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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/325830
bCbusiness.CA July 2014 BCBusiness 127 kilos a year of pesticide-free vegetables and herbs for the local restaurant and grocery market. It sounded fabulous: revenue for EasyPark, jobs for people downtown and food for the city. But when the company's failure became public in January of this year—the bank- ruptcy trustee reported that, together, Alterrus and Local Garden had liabili- ties of $5.2 million, no useful assets and no revenue—the whole project wound down, instantly. Of course, the problem could also be that Local Garden didn't get the quality of advice that turned Quesnel indoors. During a six-month period that he actually planned and designed rooftop garden options, he says he had good input—and serious investor interest—from a large group of advisers, and they all said the same thing: "If you can start small, do it." "Finally," he says, "I took their advice." He began by pick- ing a product on which he could build a market and a reputation: microgreens. Then he tracked down space in a warehouse vacated by a failed local organic- food distributor and he spent weeks just cleaning it up to a standard that would impress the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. He cadged materials to enclose a second-storey area that would be his central grow- ing space. He bought lights, plumbed water and tested 25 different soil blends to find something that was affordable and, to the greatest extent possi- ble, local and sustainable. (This turns out to be a problem: peat can be sourced locally, but is not sustainable. Ground coconut husk, which is sustainable, is not local. Ques- nel went with the husk.) All the while, Quesnel was experi- menting with crops, trying to figure out what would grow most easily—and sell most successfully. Despite his lack of botanical bona fides, he says the growing part "is not rocket science, but [it] requires lots of tweaking." Even indoors, where you have greater con- trol, there are still so many variables: heat, moisture, ventilation and opti- mal distance between the lamps and the crops. And every plant variety likes things slightly different than every other. The use of the word "crop" is inter- esting, as well. For most people, it invokes images of long rows of green vegetables bursting out of the rich earth. If you're from the prairies, you might envision vast fields of wheat or canola, waving in the wind. But Ques- nel plants Sky Harvest crops in shallow plastic containers, which he stacks, two deep, on a series of shelves. The double-decking saves space and works surprisingly well, with next week's crop germinating in the dark while this week's is reaching for the light. (Even this can be a problem, Quesnel says. The "sunflower sprouts are so mighty that they can actually lift up the other tray and knock it to the floor.") When it comes time to harvest, Quesnel takes the sprouted vegetables, cuts fingerfulls carefully with a sharp knife and weighs them on a scale of such delicacy that you'd be more likely to expect it in a pharmacy than a produce section. Then, it's downstairs to the "distri- bution centre," no more than a chilly hallway where Quesnel packs the pan- iers on his sadly retro bike and plans the delivery. This—the delivery schedule—is a critical part of the Quesnel plan. He doesn't plant anything that he hasn't already sold: everything is grown to order. "That way, I can be absolutely sure that stuff is ready when we need it." Everything Sky Harvest sells is also harvested the day of delivery, so the crop is dead fresh but not past due. "If sunflowers grow an extra day, they get bitter," Quesnel says. Riding about from one nice restau- rant to the next, it's clear that chefs appreciate this kind of attention. "I love his stuff," says Chris Bisaro, head chef at Yaletown's Brix Restaurant and Wine Bar. Contrary to popular belief, Bisaro says, chefs don't spend their days browsing the vegetable markets for fresh sur- prises. They prep, and they rely on their sup- pliers to deliver quality goods in a timely way. Of course, not all vegetables are created equal—nor are all suppliers as atten- tive as Quesnel. There are staples like potatoes and carrots—produce that is low margin and low maintenance but requires too much time and space to be grown in a Sky Harvest-style gar- den. Bisaro says that his staple supplier checks in with a fresh sheet, "oh, like, every three months." Quesnel, on the other hand, is there in person every week, promoting new choices from his same-day specialty list (this week it's Swiss chard) and taking feedback on things like the exact length of stems on sky Harvest is a newcomer to a market that was already being served, in a similar way, by the Vancouver Food Pedalers Cooperative, which Chris Thoreau founded six years ago. Thoreau also specializes in microgreens, which they grow in a 40-foot shipping container that's also located in east Vancouver p122-131-UrbanAgri_july.indd 127 2014-05-29 10:08 AM