Photo: Daniel Adams
Cover Photo: Daniel Adams

Just as its name suggests, microgreens are tiny but they can be more than just garnish, as Babylon Vertical Farms tells us about these superfoods

Ever wondered about the delicate sprinkling of green that garnishes your dish? Well, apart from elevating the aesthetics of your plate, you’ll be happy to know that besides being 100 per cent edible, microgreens are actually good for both you and the environment.

Chock-full of antioxidants, minerals and vitamins, microgreens pack a nutritious punch to the gut—most contain 40 times more nutrients compared to their mature counterparts. This is because microgreens are usually harvested during their early developmental stages, which is when they actively accumulate fresher nutrients. Additionally, they are also grown in controlled environments that holistically maximises their nutritional uptake without the use of chemicals.

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Tatler Asia
Photo: Daniel Adams
Above Clockwise from left: Eshton Thomas, Joel Tan, Abang Dzulqarnaen and Stuart Thomas

That’s not all—other than its health benefits, these seedlings are also proven to be a more sustainable, eco-friendly option compared to large industrial farms that mass-produce.

For one, microgreens don’t need a lot of water or soil to grow, making them easier to cultivate indoors and can be an ideal solution for urban agriculture. This can reduce the carbon footprint of transportation as well, seeing as it can be grown in urban areas. Indoors, the controlled environment eliminates the use of pesticides, herbicides and fertiliser, making them safer for the environment as well as consumption. And since it has a shorter growth cycle, harvesting is comparatively faster than fully grown plants, taking three weeks and up to a month depending on the variety of microgreen. There will also be less waste as they are usually grown in smaller, manageable batches.

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“Microgreens can give dishes so much more depth. It doesn’t hurt that they 
can amp up the nutritional value in your average meals.”

- Eshton Thomas -

Microgreens producer Babylon Vertical Farms (BVF) is one of the few key players in the local urban farming scene. The notion of vertical farming came to Stuart Thomas, chief executive officer of Babylon Vertical Farms, after reading an article about it on Big Think back in 2015. “I didn’t know anyone else that was doing [vertical farming] at the time,” he says. “But I thought it was a worthwhile venture to go into because it looked to be a sustainable solution that could best tackle the rising issue of food insecurity, especially in urban environments where quality nutrition can be hard to come by.”

Together with his co-founders Eshton Thomas, Abang Dzulqarnaen and Joel Tan, Stuart was able to establish Babylon Vertical Farms as part of the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre’s accelerator programme. They opened their first farm in Ampang, Kuala Lumpur, initally selling hydroponically grown vegetables directly to consumers, restaurants and supermarkets, before they moved into the more lucrative business of microgreens at the height of the pandemic. They are now operating from their current location in Kota Damansara since they relocated last year. 

Presently, BVF boasts a delivery time of two to three hours within the Klang Valley. Since microgreens can be harvested in less than a month, it isn’t any wonder that local fine dining restaurants have become BVF’s regulars. But what about the average consumer?

“To be honest, we found that our current business model translates well for B2B (business-to-business),” Stuart admits. “The value proposition we provide to our customers right now is high-quality products with accessible pricing. There’s also the flexibility and convenience when it comes to purchasing our microgreens because we do the farming for them, and then deliver the produce to them as soon as we’re able. This is great for chefs because it helps cut down on the time used to source these ingredients.”

Over the two-year-long series of nationwide lockdowns, BVF had to figure out a way to ensure a steady stream of income. They realised that selling microgreens to over 100 restaurants and hotels combined was a more cost-effective measure compared to selling to the average consumer.

“We experienced a lot of wastage when we did B2C (business-to-consumer), which didn’t fit into our ethos on sustainability,” says Eshton Thomas, BVF’s chief of operations. “It’s a plan we fully intend to fulfil 100 per cent in the near future as I want our farm to operate on a strict zero waste policy.”

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Photo: Daniel Adams
Above Photo: Daniel Adams

The company practises a circular economic model, and Eshton further clarifies that all BVF products are on a made-to-order basis; The controlled amount of how much microgreens they produce makes it more manageable and ensures that nothing goes to waste.

“We always check on how much we have in stock, because if we kept churning out products and they were not being bought, they will just end up as waste,” he says. “However, we do keep our bestsellers in stock as our current clients may have sudden events [that would require our] microgreens. But even if we do have wastage, it’s minimal because we then turn it into compost for our edible flower garden, [therefore it all becomes] organic.”

Though BVF uses plastic trays as it’s a more durable material that can better retain water for the microgreens, the team makes it a point to request them back from their customers after they’ve finished with it. It was necessary to reuse these plastic trays because some microgreens species require weeks to a month to cultivate, and biodegradeable trays would not be able to hold up for long periods of time.

From needing to have optimised environments to carefully cultivate greens and delivering them right to your doorstep, microgreens are admittedly priced significantly higher than mature vegetables, seeing as how costly they can be to farm.

But the BVF team would not be deterred; if anything, they’re already geared to hustle even harder this year.

“We see microgreens as supplementary—both for health reasons and for the dishes served at restaurants,” Eshton says. “Making a dish visually stimulating is vital for any meal because as the saying goes, you feast with your eyes first, right? This encourages the consumers to take more pictures for social media, of course, but microgreens can give dishes so much more depth. It doesn’t hurt that they can amp up the nutritional value in your average meals. That’s what we’re trying to tell our customers, because it’s not just the product we’re selling, but a lifestyle item where you can just add a dash of it to your meals to make it look nice and more nutritious.”

In addition to their core business of vertical farming, BVF has a consulting company as well called Green Works 360. “How it works is that we help other urban farms, even some based overseas, and offer the complete programme where we help them build the farming business and source clients for them. With data that we collected from market research, we can help these businesses connect with potential clients. We also advise farms on what kind of produce to [cultivate] to make the business more cost-efficient while still maintaining the freshness and quality of their produce.”

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