Oliver Homberg, the cofounder of Boston Microgreens, recalls eating the redcurrant in his grandmother’s garden as the memory that sparked his connection with growing food. Now, as the owner of Boston Microgreens, Homberg gets his hands dirty daily — but he’s not working outside.
The urban farm sits in a basement space on South Boston’s West Broadway, and delivers freshly cut microgreens straight to Boston chefs and clients twice weekly.
“Everything you see here has a destination already,” said Homberg. “It has a restaurant or a client that it’s going to.” To maximize space and minimize waste, the farm is completely grow-to-order.
Homberg started Boston Microgreens in 2018 out of the South End apartment he shared at the time with cofounder Matt Alto. After they studied together at Northeastern, a YouTube video on how to grow microgreens ignited Homberg and Alto’s curiosity — and months later, they were selling their homegrown greens to restaurants in their neighborhood.
Homberg offers 70 different varieties of microgreens, with different growth sizes available. “If a chef says, ‘I want my Thai basil leaf one and a half inches every Tuesday and Friday,’” said Homberg, he can do exactly that. Customers can also order any microgreen offerings a la carte, as long as they’re willing to wait a couple of weeks for the greens to grow. “There’s a little bit of lead time,” said Homberg, “but it’s fun because you know that we’re literally growing your product for you.”
Homberg said that on the business side, they try to run the company as sustainably as possible. They source exclusively renewable energy from Eversource, and their compostable packaging is made from corn.
Read the complete article at www.boston.com.