 Today on my show, we have Gary Kakazu, the owner of MetroGro Hovain. We will be discussing vertical indoor hydroponics, which is meaning he's growing fresh, pasting nutritious and clean local produce all in an urban environment in the heart of Kakaako. Welcome, Gary Kakazu. Thank you, Wendy. Nice to be here. Yeah. I'm excited to get started because this is a topic very close to my heart. Anytime we can have growth, get it? Growth? We're in good shape. It's when we don't grow, as long as we're in trouble. So before we get started, Kerry, can you just share a little bit about your background? Sure, yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm the owner-operator of MetroGro Hovain. We're the first vertical farm in Hawaii. People ask me how I got started with this, and sort of a combination of all my different interests. My training, academically, is actually in plant physiology. So I got my degree, biology degree from UH, and then went for graduate school at the University of California, Davis. So I've always been interested in growing plants and how plants work. And then sort of a secondary career, I got a lot into the technology field. So I spent some time doing academic computing and sort of use of technology and education. And then finally, just really interested in Hawaii food scene, love to eat, love to cook. So this, you know, getting into hydroponics and using technology is sort of a nice combination of all three of those interests. Wow, every step of your journey has prepared you for this. I mean, that's miraculous that, you know, how some people study to be a doctor and they become, they end up as an attorney or everything that you study, you know, makes sense because you're using all that knowledge that you're acquired through your years of growing and learning. And well, congratulations. No wonder I see such a big smile on your face because you're doing what you're your purpose for. So I'm really excited for you for that. So I just wanted to ask you, which came first, your name of your company, Metro being city, through Hawaii or the location? And then you named it. Yeah. Well, I started off, I think probably the location where I came first, but I thought the idea was always to try and do this in an urban setting. The funny part is the initial location of still in Kakaako. I was working at the time at the Cancer Research Center down in Kakaako. So I was doing the hydroponics part time, but I need to find a location where I could go back and forth easily. So that's kind of how I got started. But you know, I like the idea of being in Kakaako, near restaurants, near people with the idea that when we start selling to the restaurants and people, I'd be close to where they are. And really part of the whole sustainability package was to make sure that we keep the transportation time and cost down to a minimum. So I always wanted to be in town. So from that, then it was sort of, okay, how can I incorporate an idea that we're doing this in an urban setting, really make that prominent? And that's where the metro came in. Wow. I mean, so spot on, you found your purpose and the right location as well, right in the heart of Kakaako, where it's built as a walking community. So your neighbors can come and we'll talk about that after down the line, but we'll talk about where your neighbors can just walk up and get fresh produce. The best quality that you can provide for them right there. And so how brilliant is that you're giving them the best. Your best right there in their neighborhood. And I just wanted to take a side note. I watched you grow. I mean, here we go again, no pun intended, but you know, I know I actually cut out an article when they featured you in the newspaper and you were in this, I want to say, look like a dark room, you know, like a foot where you process photos. It was like a dark room. It's your warehouse. It's your garden. I'm thinking, wow, this is so cutting edge that you're in this room with you and your plants. And I didn't know how large or any of that was, but they did a brilliant story on you. I don't even know how many years ago, but I was very intrigued and very proud. And as I said, I've watched you grow and so congratulations. The people of Hawaii have caught up to you because you are so cutting edge and you are ahead of your time ahead of all of our time. And so now you're bringing to the people of Hawaii what they should have, what they expect when they travel, but we can get it all through you locally. And those are your brings that you're going to talk about in a little bit. So I just can't wait to get started. And I know you have this place called your lettuce room. So please tell us, what do you have growing in your lettuce room though, but I want to hear it from you. Well, surprisingly, we have lettuce growing in our lettuce room. Amazing. Yeah, that's sort of our main, the biggest room that we have that I like to include this picture just because it shows the whole concept of vertical farming. So we're number one indoors, as you can see, and we're growing in multiple levels. That's where the vertical comes in. And so it's really a space savings compared to a traditional farm. So just from looking at this picture, you can tell at least three times more growth area per square foot, just by having the three levels. And for some of our other greens, we actually grow up four levels. They're really saving quite a bit of space. And we can also have a very high