreens. Microgreens are herb and vegetable plants harvested when the seed leaves begin to grow. These mini plants are full of flavor and nutrition even though they are only one to three inches long. Examples of popular microgreens include:
- Arugula
- Wheatgrass
- Chives
- Garlic
- Fennel
- Spinach
- Watercress
I Want to Grow Microgreens Indoors But…
It’s expensive.
It’s not that expensive, and it’s a real investment; it generates profit and pays for itself at the same time.
I don’t have the space.
You’d be surprised to learn how little space you need to grow microplants. From rooftops to the space behind a door, you have the room.
It’s too much work, and I must train staff to manage a microgreen garden.
Growing and harvesting microgreens is low maintenance, doesn’t require much time, and is something anyone can learn to do easily.
You and your chef(s) already know that the cost of buying microgreens from your local farmers is not cheap. Depending on your restaurant’s produce needs, microgreens alone can cost $50/week or more because local growers know that microgreens command high premium prices. Chefs are willing to pay more for quality micro-veggies and herbs because their restaurant’s patrons are willing to pay more for dishes that include microgreens. Demand for microgreens is high. Thus, prices are high.
Specialized microgreen growing cabinets can cost upwards of $10,000 (though many are much less). These cabinets come with everything you need, including environmental controls to ensure the optimal growing conditions for whatever types of microgreens and other plants you want to farm. You could also hire a microgreens consultant to help you assess your space, choose the right growing setup for your restaurant’s particular needs, and supply you with whichever plants you want or need.
However, before you get excited about all the cool things you could do (and pay for), you don’t need much to get started on your own. An easy and low-cost setup is the beauty of growing microgreens indoors. All you need to get started is a multi-shelved rack, good lights, shallow trays, and microgreen seeds.
With a small start-up investment (under $1,000), a bit of time, and a slight change in how your kitchen preps, you can start growing microgreens indoors at your restaurant right away. In fact, you can have your own home-grown microgreens ready for guest consumption in under two weeks!
So, why not bring the farm indoors and start reaping the many rewards an indoor garden can offer your restaurant?
The Benefits of Growing Microgreens Indoors
Growing your own microgreens indoors comes with many benefits to your restaurant business. Here are a few of the key features:
Save Money
You will save money because you won’t be buying from outside growers. Seed packets are inexpensive and often have very high yields. Other needs include shallow trays, grow mats, and organic potting soil (or a seed starting mix). Even with a moderate cash output, maintaining your restaurant’s indoor culinary garden is still cheaper than buying produce from vendors and markets.
Larger Inventory
Growing your own microgreens means no more worrying about shortages and availability. Costs won’t fluctuate with seasonal growth cycles, and more produce will be available whenever needed. You know exactly where your produce comes from without worrying about supply lines and recalls. You can further differentiate your cuisine with uncommon herbs and vegetables that are rare in your area.
The Freshest Ingredients
You know precisely what you’re growing, what you need, and when you need it. Because of this, your microgreens retain their vibrant flavors. You don’t want to compromise on flavor quality if you have to buy expensive microgreens from a chain supplier. When your culinary garden is just a few steps away from the kitchen, you can always guarantee the freshest microgreens.
Environmentally Friendly
Growing microgreens indoors reduces waste in the kitchen. You can reduce the amount of packaging waste that comes with vendor, store, and market-bought produce, significantly impacting the environment as less packaging ends up in landfills. Carbon emissions that result from transport between farms, vendors, and restaurants are also reduced.
Once you see how super easy microgreen farming is, adding more vegetables, fruits, and even flowers to your restaurant’s garden inventory is almost effortless. All you really need is the space to grow.
Making Space for Your Microgreen Garden
Now that we know growing microgreens indoors is an easy way to increase your restaurant’s profits and deepen the flavor and freshness of your dishes, we need to decide where to build our garden.
Growing microgreens outside is not your only choice. Microgreens are well suited to growing indoors because they mature rapidly and can be harvested frequently, which is exactly what your kitchen needs for the freshest ingredients.
Next to start-up costs, the other major issue that concerns restauranteurs about growing microgreens indoors is space. Many restaurants are already packed with equipment, products, and inventory, not to mention a fully staffed kitchen and serving crew. Not all restaurants have a plot of land with space available to start a small culinary farm. Where do you find empty space for a microgreen garden?
The good news is there’s always more space, especially when you get creative.
Rooftop gardens are an obvious choice—especially for more robust gardens—but not always available. Getting one started is a worthwhile investment, but it will take some time and start-up capital.
For microgreens, there’s no need to wait until you have found a plot of land or growing space somewhere on your property. A multi-tiered shelving rack and grow lights take up a few cubic feet and can fit in a utility closet, a breakroom, along windowsills, on a fire escape, in a back office, or even in the space behind a door!
Display the Beauty of Your Microgreens Garden
Remember, there is no need to keep your microgreen garden out of customer sight. A simple microgreens garden can be proudly displayed somewhere in your restaurant’s dining space, ideally somewhere out of the way and near enough to the kitchen to keep the back of the house moving smoothly.
To make your microgreens garden a prominent guest feature, look into growing your microgreens hydroponically. This soil-less approach requires a nutrient-rich water source for your microgreens.
You could take your restaurant gardening a step further and set up an aquaponics system – a fully sustainable microgreens garden growing directly above a fish tank. Incorporating fish into your microgreens garden creates a self-sustaining biosphere that can take your environmentally conscious efforts to the next level. A stylish approach to aquaponics will wow your guests and can easily become an attraction-like feature for your restaurant.
Letting your guests know you are growing microgreens indoors and on-site will proactively engage your customer base in several positive ways. Many diners are environmentally conscious and often choose a restaurant that adheres to green practices over one that does not. Diners also want stricter sanitation protocols, and home-grown ingredients show your restaurant values safety, prudence, and taste.
Growing microgreens in full view of your guests can enhance their dining experience, especially if you also train your front-of-house staff about the many benefits to the environment and your menu. Hosts, servers, bartenders, and managers should all be able to inform guests that your microgreens culinary garden reduces waste, carbon emissions, and ensures the freshest, most flavorful ingredients.
No matter what size space your restaurant operates within, there’s no excuse not to move a few things around to make room for growing microgreens indoors.
What Kinds of Microgreens Should You Grow?
The kind of microgreens you grow depends on your menu’s cuisine. Additionally, an in-house microgreens garden can allow your chef to be more creative and expand your menu, setting in motion a culinary tapestry you’ve only dreamed about offering.
You can (and should) grow multiple herbs in the same plant bed or trays. So long as you’re careful to keep plants that require similar conditions together in the same trays, you won’t have any problems.
You’ll also need to consider the environmental conditions different varieties of plants require. Many can grow just fine outdoors, but others require specialized conditions, such as more shade, more (or less) moisture, and even desert-like temperatures. Growing microgreens indoors is an effective and relatively easy way to manage your micro garden’s different growing environments and needs.
Once you have your micro garden up and running, increasing the variety of your menu offerings is easy. Fruits and edible flowers such as violets and roses are potential candidates, adding a simple yet delightful vibrancy to your menu and food presentations.
No matter what you decide, growing microgreens indoors is an easy, relatively inexpensive way to boost your restaurant’s profits, reduce costs, and ensure customer satisfaction. In less than two weeks, you could be harvesting herbs and other plants from your microgreen garden… so what are you waiting for?
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