We started growing microgreens in March of 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began. The objective was to reduce the amount of meat eaten, and driving required to get food. The problem was, we lived in a condo in the middle of a downtown. We learned about microgreens, and were successful to be able to grow a salad every single day.
Having health issues in the family, we became very keen on nutrition, we loved the research that was conducted on microgreens that showed they could be 40x more nutritious than the adult version of the plant. The foods were given to our friends and family for their health, and word of mouth spread about our little farm. From this, we realized that we could scale up our mission to reduce the individual CO2 impact on our world, and provide some of the most nutritious foods available by serving our local community, Spira Farms was born.
Our Mission
Make Food Local
Make Food Sustainable
Our objective is to provide the freshest, sustainably produced foods to our local communities. We are happy to pay extra to provide products that are ethical, such as our containers we provide our greens in being made of corn, and 100% compostable instead of wasteful polluting plastics. Our soil used is of a sustainable coconut coir, instead of using products such as peat which are better left sucking carbon out of the world in the wild. All of our waste from the grow is utilized as a fertilizer. As we grow, we are planning on adding more sustainable practices, such as generating our own power for growing plants, and delivering our products. You can be sure that being environmentally conscious is our #1 priority.
Our Team
Our team today consists of myself Chris Borek, and my wife Caitlyn who reside in Lemont, Illinois. In addition to this my parents who I can never repay the amount of help and support that they have provided for the farm.
Chris – Background in working with data. Completed bachelors at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Information and Decision Sciences, and later a Master in Data Analytics for Colorado State University. These skills sets align with a vertical farm as the farm needs sensors and data to be optimized, to increase output of growth, reduce energy, and reduce water usage.