density. One thing not real obvious from the picture is that those racks are all on wheels. So we can move them around and really only have to have a minimum of aisle space. And we just move the racks as we need to get between two harvest. So even more space efficient in that case. The lettuce is grown with a system called aeroponics. So a lot of people are familiar with hydroponics, which just means growing without soil. And in that case, most of the hydroponics systems either have a bed or a tub of water or a stream of water continuously flowing. There's quite a bit of water. Aeroponics uses spray nozzles to irrigate just the roots of the plants. And that way you use even less water. You don't have as much water circulating to the plants. And the other advantage is that the roots get the optimal amount of oxygen available. And so that usually means they grow a little bit faster than even hydroponics. So that the lettuce room is all aeroponics except the nozzles fire off every 15 minutes for a few seconds. And then that water recirculates back into a reservoir and then is sprayed back again. And we just refill it as the plants use up the water. So I mean, you must be using at least 50 to 75% less water than conventional farming in Earth or in the Aina. And that must be another one of the advantages, right? Yeah, all the vertical farms have different statistics. I've made kind of a rough measurement. I was estimating that we're probably about 90% compared to our field growth of lettuce. Wow. And so would it be safe to say if your ceilings were higher, you could do more levels? Like right now you said three to four. But if you had a higher warehouse, could you go higher? Yeah. So some of the large vertical farms on the Bayland, I've seen them go up like 15, 20 layers. Just like there's a giant warehouse. So that it's definitely possible. We kind of, I kind of avoided that because when you start getting that high, obviously the logistics of harvesting are pretty difficult. In fact, that warehouse that I just mentioned uses vertical man lifts, like little forklifts to go up and down to harvest. So we kind of said, okay, I'm going to cap it here at where we can reach. So we have one steps to it. That's enough to get to the top. So it's just a matter of convenience. And also obviously the bigger the space, we do air condition. So we want to really cut down on the bottom space that we have to condition. So we want to stay a little bit lower. But yeah, you do lose some efficiency that way. Okay. And so now I know that you said you use water and your irrigate and you spray with water. But what is a nutrient source for the plants that they're being fed? I mean, I know that water is not enough. Yeah. So we use a pretty typical hydroponic fertilizer solution. It's a mixture of different nutrients that you can vary the concentrations depending on the plants. But like I said, it's a pretty standard one. It's in a liquid form. So we just dilute that in our water source and spray that on the plants. So it's not, it is inorganic nutrients, but it's all non-toxic and safe for consumption. Wow. And so, you know, I know that you grow and you mentioned aeroponics and hydroponics. So there's a big difference between the two of them. So you've blended, you've married the two systems together and you're using both systems with your growing in your farms. Yeah. So the aeroponics, I guess, is what we do in the lettuce room. We started off doing aeroponics for the microgreens that we're going to discuss later also. But what we found that with the microgreens, because they grow so quickly and have such short cycle times, that there wasn't much of an advantage to doing the aeroponics. And it's a little bit easier to run that system. Aeroponics really kind of takes off when you have longer term crops, things that would grow a lot longer, bigger root systems. And so where I got the idea to use aeroponics actually came from the cannabis growers who know everything about everything for growing plants in those. That's where you see a big advantage for aeroponics. But for the lettuce, we did some informal testing also and found that we can probably take about five days off of the growing time compared to even just regular hydroponics. Wow. All that really matters and I know the bottom line is the dollar, you know, the profit margin so that you can stay in business as well as supply the best quality for the right price to your customers. So I can understand. I mean, you thoroughly studied well enough with all your degrees and your experience. And I know you're putting it into a good purpose. So you're finding the best advantages of both systems while you're creating the best quality of food for the people of Hawaii. And I just wanted to congratulate you, Kerry, for your outstanding performance and always striving to reach those highest levels. And that's what's so cool about you. And you're just so humble about it as well. So Pat on the back to you, Kerry, you did a great job. Thanks. So let me see. Your systems of hydroponics, aeroponics, did you actually, when you went to school, were these systems in place? Did you actually study the systems or did you learn about them? And did you implement both and then through trial and error, you found what works best for you? So there was a little bit of mention. Again, plant physiology is a very sort of basic biochemistry. So it wasn't that much of a practical application in a lot of cases. So the hydroponics