Episode Description
Knowing exactly what microgreens are and their health benefits is going to help you sell more microgreens. In this episode, I give a high level overview of what microgreens actually are what are their health benefits. I also go over the reasons it’s important to know this information.
Some points covered in this episode:
- What microgreens actually are
- When they became popular
- The species of plants grown as microgreens
- The species of plants that can’t be grown as microgreens
- The health benefits of microgreens
Mentioned in the show:
Free microgreens seed density calculator: https://microgreensentrepreneur.com/seedcalculator
University of Maryland study: https://pubag.nal.usda.gov/download/59409/PDF
Episode Transcripts
Microgreens Entrepreneur Episode 6: Know Your Microgreens
Episode #6: Know Your Microgreens
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You’re listening to The Microgreens Entrepreneur Podcast, where the aim is to help you start, grow, and improve any microgreens business. I’m your host, Brian, owner of a microgreens business that I operate out of my own home. Stay tuned and welcome along.
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[0:29] Hello, there, and welcome along to another episode of the Microgreens Entrepreneur Podcast. As always, thanks a million for being here with me. I hope you enjoy the episode, and I hope you’re having a great week.
[0:40] Just before we get going on the episode, I just want to thank anybody who has reached out and interacted with us on Instagram. We’re putting up a lot of good stuff every day on Instagram. If you want to check out our page after the show, you can find it @microgreens_entrepreneur.
[0:55] So, we’ll get going with today’s episode. Today’s episode is called Know Your Microgreens. I was thinking about making an episode called What are Microgreens? And another one about the health benefits of microgreens, but I’m actually combined the two here to make one episode. I had a feeling that you might see the two titles of those episodes a bit boring.
[1:16] The thing is, it’s really important to have a good understanding of what exactly microgreens are, all the health benefits of them, and be able to speak about them with good knowledge because, in the end, this is going to help you sell more microgreens, which, at the end of the day, is what we’re all trying to do.
[1:32] When you start to go and sell microgreens, people are going to have questions for you, your customers, your chefs, managers of retail stores,
and the general public. If you’re able to answer those questions and you’re seen as an expert in your field, you know all the health benefits, you know some key facts about each crop, that’s all going to help your sales pitch.
[1:50] The more information you can give, the higher the chance you have of getting each sale. If you want to find out the approach that I took to educate myself on microgreens, I’ll talk about that nearer the end of the episode.
[2:00] One of the most frequently asked questions that we get asked at a farmer’s market is: what are microgreens? Maybe it’s different where you are, but certainly, in Ireland, the general public aren’t really that aware yet of what exactly microgreens are.
[2:17] So, a lot of the time before we make a sale, we have to explain exactly what the product is, how it can benefit them, and why they should buy it. Maybe where you are, microgreens are more well-known by the general public. I know they’re very popular now in North America, but no matter what, you really want to have yourself well-versed on exactly what they are, and you want to be able to deliver an answer that quickly sums up exactly what microgreens are.
[2:41] Like I said before, that’s really going to help your sales pitch. It’s actually pretty simple to sum up what microgreens are. They are vegetable greens that are harvested just after the cotyledon leaves have developed. So, microgreens are left to grow on a little bit longer until the first true leaves appear. They’re in-between the growing stages of sprout and a baby green.
[3:01] Now, they’re sometimes confused with sprouts, but obviously, sprouts are different. Sprouts are consumed at an earlier stage than microgreens, and with sprouts, you consume the steam, the root, and the seeds. So, there’s a big difference there.
[3:14] The interesting thing about microgreens, sprouts, baby greens, and the full adult version of the vegetables is that they’re all grown with the exact same seeds. That’s a question that we get asked all the time, and it was actually something that I didn’t know myself when I first started out.
[3:27] I thought that microgreen seed was different to all other types of seed. But that’s not the case, and the only difference is between microgreens and the rest is that microgreen seed is sowed much more densely, and we’re usually harvesting it after 7 to 21 days.
[3:42] You might be wondering when exactly did microgreens start to become a thing. I read somewhere before; I think it was actually Wikipedia. I must have a look again after I finish recording, but I read that microgreens first began being used in San Francisco in California in the 90s, I think it was.
[3:58] Back then, they would have been only used by chefs, and from there, they gained popularity and moved across the whole of the United States. Now, they’re pretty much popular worldwide. They’re not only used by chefs, but they’re consumed by the public.
[4:11] So, now, I’m going to go over the different types of crops that can be grown as microgreens. In a minute, I’m going to tell you about the types of crops that can’t be grown as microgreens.
[4:20] We’ll start off with the Brassicaceae family, and a great family they are because these are some of the easier microgreens there are to grow. In the Brassicaceae family, you’ve got the cabbages; you’ve got radish, which is a great one to start off growing, and you get a great yield from it, and it’s an easy one to grow.
[4:36] You’ve got rocket or as it’s called in America, arugula. I actually don’t know why it’s called a rocket in Europe and arugula in America. I must check that out. If anybody knows the reason behind that, maybe you can give us a shout on Instagram and let me know.
