Restaurants Can Now ‘Slice and Dice’ Food Costs
By Phyllis Davis / Apr 10 • Categorized as Living Overseas •
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Do you want to know how to make an Executive Chef weak at the knees and breathless? Offer them a farm that grows an unlimited supply of fresh organic food and home-grown fish that’s near their kitchen. Then, after they wipe tears of joy from their eyes, tell them that the farm pays for itself and after that, the money they had been spending on food from their suppliers can now be spent on increased salaries and kitchen improvements. Since they’ll be speechless, expect a hug.
Today, Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems offer fresh organic food and home-grown fish in an easy to operate system that pays for itself. What could be easier? This really is 21st Century Agriculture.
The Happy Portable Farmer, Colle Davis, Inventor, with a single head of lettuce from one of his own Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems that was grown in only 40 days. This is an unretouched photo.
If a chef has been ordering 2 cartons of lettuce per week (24 heads per carton) from the food supplier who delivers his produce, now he only needs to plant 48 seeds in small ‘pots’ into his Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System. By planting every week, he never needs to order lettuce again. It only takes 40 days to grow a head of lettuce. The farm doesn’t require watering, weeding, fertilizing, and doesn’t require insecticides to fight pests or undergo water testing. Plus, the produce won’t need to travel from local or long distance farms or endure packing and refrigeration, so the food retains all of its flavor and high nutritional value. The chef can always harvest his vegetables at their ‘peak’ of perfection instead of receiving vegetables that were harvested and shipped too early. These systems are a perfect example of a Carbon Negative footprint, especially when compared to in-ground growing and current agricultural practices.
The Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems can be sized to meet the food-output requirements of a restaurant. A 20 x 30’ system can be placed in the parking lot behind a restaurant and will grow 3,600 vegetables and 1,400 pounds of fish per year. This size farm won’t grow enough food for the needs of even a small restaurant with a regular customer base, but it is large enough to supplement their food supply from existing suppliers and, it adds ‘bragging rights’ to customers and the local media to increase their customer base because they’ll be able to tell the public they ‘raise a portion of their own organic vegetables, from their own garden, and provide some of their own fresh, home-grown fish.’ They can also offer their customers a tour of their farm creating an even deeper customer loyalty. A positive dining experience and a greenhouse tour will spread the excitement around town, within days.
A larger restaurant who wants to reduce food costs, should consider a 90 x 120’ (1/4 acre) Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems. This size system grows 60,000 vegetables and around 21,000 pounds of fish per year, depending on the crop choice and the market values for those crops, the ROI for this sized unit is between three and five years. The ROI is much faster for commercial sized systems because they have far more growing space for vegetables and tank space for fish.
The owners of the most prestigious catering company in Southern California, Festivities Catering, Lisa and Rick Richards, see the value of having a Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System near their very busy kitchen. Their Executive Chef, Keith Lord, welcomes the idea of selecting the freshest organic vegetables and home-grown fish for the chefs in his kitchen by simply walking across the parking lot next to his state-of-the art, hotel-sized kitchen and harvesting what he needs for his signature gourmet dishes.
For information about pricing and ROI for all sizes of the Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems ===== CLICK HERE to view the website and sign up for this valuable information.
What is a Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System?
The Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System is a closed loop, water-based fish and organic vegetable production system. It utilizes insulated and heated fish tanks to grow Tilapia, and then runs the warm water from the fish tank (laden with warm, nutrient-rich fish waste) through a settling-tank clarifying system with special pumps, and then the water flows through gravel-filled Grow Tray Tables to feed and water the growing plants. The entire system is built in modules; each module (shown below) contains one fish tank, one settling tank, and of course, the food growing space. These modules are enclosed in a climatically adapted growing structure, usually a greenhouse. The structure keeps out pests and helps maintain a perfect growing temperature. A commercial sized system contains between 28 and 30 modules.
One Module of a Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System
The Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems are specifically designed to utilize currently unused urban or near-urban space to grow food as close to the end consumer as possible. It is not designed to replace regular land-based agriculture. The main function of the Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System is to produce nutritious food, on site, using a minimum of space, electricity, water and labor.
What About the Fish?
Fresh Tilapia
The United States National Fisheries Institute, ranked tilapia as fifth on its 2008 “Top Ten” list of the most consumed fish and seafood in the United States. That year, the average consumption of tilapia was 1.2 pounds per person.
The history of Tilapia can be traced back over 4,500 years to Ancient Egypt with its origins in the Nile River and it is often called a Nile Perch. Tilapia has also been called St. Peter’s Fish since early Biblical times because it is believed to be the fish that Jesus fed the multitudes in the biblical story.
To work efficiently, Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems grow Tilapia, which is a ‘warm water, fresh water fish’ to provide the essential waste and their nutrients for the plants. Cold-water fish (bass, trout, etc.) are not compatible in aquaponics systems because the plants don’t like cold feet . . . I mean roots. Tilapia is a very mild tasting white fish that is high in protein. Tilapia is a low-fat, white-fleshed fish that is sweet, fine-textured and doesn’t taste ‘fishy.’ Enjoy your Tilapia by baking, broiling, grilling, steaming it, or making ceviche.
The fish are ‘harvested’ from their warm, insulated fish tanks (water temperature is maintained at 80 degrees F, year round) when they are about a pound and a quarter in size, and 11 inches long, which takes between 6 1/2 and 7 1/2 months or until they are large enough to harvest. One harvest-sized fish offers two 4-ouce fillets which feeds two people an ample serving.
* IMPORTANT TO NOTE: To date, the National Organic Standards Board has not yet set standards for any fish to be labeled as organic. But, Tilapia is an herbivore (vegetarian) and can be fed vegetable protein (soy-based catfish chow) as their food source.
The Truth About Food Prices for 2010
The era of inexpensive and readily available food is over and that’s hard to swallow. Although food prices have always fluctuated, they have always remained within a fairly narrow band of affordability, until now.
Food prices are rising due to many factors including fuel costs (for transportation), problems of drought and flooding, population growth, commodity prices, and an ever-increasing need and appetite for sources of protein. According to a report by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) entitled, Food Price Outlook 2010, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all food is projected to increase 2.5 to 3.5%. And, Drovers Business announced in late February 2010 that grocery prices in January 2010 posted the largest one-month increase since September 2008.
If you’d like to know more about what foods sold during the last week of March 2010, the USDA offers an amazing report about what was ‘hot’ and what was not available. For example, few Chilean grapes were available last week due to their earthquake.}
Restaurants generally purchase food from local and national suppliers who arrange with providers for vegetables, dairy, bakeries, meat and fish to be delivered to their restaurants. These suppliers sell chefs what’s available on the market at that time, and then make regular deliveries to their kitchens. It sounds simple, but it is not. Thousands of people are involved in the process of growing food, shipping it, selling it in the marketplace, and then distributing the food to restaurants for preparation by chefs to serve to their dining customers. And, in the process of bringing food from farm to table, the costs rise to pay everyone along the line.
Owning a Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System takes all the ‘middle men/women’ out of the equation. In fact, one full-time, semi-skilled worker can operate and maintain over 1/4 of an acre of Portable Farms™ Aquaponics System. It’s not quite ‘a drive through farm,’ but it’s close.
Make YOUR chef happy today. A happy chef creates a happy and prosperous restaurant with loyal customers who tell all their friends about their dining experience. It’s the best investment you can make in today’s competitive environment.
For information about pricing and ROI for all sizes of the Portable Farms™ Aquaponics Systems ===== CLICK HERE to view the website and sign up for this valuable information.
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