part kind of came afterwards. And now I know about plant nutrition. I know about how plants grow. I know about light requirements, how does it apply to actually growing plants. And so hydroponics is sort of the practical application of that. And a lot of it was trial and error. And again, the cannabis growers have studied this to some infinite degree, trying to optimize their growth. And before, when I first started looking at hydroponics, that was really probably the only crop that made sense. Lights were like a thousand watts each. You can imagine electricity to grow that with electric lights and you have to take care of the heat. Then you have to do this and you have to do that. So really it wasn't really practical to grow food crops using these kinds of systems. It wasn't until probably the LEDs started coming out and where we could get down the energy costs to a fraction of what the tip of the world lights were. That I think most vertical farms can go back and trace back to that event as being the impetus for starting a vertical farm. Well, so I am sure it's safe to say that you have a lot of friends in that field, right? As you guys share information. Some of them are kind of anonymous. They don't like to hear that much. Gee, I wonder why. But I have some friends, yeah. Yeah, some friends. Okay, we'll leave it at that. It's safe to say that your living lettuces and microgreens are the freshest, has more nutrients and is longer lasting and clean. And that's so critical a statement that should capture everyone's attention when we just talk about the safety features of your produce that you're producing. I mean, that in itself, I mean, yes, it's fresh. Yes, it's clean, but it's safe. Can you just address some of these features, Carrie? Yeah, sure. So the living lettuce is, as you saw that picture, there's a little plug of rooting material on that that we leave on the lettuce. So that contributes also to the freshness in that because the root plug is still there, you can actually stick that in water and keep growing. But we find that our lettuce can last almost a month in the refrigerator without much degradation at all. And because of the roots being there and they're still basically growing, nutrition decreases slower, so it should stay fresher and more nutritious much longer. And then because we're growing indoors and we don't water the plants from the top, there's really very little risk of any kind of contamination from the water. Our water source is municipal water that we filter to even make it even cleaner. There's that safety level and then of course everything's indoors. We handle everything with gloves. Our prep room is certified like a commercial kitchen. So we really feel very much aware of food safety and keeping everything clean. Wow. So I got to ask, I know you're, I've been to your place and it looks like a surgery room or operating room, but it looks very sterile. But have you ever had any bugs, like a little infestation of any kind of pests come your way? Yeah, so far I mean at my old location, first location we've had various kinds of pests. Even here there's always gnats and things flying around, but most of the bugs that get in there are things that are eating allergy and other degrading materials. So we don't really bother the lettuce. We haven't had any of the pests that normally are associated with, you know, posing the leaves or anything like that. So we don't have to use or don't want to use anyway. Any pesticides or herbicides to control that at all. Wow. Again, back to that safety lettuce, you've got the best, the cleanest of freshest. So come on Hawaii, let's jump on this and let's kind of just go towards that direction. Oh, sure. The key word is it's safe. You know, and I love that. So Carrie, I know you mentioned about microgreens. So what are microgreens and what varieties do you specialize in? So, yeah, we started off the microgreens are obviously when we first started our primary clientele, what were the restaurants. And so chefs were looking for microgreens, which are used commonly as a garnish. They're very pretty. They're basically the very young stage of all different kinds of plants. And so the definition, sort of technical definition is the first set of leaves that come out of a seed when you germinate are what they call seed leaves. They kind of look like the shape of the seeds. Most of the plants look the same. They're just a little round or oval shapes. But the true leaves, the ones that have the distinctive shapes come out a little bit later. So microgreens are usually harvested right when that first true leaf starts emerging. So you can at least kind of tell what kind of plant it is. And then the colors start coming out at that stage also. So like I said, they make very pretty garnishes sometimes mostly for the color or the shape. Other times is for the taste. When the pandemic came along and we started shifting more to online sales and direct sales to consumers, we started shifting some of our growing to more microgreens for nutrition purposes. What a lot of studies have shown is that microgreens have way more nutrients than the mature counterparts. Wow. So you eat less but you get more, yeah? Yeah, it kind of makes sense because they're very young so they haven't had a chance to grow very large, have lots of fiber, which is good too. But most of the plants just really concentrated nutrients because they're so young. And that's great that I never say