Growing food indoors year round is becoming recognized as one way to address predicted food shortages. Sugar Bee Farm, owned by landscaper Bryan Simon and food production consultant Ryan Dale, offers microgreens—shoots of vegetables picked just after the first leaves form—and mushrooms sustainably grown in Simon’s building that also houses their nonprofit, Energy Exchange, Inc., dedicated to sustainable food production.
Simon was instrumental in the formation of the Green Corridor along south Sixth Street—a stretch of land that lay overgrown for years and is now home to the Garden District Farmers’ Market, community garden plots, hoop houses, and fruit and nut trees. Simon and Dale started growing microgreens in fall 2014 and sold them under Bryan and Ryan’s Gourmet Greens at the Milwaukee County Winter Farmers’ Market.
Sugar Bee Farm, a name that ties in with the apiary near the rooftop garden of the Energy Exchange building, is an indoor mushroom farm originally formed by Sarah Wisniewski and Dave Grow in 2013, and Simon was a proponent of that business. Sebastian Zoric Martinez later purchased Sugar Bee from Wisniewski and Grow, but Zoric Martinez sustained an injury and could no longer operate the business, Simon said, so he purchased it from Zoric Martinez this past August. After a summer remodeling of the Energy Exchange building, the microgreens and mushrooms are being grown again and sold under the Sugar Bee name.
The microgreens are grown chemical-free in a soil-based medium and are watered with recycled rainwater. Unlike sprouts, which are often grown in a water-based medium and harvested after three days, microgreens can be soil or hydroponic based and grow out in seven to 10 days, leading to a higher nutrient value.
Sugar Bee offers three microgreens mixes in flavors ranging from mild to spicy. Varieties include the Farm Fresh Medley, which has Swiss chard, kale and sunflower. The Mighty Cruciferous mix is a blend of cabbage, kale, broccoli and radish. Dale recommends microgreens as salad toppers, in smoothies, on sandwiches and wraps, and in soups. They also offer customized mixes.
Sugar Bee was best known for its tender oyster mushrooms, which have a mild taste and are often used in soups or sautéed to complement dishes. Simon and Dale will continue to grow those and add varieties such as shiitake. With all operations now merged under the Sugar Bee name, Simon and Dale will again sell at the Milwaukee County Winter Farmers Market, Outpost Natural Foods and to restaurants including Bacchus, Goodkind and Meritage. They’re working with other retailers to offer Sugar Bee produce.
Plans for the Energy Exchange building include Great Taste Foods, a commercial kitchen designed to help small- to medium-sized food entrepreneurs market their product lines. Foodie startups such as Zymbiotics fermented foods have already signed on to use Great Taste kitchen.
Simon and Dale plan to add honey to Sugar Bee’s offerings. They aim for the Energy Exchange to become a food education resource and will offer wine tastings and events while continuing food production that includes composting, bees and the rooftop garden. “It will be one big sustainable circle,” Simon said.
For more information, visit sugarbeefarm.com. casks where whiskey is aged, even the microclimate of the warehouses where they are stored, which “may influence the flavor of the mature whiskey.” Spirit of Place is also a beautiful coffee table book with expansive photographs of distilleries, the whiskey-making process and—yes—the Scottish landscape under moody, filtered sunlight.
