How to Market Your Hydroponic Produce to Upscale Restaurants

So maybe you want to do hydroponics as a kind of commercial project -- you want to grow enough that you can sell some of what you produce, and cover your costs. What you might be surprised by is the high demand for high-quality hydroponic produce, and your ability to market yourself and your garden in some pretty impressive culinary destinations.

Restaurants are jumping on the hydroponics bandwagon. They're ordering up local, fresh foods doesn't have to travel long distances. They're buying in their communities, and they're buying according to certain things like carbon footprint, taste, freshness and more. That means hydroponic gardeners have a big advantage over big food distributors when it comes to providing plant foods for individual restaurants. Here's a kind of step-by-step guide to taking advantage of this benefit and getting yourself noticed in your community.

Choose Your Crops

One of the first ways to get strategic about restaurant distribution is to choose to plant things that restaurants will want to use. Do some market research and look at what's most in demand in the high-end kitchen. Some examples of interesting hydroponically grown foods include garlic scapes, heirloom tomatoes, specialized basil or herb varieties, and hydroponic lettuce grown in specific ways to develop mild or otherwise special taste. But it depends on what your particular local restaurants have on their menus.

Dress Up Your Space

The reality is that you're going to do better in distribution if you create a visually pleasing garden that you can show off to people. Instead of leaving old clunky equipment around, create neat installations with various materials. Edge your beds, hide your hydroponic reservoir under a sheet, and above all, create a clean and sanitary environment for your plants.

Show Off Your Process

Beyond keeping a clean garden and growing plants strategically, you can also impress restaurants with your own hydroponic process. Do you use certain nutrients in order to get certain taste results? Do you use various techniques to keep plants healthy and strong throughout the plant cycle? And do you use specific picking or harvesting strategies? Make this a part of your elevator pitch to restaurants and you’ll probably do better in distribution.

Reach Out

Another good step is to start reaching out to restaurants with demos and samples. Get your wares out there, and you'll have more of a chance of attracting the right clients to your door. Then you'll be able to start really aggressively distributing your produce to turn your greens into another kind of green – cash!

For more, check out Dealzer and how we can help you set up a hydroponic project with a relatively small budget.