Instituting “School Grown”: Fork Farms Growing Fresh, Keeping it Local
AFTER ITS INSPIRATION by co-founder and CEO Alex Tyink in 2012, Fork Farms of Green Bay is continuing its successful growth, now employing 38 people and still growing. Fork Farms has secured a place on Inc. Magazine's coveted 2023 5000 list, ranking in the top 25 of fastest-growing private companies in America. Fork Farms also claimed the No.1 spot in Agriculture & Natural Resources and ranked No.10 among the fastest-growing companies in Wisconsin. Additionally, Fork Farms has been honored with inclusion in the 2023 FoodTech 500 list by Forward Fooding, recognizing innovation at the intersection of food, technology, and sustainability. This is the company’s second year in a row earning the recognition. And Tyink was just named an Entrepreneur Of The Year 2024 Midwest finalist.
Fork Farms is still focused on education and non-profits but is broadening its scope. “We’re really a technology company focused on bringing more equitable food access to people everywhere,” he explained. “Our new mission is to make fresh food within reach of everybody. We’re really thinking globally now as a business.”
To that end, Fork Farms was part of the Caribbean Climate-Smart Agriculture pilot program. The Sony Global Justice Fund, established by the Sony Group in 2020, which supports initiatives for global issues including those related to the Sustainable Development Goals to foster a more just and equitable world. The Flex Farm is a mobile hydroponic vertical farm that can grow lettuce, greens, herbs and a variety of other foods on-site, quickly, efficiently, and affordably. One Flex Farm can grow 25 pounds of lettuce every 28 days and requires only 9-square-feet of space and a standard electrical outlet for operation. Compared to traditional agriculture, the Flex Farm requires zero food miles to be traveled, provides 45 times more food production, and uses 98 percent less water and land.
Five Flex Farms in Anguilla are being used in primary schools where students and staff will not only consume the fresh foods grown in the Flex Farm, they will have hundreds of learning opportunities in the areas of: STEM, nutrition, agriculture, sustainability and health. The five Flex Farms in the Cayman Islands have been part of the skills building program at Beacon Farms, a workspace for individuals recovering from drug and alcohol abuse, and at local high schools offering agricultural training to students. And, the Flex Farms for WIRRED are housed at Walkers Reserve, a 277-acre space that is the largest regeneration project of its kind in the region and model for climate adaptation and resilience.
“The Caribbean countries have to import most of their food at a very high cost,” Tyink said. “Instead of importing their fresh food products they’re now able to grow them on site and on their own.” Josh Mahlik, Fork Farms Partnership Development Director, said “This important project is perfectly aligned with the Fork Farms mission of ensuring all have access to fresh food at all times, changing the way we think about and grow food, promoting healthier living and inspiring sustainability.
“We couldn’t be more thrilled to help make sustainable change in these Caribbean communities,” according to the release. Tyink said similar efforts are underway in northern Canada where it is also difficult to grow fresh foods.
The company has also come out with a new product called “The Flex Acre,” which is meant for more industrial and commercial scale applications. “We’ve had more people coming to us and asking us to support bigger projects” he continued. “In response to that we’ve developed technology for larger scale applications. It starts at about 36-48 Flex Farms which is about a thousand square feet in space and can service up to 60-thousand-square-foot installations but still highly deployable, with a highly modular plug and play approach. We have one project done at Rockwell Automation at their Milwaukee headquarters. We have a lot of potential with other partners trying to figure out how they can think differently about how they can source food.”
While reaching out and expanding, Flex Farms remains committed to local institutions. The Ashwaubenon School District has 34 units - 21 in a designated farm area in the high school, three in a science classroom, and 10 throughout the cafeterias of all five of the district’s schools, according to Kaitlin Tauriainen RD, the district’s child nutrition coordinator.