thank you to pandemic or COVID for anything, but for something like that we're going to say mahalo because it really addressed the issue of health and nutrient intake. So your customers were looking for just like you said, something that had a bigger bang for their buck and brought them better quality of life through the food choices that they were making. And you again cutting edge and you were already prepared, you were prepared and you were preparing all of us to look towards those directions. So again, congratulations to you Kerry, right on. Always ahead of the game and that's where I like to play so that's why we get along. I've heard of microgreen. Sometimes they're called baby greens or Nalo greens are also salad toppers. I know that there's a craze out there for this and you know it's a trendy thing. So is this why you chose to farm and market the baby greens and then pandemic came and it just confirmed that you were in the right direction. Yeah, so we did some limited number of that, even for the restaurants and for supermarkets and things, but the big shift came when again we shifted more to consumer sales. So for example, we introduced a lot more of this micro mix, which are members of all the different brassica or cabbage family. So kale, kohlrabi, fizzuna, all those things that have a lot of the agents that all cabbage family plants have. And then we also started growing broccoli micro greens. And obviously, you know the health benefits of that. Once again, the broccoli micro greens have a lot more concentrated nutrition in them. Wow. You know, I know you like to go creative because you have that technology behind you you have that education behind you to go crazy. I'm just waiting to see and hear even more crazy things than what I saw in your shop. But what I appreciate are the things that I already know. So I know that you do specialty crops, and that excites you and it also excites people like me or foodies. So please share a little bit about some of them. Okay, so yeah, we, I think, like I said, the micro greens are a lot. We also do a lot of different shoots. So we have pea shoots and corn shoots. And those, the pea shoots actually we sell to Kulam farms, so they take a bulk of that. Then the corn shoots are pretty unique what they're kind of a golden color addition. But the shoots are a little bit bigger than micro greens. Or actually they're younger than micro greens, but they grow a lot taller. So they're good as salad toppers again as you mentioned. Chinese often do stir-fries with the pea shoots. That's another way of eating them also. But they're really good color and nutrition and sort of. And the flavor, you know, there's different flavors that come out of these shoots. And it's like, well, what was that, you know? Yeah, the corn shoots really unusual. Oh yes. That one is, you can see they're yellow and they're golden because we grow them totally in the dark. Right, right. That's the way actually the chefs use them. Because what happens is you don't get that big grassy taste. It's just super sweet. It just takes like really sweet corn kernels. And you know, that's what I wanted to say Kerry is, you know, that's one of my favorite garnishes. Every time I see that little sprout or the shoot on something, I always grab it and I just chew it. I close my eyes and I just enjoy it. And people are like, what are you doing? I'm like, okay, just do you know what this is? And they go, yeah, that looks like, you know, some grass or something. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I said, just put it in your mouth and close your eyes. They close your eyes and just chew on it. And I asked him, so what do you think it is? And they're like, I don't know. It's like, kind of tastes like corn. I don't know, but it's not corn because it's not green. So, and it doesn't look like kernels. So I said, yeah, but like nine times out of 10, they guessed it spot on. It tastes like corn. The little yellow shoots taste like corn. And so when I went to your shop, I was very impressed though that you, you gingerly take this time and make it through the natural process. It's yellow versus green. And again, can you just go through that step one more time, Carrie? Tell us how, because shoots are green, right? Although the shoots are green, but how do you keep them yellow like corn? Yeah. So we started the, you know, I think it was ever germinated seeds before. When it first comes out, it may not be very green, especially if there's not much light. So really it's the light that activates the photosynthesis. And that is the green pigment that we see in plants. So you grow a plant in the dark, total darkness. They usually are a kind of yellow color. And so same thing with the corn. They'll start off when we germinate them and they're in a dark tent. And we keep them in the tent for that whole time. And we actually have to be really careful about not letting light in or else they will start greening up. And once they start greening up, at least for the corn shoots, the flavor gets a little bit more like grass. And so it's not really desirable for the chefs that want to use it on their dishes. So we'll grow it and luckily grows very quickly. So from, it takes about eight days from seed to harvest. And in that whole time, it pretty much total darkness. And just when you take it out and we'll cut it real quick, take it back in the refrigerator, keep it in the dark. In fact, if you buy it and you leave it out of