Iowans may use some assist with “energetic residing and wholesome consuming.”
Solely 27.1% of grownup Iowans have a wholesome physique weight, in accordance with the Iowa Division of Public Well being’s June 2022 Wholesome Iowans: Iowa’s State Well being Evaluation report. And whereas the federal 2020 Dietary Pointers suggest that adults and adolescents eat 2½ to 4 cups of greens and 1½ to 2½ cups of fruit every day, Wholesome Iowans revealed that 22.7% of grownup Iowans eat lower than one vegetable per day and 40.4% eat much less that one fruit per day.
Quick-food eating places provide little assist in the best way of wholesome meals choices. However Clayton Farms Salads — the Midwest’s first salad and smoothie drive-through and indoor farm — seeks to vary that.
With greens grown 10 ft away, serving ‘world’s freshest salads’
Clayton Farms Salads opened March 31 at 2435 Grand Ave. in Ames, and by the point I used to be capable of go to in mid-Could, had already served 10,000 salads and smoothies. By the point this column is launched, it can seemingly have surpassed 15,000.
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“What’s thrilling about that is you’ve a university city of mid-60,000s (Ames),” stated Clayton Mooney, co-founder of Clayton Farms and Clayton Farms Salads. “And unexpectedly we will carry the world’s freshest salads to people and get town pondering extra about wholesome quick meals, which for my part right now would not actually exist.”
As clients drive to put their order, pay and choose up, they’ll view rows of lettuce and microgreens, rising in trays, by way of the previous Fazoli restaurant home windows. The restaurant has been transformed to an indoor farm, rising oak leaf and butterhead lettuce, peppery arugula and crunchy romaine. The microgreens embody pea shoots, broccoli sprouts, micro radish and sunflower shoots.
All salads — from the Backyard to the Crunchy Asian, Caesar, Southwest, the brand new Mediterranean or a build-your-own — embody a mixture of lettuce and microgreens. These with tomatoes function recent cherry tomatoes grown at Clayton Farms down the street, which might now be bought on the drive-through by the half-pint. Their smoothies, from pineapple to berry to matcha — and the brand new Strawberry Sunshine — additionally comprise microgreens.
Mooney considers their salads the “world’s freshest salads” as a result of, in contrast to grocery retailer produce, which is bought greater than three days post-harvest, Clayton Farms Salads workers reduce the greens grown on-site and carry them 10 ft to the kitchen, the place they’re able to be served straight away, thus retaining their full dietary worth.
“I’d say all of our microgreens — and microgreens usually — have 30 instances extra vitamin on common than their grownup counterparts of the bigger meals objects.”
Expertise makes rising greens on-site potential
The indoor farm makes use of a 5 stack Nutrient Movie Approach system, although Mooney says “hydroponic backyard” is a extra user-friendly title for it. “Nutrient Movie Approach is a very fancy means of claiming, in hydroponics, that we’ve got these channels that we simply pump the water and vitamins by way of.”
The software program, which acts as an on-site horticulturalist, ensures that the vegetation get what they want, once they want it, with no wasted water, fertilizer or different inputs. Any unused water is recycled. “It (software program) is looking ahead to the temperature, the humidity, the lighting schedules, the nutrient schedules. It is taking a look at plant well being general.”
Sensors always collect this info, and farm group members assessment the information, which might be finished remotely, so Mooney doesn’t must be on-site every day. This technique requires not solely rather a lot much less labor than conventional farming, but additionally rather a lot much less water.
“One among my favourite statistics, particularly having grown up on a conventional small household farm in southeast Iowa,” Mooney stated, “is for each one month we develop meals on our tools right here, we save one yr of water.” Or put one other means, Mooney stated it takes the system lower than a gallon of water to develop a pound of lettuce, whereas conventional farming takes a dozen or extra gallons to develop the identical quantity.
Extra:Ames-based indoor farm Clayton Farms to open drive-thru salad, smoothie restaurant
Moreover, Clayton Farms Salads makes use of non-GMO seeds and doesn’t use components to hurry up progress or pesticides, which aren’t wanted as a result of there are not any pests, as a result of managed setting.
“I wish to joke that the one bugs we get in listed below are software program bugs,” Mooney stated. However these bugs might be simply as harmful because the stay sort, which Mooney and the group found the arduous means. “We got here within the subsequent day and all of the vegetation have been flat and we’re like, ‘What’s going on? Oh. We overfed them by 10 instances.’”
The rising expertise, tools and profitability mannequin was created and debugged on the indoor Clayton Farms. Mooney is happy by the truth that, whereas the typical U.S. indoor farm takes seven years to achieve profitability, the Ames farm took two years. Clayton Farms established a direct shopper subscription mannequin, the place clients select which of the 14 completely different produce choices they need and the frequency of the supply. The mannequin was expanded to the Twin Cities market as properly.
One other Clayton Farms Salads drive-through coming quickly
In August, Mooney hopes to have discovered a restaurant for a second drive-through salad and farm within the Twin Cities or Des Moines, whichever happens first. The plan will then be to open in September.
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He and his group are additionally engaged on a few partnerships to determine how they’ll enhance distribution and get into extra rural communities and concrete communities which are much less meals safe. They hope to have one thing in place by the tip of this yr.
“Our mission has all the time been about offering individuals with the meals they deserve,” Mooney stated. “The best way I see how we accomplish that’s getting these drive-through plus farms launched into as many places as potential all through the U.S. So Ames is certainly one of 10,000.”
Solely 9,999 to go.
Rachelle Chase is an creator and an opinion columnist, who’s additionally launched a brand new column, Trailblazers & Trendsetters, on the Des Moines Register. Comply with Rachelle at fb.com/rachelle.chase.creator or electronic mail her at rchase@registermedia.com.
For extra info
To order on-line from Clayton Farms Salads, prepare for pickup or schedule a supply, get the app, or subscribe, go to ClaytonFarms.com/salads.