“I wanted to be able to grow fresh produce for our kids all year long,” Tauriainen said. “We do extensive work with farm to school, but our growing season in Wisconsin is so short. I wanted to be able to involve students in growing and producing our lettuce for the entire district, for the entire year. The farms have been a great learning opportunity for our students! We've hired an AmeriCorps Farm to School Specialist to work with the kids in planting and maintaining the units. She also goes into classrooms to do nutrition education, specifically working with introducing the farms to the elementary-aged children in hopes to encourage more of our students to work in the farm area as they get into high school. Our high school Life Skills course has done an excellent job of learning real-world experience in completing all jobs necessary in the farm area: mopping floors, cleaning windows, planting, harvesting, storing, etc. It takes roughly four weeks to produce fully grown lettuce from seed to tray, and our students love to watch things grow in the farms. Fork Farms has also been incredible to work with, having very receptive and timely customer support. While we did experience a few bumps in the road to get where we are, I wouldn't change it for anything!”
Grow It Forward in Manitowoc was created because of our own CEO and Founder's experience with hunger,” Urban Farm Manager Nina Loomis said. “The first time Director Amber Daugs visited a food pantry, she met with a less than dignified experience. This particular food pantry had many canned goods, bakery items and other shelf-stable goods available for clients. As for fresh food, you could select from a swollen bag of lettuce, a heavily bruised apple and a moldy orange. “While working in the fast food industry during the recession in 2008 she quickly became worried about the supply chain surrounding food access. Having grown up in Manitowoc, she was particularly worried about food access in her own community. In 2014, she had finally established our 501c-3 non-profit with the mission is to provide dignified good food access to Manitowoc County. On Earth Day in 2015, 300 people came together to build a community garden. Amber focused on growing fresh food and educating the community. The program was a success and was supported by the people in Manitowoc.
“Thanks to the former members of St. John’s UCC, the building was donated to Grow It Forward in 2019, just in time for the pandemic. The government and other food suppliers were looking for community leaders looking to distribute food to people during this peak of COVID. By acquiring the building, Amber and several volunteers from the community were able to receive and distribute In 2021, Amber was still on the search for more programs to provide dignified food access to Manitowoc County. There was much more space to be filled in this former church building. With Green Bay in our backyard, we were destined to meet the Fork Farms team. We began our journey with 1 Flex Farm and grew to be a large scale production incrementally within the last three years. We thank our many supporters in the establishment of 27 farms by mid-2022, and the USDA Innovation and Production Grant for funding the expansion to 48 Flex Farms. The investment in indoor agriculture has enabled us to grow fresh food year round in an otherwise very seasonal growing climate. In 2023, we grew 6,000 pounds of lettuce in our hydroponic equipment. Since the beginning of intentionally tracking and reporting data, we have grown over 9,000 pounds of greens for our community.”
Grow It Forward uses the produce in a number of ways.
“We sell to our local restaurants and farmers markets. Harmony Cafe, an extension of Grow It Forward's mission, uses the produce on their menu and sells packaged produce to customers looking to purchase fresh local greens. The greens are used in our catering service for salads, sandwiches and garnish. Between the cafe, catering and wholesale is how we raise funding for this program. Outside of the sales, we also donate to our own food pantry and community meal. We even share the greens with other local pantries and community meal sites.
“Our overall experience with Fork Farms has been a success,” Loomis said. “Our partnership is very ingrained in our mission and our hearts. We continue to learn, build and grow together,” Loomis said.
Amber Daugs said, “I want to add that I wouldn’t be able to impact our community if not for the love and care of our mission by individuals such as Nina. I’m grateful for those who help ensure that all in our community have access to quality food served with dignity.
As a company, Tyink said he thinks they are at a bit of a reflection point right now. “We’re like this ball of energy that’s building and building and it’s going to super nova,” he said. “We’re just waiting for some of these things we’ve been working hard on to come to fruition and we have a lot to look forward to. We want to make sure we don’t grow too quickly and that we really keep our focus in the right place. If we do that we’re poised to be a change agent for bringing access to fresh food to the world. This isn’t a silver bullet; I don’t think we’re single-handedly going to make the food system better.
It takes a lot of different solutions but I do think we can be a key player and establish ourselves as the market leader of companies working to address this massive food problem that we’re facing. We want to be a champion for addressing the disparities in the food system and drive change in a way that’s meaningful and makes a systemic difference.”
