A former chef turned farmer has begun to supply Sydney restaurants with sustainable herbs and microgreens grown in a carpark beneath the city's harbourside business district. Noah Verin set up his Urban Green business in Sydney's Barangaroo district in early 2020, with around 40 different plant species growing side by side. Now, he is riding an industry push to make sustainability a top menu ingredient.
"I always knew that when people heard the story of the fact, there's a farm in a basement in Barangaroo growing food. I knew it would leave an impact," Verin, who also holds an environmental science degree, told Reuters.
"Noah's product comes in still alive, still in its pot, and also he doesn't use a lot of plastics or any throwaway products like that, so it's all very sustainable, which I like," head chef Logan Campbell of Sydney restaurant Botswana Butchery told Reuters. Verin aims to one-day open car park farms for products such as chilis and strawberries and more car park micro green and herb farms.
"We want to derive a minimum 50 percent of our deliveries within a one-kilometre radius of the farm because that's a major advantage... we are surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of food service restaurants," he said.
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