Friday’s Fresh Market is a hydroponic indoor growing farm that was founded in 2015 by Chen and Andrew Freitag in Davenport, Iowa, located on the Mississippi River in the Eastern Iowa state.
Chen met her husband, Andrew, 13 years ago in Shanghai, China and shortly settled in Iowa. When living back in China, Chen had access to many fresh seasonal produce but after moving to Iowa, Chen explained that her experience with the produce was not the best since the Midwest region has no access to fresh produce and was usually trucked in to Davenport across the country during the winter season.
Andrew had experience working at John Deere, an agricultural manufacturing company that manufactured agricultural, construction and forestry machinery that implemented traditional outdoor farming techniques and Chen was working at an international investment consulting company.
After struggling and being unsatisfied with produce that were not fresh, Chen and Andrew were motivated in coming up with a solution to help themselves and their community to have access to fresh produce all year long.
Andrew’s knew that the traditional way of farming was not an option for them after realizing how inefficient, unpredictable and unsustainable it was and how it was not the most eco-friendly option for the environment and for their project.
They had a major concern regarding soil and how contaminate and messy it can get and how it can deplete the nutrient of our natural land resources. They were concerned that the traditional way of growing would not be the most ideal way to provide fresh food in today’s world.
Research finally led them both in growing produce using indoor vertical hydroponic systems as a solution to their farming project and ventured into buying a container farm that was installed with ZipGrow™ Towers. They later on ventured to design and build their second indoor vertical hydroponic grow room with stacked levels of NFT channels to grow gourmet lettuce year-round.
Using the ZipGrow™ systems they were able to grow an abundance of a variety of produce that is sold locally at their retail market. Gourmet lettuce, herbs, baby kale , microgreens and edible flowers are some of the main produce that are grown at the farm.
Recently, Friday’s Fresh Market installed and designed a 60 ZipGrow™ Tower Farm Wall™ at their new home-a local Garden Center and has been an attraction to many local customers and to the community. Chen explains that it has been a very eye-catching and educational display for the customers in order to further help them understand how growing can be possible at an seemingly impossible place and method.
“The ZipGrow system works efficiently, saves energy and water and the system is a superior design”.
“Hydroponic systems are the future for farming and not many people realize how much money and space we save to grow the best local produce”.
Chen Freitag
Friday’s Fresh Market
Chen stated that they want: “Fresh Friday Market & Garden Center to set a leading example in the growing industry to introduce the importance and the value of growing using the indoor hydroponic system with LED lights”.
She further explained that it is not the consumers fault that in today’s world supply chain is broken and that they don’t have the direct access and support to local fresh greens, and she believes that using indoor hydroponics system is the solution to find the best sustainable and affordable way for their local communities to enjoy and benefit from local fresh produce year round and thus a better life quality.
Friday’s Fresh Market & Garden Center’s customers are very amazed by how fresh and healthy the produce are and, moreover, they are very satisfied with the fact that it does not contain chemicals or pesticides where is commonly inevitably used in traditional soil-based farming.
Chen and Andrew have future plans to continue expanding and improve local people’s lives with the indoor hydroponic system and help lead the growing industry by example in the most sustainable way to help both the community and the environment.
For more information about Friday’s Fresh Market please visit Friday’s Fresh Market or follow their Instagram page: @fridaysfreshmarket
Check out the list of the fresh produce grown at The Friday’s Fresh Market
