End Cap, 9 in

Rosie was our first Urban Greens system, and she completely changed the way we grow. Before her, we were producing microgreens in trays with coconut coir: filling and seeding trays, stacking them, moving them through production and hand watering multiple times a day, eight days a week. Then after every harvest came the spent coir that had to be dealt with before starting the whole process over again. Rosie changed all of that. We were able to increase production while using less space, eliminate the continual expense and waste of growing medium, reduce labor and produce an incredibly clean, consistent microgreen. The quality of the finished product was simply better. We weren’t sacrificing quality to increase production or efficiency. We were improving all three.

As production grew, so did our setup. Big Mac was our Frankenstein. We pieced him together, and Urban Greens helped us bring him to life. When we were ready to grow again, Urban Greens gave us a lead that sent us to Tennessee, where we picked up two of their first-generation systems, Norma and RUDI, along with an 8×8 CoolBot walk-in cooler. We brought them home, put them back to work and took another big step forward in production. Norma and RUDI also gave us room to expand beyond microgreens into hydroponic tender leaf and baby salad greens.

For more than three years, we’ve harvested every single Monday. Not one missed. We’ve grown through northern Michigan winters and a crippling ice storm, and being able to keep production indoors through the Canadian wildfire smoke has been a huge advantage. Our SOPs have evolved right along with us, and over the years we’ve gotten these systems dialed in pretty nicely.

When we look at where we started and how we grow today, the difference is enormous. We’re producing more, with less labor, less waste and no growing medium, while putting an exceptionally clean, consistent, high-quality product in the hands of our customers and chefs every week. Urban Greens didn’t just change the way we grow. They gave us a system we could build a business around. Rosie started it all, and more than three years later, the rhythm remains the same: we harvest every Monday.

And about those names… The Jetsons started it. R.O.S.I.E. became our Robot Operating System for Indoor Edibles, Big Mac is our M.A.C.C. (Microgreen Automated Cultivation Center), and N.O.R.M.A. is our Nutrient Operated Recirculating Micro Apparatus. R.U.D.I. got to keep his original Jetsons identity: Referential Universal Digital Indexer. Apparently, once you start naming growing systems, you can’t just stop at one.

We have been loving our Autokit at our commercial operation, we have been using it for only a month, and our yields are a lot higher then our old microgreen growing system, and the system has been easy to use and learn! The system has been easy to use, and the people at Urban Greens have been super helpful in getting us acquainted with how it works.