It’s a jungle in here.
“Here” is a secret, edible garden behind the red brick walls of a building in downtown Akron.
The garden is a room filled with multilevel racks of vibrant green basil, leaf lettuce and microgreens — tiny greens that garnish salads and other dishes. Most of the plants are grown hydroponically — without soil.
The greens are the root of Vigeo Gardens, a startup — barely a year old — with three 20-something owners.
They’re working hard to expand their indoor vertical farming business that supplies various Northeast Ohio restaurants, including the growing PizzaFire chain, as well as high-end eateries led by chef Dante Boccuzzi.
“Vigeo” is Latin for “drive, to flourish, to prosper, ” said Mark Preston. At 25, he’s the oldest of the three Vigeo partners.
Vigeo, Preston said, represents “us as a company, our product, our customers — we want them to thrive, to flourish, to prosper.”
Sales are flourishing.
“There’s such a demand for lettuce,” 24-year-old Vigeo partner Jacob Craine said. “We’re trying to grow. We just can’t keep up with production. All of our basil is going to PizzaFire and various other restaurants.”
Sean Brauser, founder and CEO of the PizzaFire chain, based in Medina County, said employees use the basil in sauce and top pizzas with it.
“We pick the leaves right off the live plant,” Brauser said, explaining the basil — complete with roots — arrives at the restaurants in plastic containers. “We put the whole leaf right on the top of the pizza.”
The Vigeo trio plans to add a second grow lab across the hall at the Akron Global Business Accelerator off South Main Street. The incubator — home to a variety of startups — is tucked in the old B.F. Goodrich complex.
The three partners figure the expansion would cost roughly $25,000 to $30,000. They’re hoping to raise money with a Kickstarter campaign launching in early March. Rewards would include a chef’s table dinner at a client restaurant, and greens would be donated to the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank in the name of Kickstarter contributors.
Vigeo Gardens began as Plantscription early last year, with Craine, of Akron, and his friend Vincent Peterson, 23, of Cuyahoga Falls, growing microgreens on a small rack in Craine’s basement.
Each had worked a variety of jobs in the restaurant industry and had seen the increasing demand for year-round, locally grown produce.
Craine studied biology and chemistry at the University of Akron; Peterson studied biomedical engineering at UA. The two are a couple of semesters away from graduation.
Last July, Craine and Peterson moved into the Business Accelerator, bringing on Preston as a partner. With an investment from local businessman Phil Maynard, Vigeo was able to install the rack system.
The system was designed by Preston, who has an aerospace engineering degree from Ohio State University. He had worked at another hydroponic produce company.
Vigeo’s first customer was Boccuzzi of Dante Dining Group, with several restaurants in Northeast Ohio — including DBA in Akron. Craine had worked at DBA.
Boccuzzi said he would “like to think I was part of the inspiration” for the company. Vigeo has “a great product... They need support to grow.”
Another big customer is Vaccaro’s Trattoria in Bath Township, which buys basil and lettuce.
“We probably use 20 to 30 pounds of lettuce a week,” notes Vaccaro’s owner Raphael Vaccaro. “That’s a lot of greens.”
The lettuce goes on a shelf in the Vaccaro’s kitchen. “You just add water everyday” to keep it fresh, Vaccaro said.
Focused on expanding
For now, Vigeo’s production is confined to a 1,100-square-foot room where the temperature is a constant 75 degrees.
The racks — nine of them, each with multiple shelves — fill the growing area. Think of industrial shelves covered in lush greenery. There’s not a single window. High- efficiency lighting supplies energy the plants need to grow.
The racks were made from fiberglass fencing material developed by Jacob Craine’s father, who was part of a fencing company.
Preston designed the racks, as well as the closed-loop watering system that, according to Craine, uses 90 percent less water than traditional farming.
The goal with the racks, which are 12 feet tall and 10 feet long, Craine said, is to “maximize the cubic square footage, not just the square footage, but the vertical space as well.”
“We’re only limited here by the height of our ceiling,” he said. With a warehouse with higher ceilings, the racks could safely be as high as 30 feet.
For now, Craine and the others are focused on the expansion at the incubator. They also plan to hire their first two employees and add to produce offerings, including more types of leaf lettuce. There’s talk of growing peppers and even tomatoes. They are seeking organic designation.
“If you have locally grown tomatoes right now,” Craine said, “it’s gold.”
Katie Byard can be reached at 330-996-3781 or kbyard@thebeaconjournal.com.