AVANT-GARDENING
AS LOCAL AS IT GETS:
Why Microsoft has
Farmers Growing
IN THE OFFICE
When your corporate campus is the size of a small city, it’s
time to re-examine your carbon footprint. Microsoft’s campus
in Redmond, Washington, started out as 88 acres, and today
it spans 500. There are soccer fields, a hair salon, restaurants,
a bank, a bike shop—even an optician’s office. And the many
thousands of people on that campus have to eat.
A few years ago, Mark Freeman, senior manager of
Microsoft Dining and Beverage Services, saw a food system in
need of an update. “We see Microsoft as a city, and as we look
“We see Microsoft as a city,
and as we look at that
city, we want to meet
the needs of our citizens
by offering a variety of
healthy foods that help
make our employees
happy and productive.”
108
Maximum Yield USA | December 2015
at that city, we want to meet the needs of our citizens by offering a variety of healthy foods that help make our employees
happy and productive.” That meant finding ways to source
ingredients responsibly and sustainably.
Everyone knows the benefits of local produce: fewer fossil
fuels required to transport the goods to market, fresher
ingredients and money that goes back to your community.
As Mark saw it, there was no reason why the city of Microsoft
shouldn’t include some indoor “farmland.”
Going (Micro) Green
Jessica Schilke, an urban farming specialist at Microsoft, helps
manage an experiment that might just revolutionize what
it means to “eat local” at the office. She and her team grow
trays of microgreens in brightly lit cultivation machines th at
look like glass fridges and a variety of lettuces in hydroponic
towers. These veggies aren’t hidden away, either. According
to Jessica, “Our guests get to watch the microgreens and salad
greens grow right in the cafés.”
It didn’t take much to convince Microsoft employees that
these greens are enviable. As Jessica notes, “I love to do
side-by-side comparisons of the ones we were buying before
and the ones we are growing now. The microgreens we
grow are full of flavor—some earthy, others very spicy—
whereas the ones we were buying were described to me as
just tasting ‘green.’”
The urban farming project is eco-conscious in a myriad
of ways. Pesticides and herbicides are not necessary in an
indoor growing environment, and all the microgreens are
grown with 100% certified-organic inputs. The hydroponic