Going Leafy Green

Sustainable lettuce farms stock SPS salad bars.

BY JACQUELINE PRIMO LEMMON

The next time your child fills up their plate at the salad bar in Coit Dining Hall or Grab n’ Go, they just may be piling on lettuce grown from one of the six self-contained hydroponic lettuce “farms” that FLIK Dining Services is harvesting from this year. These hydroponic units, housed onsite in the former Kwok Café Bakery, are the latest addition to the School’s food-focused sustainability efforts to help reduce food and water waste on the grounds. Each unit can produce up to 35 pounds of lettuce per month — that’s nearly 200 pounds of soil-free, organic lettuce monthly!

“We have done one full harvest of lettuce and one harvest of basil, out of which we made pesto over the summer and froze to use on our salad bar throughout the year.”

— Chandler Veilleux, FLIK Assistant Director of Dining Services

As the School’s dining services partner, FLIK is dedicated to supporting SPS’s food-related sustainability initiatives. In 2022, the School became the first organization in the state to install a Grind2Energy system, which captures kitchen and post-consumer food waste and converts the compost into energy. Choosing locally grown produce such as FLIK-grown lettuce  — and not putting more on their plates than they will eat — is an easy and tasty way all students can contribute to the School’s sustainability efforts.