us in the light, you will turn green. Oh my gosh. Wow. That's amazing. I know we talk about a lot of your commercial accounts, but I know, I know that with COVID, let me just take you one year back, you know, in 2020. How has COVID affected your business, Carrie? So as I mentioned, yeah, we started this and we always thought, you know, restaurants would be our primary target at once. And it's, you know, again, they're looking for the specialty crops, which we focus on. And so when pandemic came and restaurants started closing down, I think we estimated about 75 to 80% of our revenue was gone. So, you know, we had to really pivot pretty quickly. Again, sort of our luck was that it was just at a time when we moved into this location. And so, you know, we're kind of ramping back up anyway. We had slowed down as we made the transition. So we just slowed down even more. Didn't really build out everything right away. And just started slowly ramping up as demand increased. And then when the, we switched to online sales really quickly, again, having my tech background helped a little bit. So we made the switch to online real quick. And then that helped to kind of tide us through. Wow. So being flexible in business really helps, huh? Yeah. And you know, I had also the same experience there. When I was running my chocolate factory, we focused on wholesale market and just wholesale. And then when the economy crashed, we went towards retail. And the blessing is that we realized that retail was even sweeter and made chocolate sales, even sweeter. So then we focused dominantly on retail. And then the whole sale was like a 25%. And then the 75% was the direct sales. And it was so much sweeter and wow. So sometimes when we make changes in adjustments, it really is to our benefit. So, you know, as of today, do you feel the upward motion of Hawaii's economy returning? I see the restaurants are booming again. And you've got weights and all of that. So what is, how do you feel? Do you feel the upward trend of the economy now, Carrie? Yeah, we're definitely improving restaurants. I've opened up a summer account. We've got some new accounts and some other chefs start to reach out. There's definitely a bit of shift though in the menus. Chefs are kind of still simplifying their menus. Carry over from when during the pandemic. So, you know, in a lot of cases things like microgreens, which are just sort of a garnish and just to make it look prettier, they aren't using as much. So I think it's going to be a somewhat of a change. Again, see how things are and focus on. Right. And so I know I was impressed and then, you know, I always want to say you're like a scientist in that room or what are you going to do? I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'll say I'm going to say, I'm going to say I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, yeah, you were introduced to me, you were coated to me, you're experienced as a scientist in that room, or what are you creating next? Right. But I guess this is something I've never seen or pasted before. So when I had the opportunity to, to are your urban farm, you shared with me something that I've never experienced. And I want to share it with everyone. So I want you to introduce the ice plant to everyone. these little sparkly things on the surface of the leaf and stems look like ice. That's how you got to get the name. They're actually cells filled with salt water. This plant is designed to take and grow in high salt conditions. So you'll take that salt water and sort of push them into these cells that can continue growing. And so that gives the plant a really salty and crunchy taste. I loved it. Yeah that people really enjoy. Yeah and it is pretty as different so it's like the curiosity and that's like like what is that? What is that right? So it's kind of like the seausparagus that we have here but softer, more succulent and a little bit less salt. It's cuter. It's really cute. Yeah so sushi bars, it goes a good with poke. I'll kind of see food. Well so I know everyone's getting excited. They're salivating on all this nutritious lovelies and I know they want to get started. So how would everyone get to know where you are and how can they start enjoying your own or fresh produce from Metro Grohawaii? Yeah so like I said we have an online ordering system so the best place to start is to check out our website at metrohawaii.com and you get information about us, what we have and we have an online store that's really easy to order and so we take orders throughout the week. We harvest today. We just got done harvesting. Wow. So as soon as I get off of this I got update inventory. Get back to work. Yeah very good. Tuesday afternoons you can really find out what we have and place your orders and pick up on Thursday right here at the shop or you can come to the farmer's market and award on Wednesdays and purchase there also. Wow I'll go there and look for you but unfortunately we ran out of time because of all this great food and great foodie talk but um we have to leave for now. You've been watching Taking Your Health Back on Something Tech Hawaii. Today we've been visiting with Kerry Kakazu, owner and head farmer of Metro Grohawaii, Vertical Indoor Hydroponic. Thanks for participating Kerry and thanks to our viewers for watching. I'm Wendy Lowell. We'll be back in a few weeks, actually two weeks, with another edition of Taking Your Health Back. Aloha and Mahalo Kerry. Thank you.