[4:50] Then, along with those, you’ve got broccoli, mustard, kale, and there’s a long list there. I’ve tried a lot of seed densities for some of the crops I’ve just named, and I’ve actually created a seed-density calculator. You can download that for free on my website if you want to get an idea of the seed density that I use.
[5:05] Some other common vegetables grown as microgreens are swiss chard, amaranth, carrot, onion, leek, and the list just goes on. Then, as well as that, you’ve got pea, and you’ve got chickpea and a couple of the [oleaginous 5:17] species – I knew I wasn’t going to pronounce that right.
[5:22] But in that, you’ve got sunflower and flax. There are a lot of different varieties. Then, as well as that, you’ve got herbs. Some of the different herbs you can grow as microgreens are dill, basil, coriander. Actually, coriander is another one that’s different in America. That’s cilantro in America and coriander in Europe. Again, I’m not sure of the reasons behind that. That’s another one I must check out.
[5:45] So, there’s a really big variety of crops that can be grown as microgreens. Some people specialize in just a few of them. There are definitely some people out there that I see that specialize in the herbs of microgreens. Personally, I do a bit of all of them, and I’ll cater for whatever I get requested to grow.
[5:58] We’re going to look at some of the species now that aren’t suitable to grow as microgreens. Really, it’s any crop that’s in the nightshade family, or the Solanaceae family, I think it’s called in Latin. In that family, you’ve got tomatoes, peppers, obersheens, chilli peppers, potatoes. If you type into Google, the nightshade family, you’ll get a full list of all the crops there.
[6:20] The reason that these aren’t grown as microgreens is because they contain alkaloids/alkalides/alkalydes, and if these are consumed by humans at high quantities, they can be toxic to humans. So, the thought is that over time, these plants that are in the nightshade family have developed this defence mechanism that helps them to stop being eaten by herbivores. So, they are a pretty smart plant to develop that, and animals are going to learn quickly that if they eat those leaves and it makes them sick, they’re not going to come back and eat them again.
[6:47] It’s funny the things you learn when you’re researching these topics. Something that I just came across this morning was that nicotine is an alkalide, and nicotine used in really high concentrations is a very effective insecticide. So, I thought it was interesting to see where that was coming from.
[7:02] Now, I want to go into the health benefits of microgreens. Again, this is really important to know because it’s going to help you sell more microgreens. I think the fact that we hear all the time being mentioned is that it’s taught that microgreens have between 4 to 40 times the nutrient density as that of their adult counterpart.
[7:21] that information actually comes from a study that was done by the University of Maryland in 2012. I’m not just making this up, and I’ll leave a link to that study in the show notes so you can take a look at it afterwards.
[7:32] I’m going to read a sentence now that comes directly from that study, and it says, in summary, “Microgreens contain considerably higher concentrations of vitamins and carotenoids than their mature plant counterparts.” So, what does this mean? There’s a study done by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and they state that carotenoids act as antioxidants to the human body and that they have strong anti-cancer-fighting properties.
[7:57] It also states that carotenoids also have anti-inflammatory and immune system benefits and are sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease prevention. So the research shows that there are some really good health benefits in microgreens, and that is a really good selling point.
[8:11] So, the information that I’ve just mentioned here is a good starting point, and it will get you out of the gate when you’re first starting to sell Microgreens, and there should be enough information for you to pass on to your consumer or a chef that you’re trying to pitch to.
[8:23] One other thing that I recommend that you do is that you taste all of your microgreens yourself and get a good understanding of their flavours and be able to describe their flavours. The more I talk about this, the more I feel that this all relates to selling microgreens, so I’m planning on making an episode in the future that’s solely about selling microgreens and the best ways to use this information and other tactics to sell more microgreens.
[8:47] That brings us close to the end of the episode, and I think if you can take one thing away from this episode, it’s that the more knowledge that you have about your product, the more confidence and trust you’ll have amongst your customers.
[8:59] So, what was my approach to research and microgreens? Well, for me, the key was talking to chefs and talking to customers and getting asked questions that I didn’t always know the answer to. But once I was asked those questions, I went back, and I found out the answer.
[9:14] I would recommend that you take about 20 to 30 minutes a week and allocate that time to be dedicated to reading up and researching material that’s available. The first thing you can do is check out the study that I’ve left in the show notes.
[9:26] For me, I found it useful to keep a document of anything interesting that I find. What that’s also handy for, as well, is that when you start the social media page, you can refer to that document and put some of the information that you’ve learned out as content to help promote your business.
[9:41] As well as that, by knowing all this information and being able to give it to the customer or the chef, it might just be the slight edge that you need to gain that potential customer’s business before a competitor gets there ahead of you.
[9:52] So, that brings us along to the end of the episode. I hope you enjoyed it, and maybe you learned something. If you feel that I might have left something out, you can contact me through the SpeakPipe link in the show notes and leave a voice message, or you can get me at brian@microgreensentrepreneur.com.
[10:07] If you enjoyed the episode and maybe you’ve enjoyed a couple of episodes, I’d really appreciate it if anybody would leave an iTunes review
good or bad. There are none there yet at the moment, and they just help the show noticed a bit more, so I’d really appreciate that.
[10:21] All right, so that’s it. Thanks a million for listening. Have a great week, and I’ll catch you on the next episode.
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[End of episode 11:00]