Is the Future of Food Already Here?

Anders Isbrand
3 min readSep 19, 2022

What I learned from my visit to a Scandinavian microgreens farm

I tasted these microgreens, and they taste so fresh.

I recently visited a newly started hydroponic farm here in Copenhagen growing microgreens. It was a lot of fun to taste the different plants — for example, I found out that sunflower shoots have a nutty flavor, a clear note of sunflower seeds, and a fresh, crunchy taste — delicious!

What are hydroponic microgreens?

Hydroponic means to grow plants not in the soil, but in water, where the nutrients are circulated. Microgreens are plants harvested while they are still young, typically at the age of 8–25 days.

So basically, these urban farmers grow fresh shoots of plants in water, including pea, sunflower, cilantro, mustard, fennel, garlic, radish, and cucumber.

How cool is that — to eat a burger garnished with fresh mustard shoots, garlic shoots, and pea shoots? Or a salad with fresh shoots from sunflower, cilantro, and cucumber?

Ths particular microgreens farm is called Nabo Farm (meaning Neighbor Farm) and is located in a cool all-in-one living and co-working space for the residents. The farm mainly sells its products to local restaurants. The founders developed their farm with the support of an initiative called Impact Startup, and they are only one of many very cool…

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Anders Isbrand

Lifelong learner. Avid reader. Viking descendant (maybe). Twin. Finnish-wilderness-cross-country-skiing-aficionado.