Canada: Five dollar lettuce a boon to hydroponics start-up
Manitoba inventor takes pandemic project to market
By Don Norman
Manitoba Co-operator
Jan 25, 2023
Excerpt:
A Manitoba inventor has developed a homegrown solution to five-dollar lettuce. Neil Evenson is the founder of Radical Growing Company, which produces self-contained, do-it-yourself, single-plant hydroponic kits.
Evenson is a design engineer by trade but he loves to tinker in his spare time, and every now and again, those tinkerings turn into a viable product he’s able to commercialize.
“I’ve?been?starting?businesses, with varying levels of success, since I was 16,” says Evenson, “though none are enough to let me retire.”
His latest venture started as a pandemic project in March 2020 and began as a hobby.
“I’ve kind of always had an interest in growing food, and this idea took hold during the pandemic in March of 2020, so the only option really was to do it indoors,” he says.
The idea of a small, indoor farming system has been gaining steam in recent years. Lettuce is a popular plant to grow because of its high value and low input cost.
Evenson was convinced he could build a small and economical growing unit. The early version was rudimentary.
Affordable home food production could find a fit in an inflationary era.
“I was literally using milk jugs with the tops cut off as reservoirs.”
