Area farmer provides leafy greens for Owensboro businesses

April 1, 2020 | 12:05 am

Updated March 31, 2020 | 11:41 pm

McLean County farmer Andy Seymour has been growing and selling leafy greens year-round to businesses in Owensboro since 2019.

Trunnell’s Farm Market, Gene’s Health Food and Gourmet Meals to Go can get healthy vegetables from him locally, even during winter.

It’s possible because of hydroponics.

These local businesses would have to turn to California, for example, to get their greens without Seymour.

“We don’t sell any other greens from anybody else presently,” said Andrew Keller, owner of Gene’s. “He gets quality products. I think he has a really good thing going.”

Seymour Farms is a hydroponics greenhouse located about 30 minutes south of Daviess County.

Seymour, who said he has always been passionate about building things, put a plan in place when his wife suggested in 2017 that they start a business with a greenhouse.

“Once I felt I had a system down that I could produce something that made a difference, like it was better than you could buy at the store year-round, I would take ziplock bags with our lettuce or our herbs and give it to friends and family to try,” he said.

It instantly became a hit and people wanted more, Seymour said, and soon he went door to door to every restaurant and store in town, and the business blossomed.

Seymour has since been growing lettuce, herbs, greens and kale in the greenhouse.

Growing produce hydroponically gives farmers the ability to eliminate soil-borne diseases and also eliminates the need to use chemicals that are commonly used in conventional agricultural practices.

“Nothing ever touches our leaves,” he said. “It’s very important to us that nothing touches our leaves. So you won’t see anything like blemishes.”

This was exactly the reason why Katie Wimsatt, owner of Gourmet Meals, said she started doing business with Seymour from the get-go.

“He has a wonderful product,” Wimsatt said. “I actually prepared some salad and sandwiches that he sold at the market. I probably will look forward to doing that again this summer or spring, hopefully, once this madness is underneath (us). ”

Seymour said this and other factors such as growing method, being locally grown and guaranteed long shelf life is what sets his farm apart from competitors.

In the future, Seymour said he plans to expand to other items of produce according to market demand.

April 1, 2020 | 12:05 am

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