Finding the Formula to Cost-Effective Produce
What is the connection between opera and hydroponic growing? Ask Alex Tyink, co-founder and CEO of Fork Farms in Green Bay, and he will be happy to tell you.
“More than 10 years ago, I was living in New York,” Tyink said. “I had gone to school to become an opera singer and I was under contract to sing.
“One summer between operas I met a guy who was growing food on a rooftop, which I’d never heard of before, but I thought it was awesome. He was growing all the food he needed for himself and his friends and giving the rest to the food panty on the first floor of his building.”
After volunteering with his new-found friend for the summer Tyink was able to take some of the food home. “I ate this food I had grown, and my eating habits completely changed,” he continued. “I started eating better, not because anyone told me I should, but having grown it I built this appreciation for it.
“It was transformative for me, because I had been eating a lot of dollar-menu food and still living on a college-type diet, and I began to wonder how I could help other people have this same experience.”
Tyink and a small group obtained United Way financing and started building rooftop gardens for some public schools. The schools asked for indoor growing systems so they could grow food year-round, but they ran into the roadblock of being able to make gardens small enough for the students to run.
“I did a deep dive to figure out why, and it was that the technology was too expensive to operate,” he continued. “The energy bill is really high; you have to have specialized training to use the systems, and I just thought there was a huge opportunity to figure out how to do it better.”
Tyink started looking at various ideas, and in 2012 he came across an algorithm for the right type of light, distance to the plant and plant density. That helped determine the way to optimize the growth algorithm and bring down the bulb wattage by 50 percent to achieve the same yield.
“By leveraging reflective surfaces inside, recapturing energy and optimizing plant parameters at the same time, you can get the cost of growing food down to less than a dollar a pound,” Tyink explained. That compares to an industry standard of $2.50 a pound for large operations; a figure that is much higher on a small scale. “That was a eureka moment and we got a couple patents,” he recalled.
Tyink decided to move back to his home state of Wisconsin, where he worked for Goodwill Industries so he could learn from some of the talented businesspeople who were sharing their skills with Goodwill.
“I wanted to surround myself with that talent in order to learn, and they let me keep working on technology as part of the community garden program,” Tyink said. “I got the opportunity to field-test it when I was there in kind of a safe environment and helped develop a future market program for the product.”
Tyink then moved on to Feeding America and as program and innovation director, development continued. “I met my co-founder, John Brogan, in 2015, and we launched the business with some family and friends’ money.” Brogan, a former patent attorney and now CEO of the Bank of Kaukauna, met Tyink after one of his board members, who knew Tyink from his days at Goodwill, told him he should go meet this guy who is growing food cheaper than about anyone else.
Brogan was on the board of a charter school, so he and the school’s principal went to take a look at a prototype. “It’s so simple, yet so revolutionary,” was Brogan’s reaction. “All this time we’ve thought we have to put the light on the top – because that’s where the sun is – but we’re actually a ball spinning around the sun and if you put that light in the middle it’s truly an elegant solution to a problem.”
Tyink invented the Flex Farm unit and Brogan, with his background in patent litigation, oversaw growing the business.
“It started to scale quickly – the market for this has been so much bigger than we ever realized it was,” Tyink said. Tylink credits Brogan with realizing the business aspect of the Flex Farm. “I was prepared to give it away to nonprofi ts, but Brogan said there was a business here and helped launch the Flex Farm.”
Along with Brogan; Mike Weller, the now-retired CEO of Miller Electric and group president of ITW; and Tyink’s father, Steve, the company was formed.
The first version of the Flex Farm was made of stainless steel, and one was given to the Boys and Girls Club of the Fox Valley, which prompted a flood of requests from schools, food pantries and restaurant owners who wanted to know more. As the design improved, by the fourth generation the Flex Farm was made from recyclable plastic. Not only did that make the Flex Farm much lighter and easier to ship, the second generation helped Tyink and his partners learn more about what people wanted and what they could easily assemble and operate.
“Two big boxes are going to show up at the house,” Tyink explained. “Unboxing actually takes longer than putting it together. It takes about 20 minutes to unpack it and about 15 minutes to set it up. The box contains everything you need – the LED lights, the casters it sits on, all the pumps and everything you need, including several months’ worth of supplies.”
All the free-standing Flex Farm needs is a standard plug-in and a couple gallons of water per week. The nutrient solution is a mineral combination that focuses on food safety and optimized plant nutrition and can be obtained directly from Fork Farms. The Flex Farm MSRP is $4,695 and pays itself off in 1.5-2 years, according to Tylink.
“Most people like to check on it,” Tyink said. “It’s got a peaceful vibe to it – a little waterfall sound. The lights are nice in a cold, dark winter, and it smells a bit like a greenhouse.
“We’ve had ag tech investors and others call us and say, ‘You guys are on the verge of a lawsuit because there’s no way the yields you get from this thing are what you proclaim,’ so we invite them to come and see it and they have to eat their words.”
The entire unit calls Wisconsin home as Gardan Manufacturing in Hortonville manages the Fork Farms’ inventory, supply chain, assembly and shipping. Only the pump and LED lights are not Wisconsin-made. Other components come from a 100-mile radius of Fork Farms.
While more than 500 Flex Farm units can be found in schools and institutions across the country, several are helping area organizations and schools produce food for their use and to educate.
Jason Stellmacher, a science teacher at Appleton Central High School, became interested in the Flex Farm and was able to obtain a unit through a grant. He has employed it in his work with high-risk students.
“The first year, we were set up with seedlings and the students participated in growing their own food from day one,” Stellmacher said. The students then distributed gallon bags full of their produce to others in the building for a donation, and each student was able to take as much lettuce as they wanted to for their families. “They had access to free food for their families, and we sold enough to pay for at least four crops that first year,” he said. “In addition to that, my food science class developed its emulsion skills, so we made our own salad dressings. People in the building have access to food produced by our students, and the students gain an appreciation for homegrown, nutritious food and take pride in their work.”
While being used as an educational tool at Appleton Central, the Flex Farm provides part of the daily menu at Golden House, a women’s shelter in Green Bay. Golden House obtained a Flex Farm through a Feeding America grant in the fall of 2020. The Flex Farm is located in a central location so all of the 30 or so residents have access to it, and produce is also given to people as an outreach.
“We’re really invested and involved in our first harvest,” said Marissa Heim, who works with grants and outreach. “We planted lettuce for our first harvest and are now growing different types of herbs including basil and thyme. In the spring we hope to grow tomatoes and cucumbers.
The kids who have been living with us go to check it every day to see if their lettuce is ready to pick. The adults have talked about how they grew up gardening or on the farm, so to see this in a central location has been heartwarming for them.”
Heim said another big benefit is helping Golden House keep the grocery bill down.
“The way our food system works is totally broken, driven by the size of the infrastructure to move food, but as the pressure of environmental demands continues to grow, we have to come up with solutions that break down traditional ways we think about agriculture,” Brogan said.
“That’s what the business aims to do.”
The future of Fork Farms and its Flex Farm units looks bright. “We just put together a partnership with Titletown Tech, which is affiliated with the Green Bay Packers and Microsoft, so it’s the first time we’re doing a venture capital partnership,” Tyink said on looking at the future of Fork Farms. “Through that we’re looking to scale this business – we’ve doubled in size every year, and we think the sky’s the limit.”
