Space to Grow

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Space to Grow
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On a recent tour of Japan, East San Gabriel resident Niki Nakayama noticed people were growing vegetables in the country and community gardens in cities. It was a sight that inspired her plan to open a restaurant back in Los Angeles offering homegrown vegetables for its dishes.

But Nakayama knew nothing about farming or vegetable gardens. So she searched the Internet and found a local startup called Farmscape LLC that sets up and maintains small backyard garden farms for homeowners. Nakayama hired Farmscape to set up vegetable beds in her backyard and plant Japanese specialty crops such as baby eggplant; Kyoto carrots; and shiso, a Japanese mint herb.

Farmscape opened its doors for business in early 2009, focusing exclusively on setting up small backyard organic (pesticide-free) vegetable and produce gardens for homeowners and then maintaining those gardens for a weekly fee.

Thanks to Farmscape’s setup, Nakayama each morning now picks some of the vegetables to take to her new N/naka Restaurant in Culver City.

“About two-thirds of the vegetables I use in my restaurant come from the garden,” she said. “The taste is natural and the flavors stronger than what you get from the market and my customers really appreciate it.”

More and more services such as Farmscape have been popping up across the nation. While Farmscape’s owners believe it’s the only company in Los Angeles offering its setup and maintenance services, it probably won’t be alone for long.

So, Farmscape is pursuing customers in the commercial and institutional markets – restaurants, schools, hospitals and the like.

“We see this as a huge market that’s largely untapped,” said Jesse DuBois, Farmscape’s co-founder and chief executive.

DuBois, 26, started Farmscape in late 2008 with Merritt Graves, a friend of his roommate at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. Graves put up $150,000 in seed money and helped with the initial business plan.

Eventually, DuBois convinced his roommate, Dan Allen, now 25, to join the company as chief financial officer.

Surge of interest

DuBois and Allen capitalized on the surge of interest in backyard farming as the recession took hold, signing their first customers in early 2009.

Rachel Surls, Los Angeles County director of the University of California Cooperative Extension, said the timing was right.

“It’s all tied to the rise in farmers markets and the interest in locally grown food, which has really exploded in the last two or three years,” Surls said.

Farmscape has mostly focused on the upper end of that market.

Costs vary depending on levels of service. For example, setting up 100 square feet of garden space could run about $2,700 and about $60 a week for maintenance. Home-grown crops include tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers and beans. Company gardeners and growers carry out the work, with the goal of high yields.

“What Farmscape offers is a convenience for homeowners with the means to pay for the setting up and maintenance of an edible garden but who don’t have the time or the expertise to do it on their own,” said Nurit Katz, sustainability coordinator at UCLA.

One of Farmscape’s early customers was Amanda Green, a television writer who lives in the foothill community of Altadena with her husband and 4-year-old son. When they decided to start a backyard farm, they hired Farmscape after seeing a notice on a community bulletin board.

“As a native New Yorker, I had never really grown anything and I was intimidated by it,” Green said.

What she didn’t count on was the huge crops the Farmscape-managed plot produced last summer.

“We thought it would be just enough for us and a few friends or neighbors. We had no idea how prolific the output would be,” she said. “We just couldn’t keep up with it.”

Today, the Greens’ farm is growing pumpkins, cantaloupes, watermelons, zucchini, bell peppers and tomatoes. This season, the couple hopes the yields will be more in line with their appetites.

But the company plans to diversify in the face of increasing competition for the residential market. That’s a good move, Katz said, because new companies may come in with lower setup fees and leave maintenance to the customer.

“Farmscape will eventually confront a choice: If they stick with the homeowner market, they could be relegated to niche status while others go mass market with much lower price points, or they can try to go mass market themselves,” Katz said. “Or they can try to find new markets.”

Farmscape does offer lower-price garden tool kits for the do-it-yourself crowd. But the main focus now is diversifying by signing up commercial and institutional clients.

N/naka is Farmscape’s first entry into the restaurant and catering industry. In the past, some restaurant owners wanting to source foods locally grew their own vegetables, generally staying with one or two produce items. For most volume purchases, they turned to wholesale suppliers and farmers markets.

Now, restaurant owners can choose the higher-yield Farmscape option – as long as they can find the space to grow the crops.

Allen said that one catering company that may hire Farmscape is considering its options. It may set up home gardens, or may rip up some of its parking lot to set up a garden there.

Farming powerhouse

Eventually, the company wants to offer its farming services to corporations, hospitals and other institutions with in-house cafeterias.

“We see the food service industry as a major growth area,” DuBois said.

Farmscape has also targeted local schools and colleges, trying to capitalize on increased interest in healthy food choices for students while also giving students a chance to learn about farming.

The company has set up and operates gardens in 11 schools around Southern California, including the private San Jose-Edison Academy in West Covina.

Next on the agenda: Trying to break into the huge Los Angeles Unified School District system.

DuBois said Farmscape’s ultimate goal is to become a regional urban farming powerhouse.

“The real question is how much of the city we can turn into a farm,” he said.

Farmscape LLC

Founded: 2008

Headquarters: Los Feliz

Core Business: Sets up and maintains organic farms for single-family residences, schools and businesses.

Employees: Six full time; eight part-time.

Goal: To sign up more schools, restaurants and other businesses.

The Numbers: $170,000 in revenue last year; on track to triple that for this year.

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Howard Fine
Howard Fine is a 23-year veteran of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He covers stories pertaining to healthcare, biomedicine, energy, engineering, construction, and infrastructure. He has won several awards, including Best Body of Work for a single reporter from the Alliance of Area Business Publishers and Distinguished Journalist of the Year from the Society of Professional Journalists.

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