Talk about planting the seeds of change – literally. GreenLoopFarms is a local urban farm for fresh, high-quality microgreens and veggies, that incorporates eco-conscious practices to upcycle and reduce waste in its operations. Its founder is NYP alumni Jason Tan, who graduated in 2021 with a Diploma in Electrical Engineering with Eco-Design (now known as Diploma in Electronic & Computer Engineering).

Jason and his team take pride in making sustainability a delicious endeavour by adopting the use of sustainable materials to grow their produce, such as upcycled milk cartons and coco peat, which is a super cool, nutrient-rich growth medium derived from natural byproducts of the coconut industry.

The ’Loop’ in GreenLoopFarms is all about putting every element of their harvest to good use. After microgreens are harvested, the spent coco peat is transported to our SPROUT garden on NYP’s campus, where earthworms break down the organic waste and coco peat into natural fertiliser.  

1. When did you start GreenLoopFarms?

GreenLoopFarms started as a home-based project in 2020, towards the end of the second year of my diploma, as I was finding ways to access fresh, yet affordable vegetables. While researching online, I came across the concept of microgreens – nutrient-dense, young vegetables that are harvested between 7 to 21 days. Leveraging on the fact that they don’t require much space and with shorter growing periods, it was easy to adopt a growing set-up at home. It grew from there and we incorporated the company shortly after entering my final year.  

2. What inspired you to start GreenLoopFarms?

It was the love of food and recognising the need for a balanced nutritious diet that inspired me to start GreenLoopFarms. Being exposed to fresh produce during my holidays to Japan and Australia, I found that it was difficult to find fresh, farm-to-table produce here in Singapore due to our reliance on imports. Wanting to have the accessibility to fresh vegetables that could complement our daily meals, I started growing my own microgreens at home. Thanks to my time in my diploma, I had good understanding of how to plan out the electrical aspect of indoor farming. The elements of sustainability in my curriculum also helped me gain insight on the industry that I’m in.

I was very fortunate that my lecturers, Mr Albert Sng, Mr Sim Tian Soon and Mr Lee Chuen Kum, were very supportive in my entrepreneurial journey and even directed me to the right opportunities both within NYP and with industry partners. We participated in incubators like the JumpStart programme which also played a vital role in our growth as business owners.

3. Share with us about some successes and failures in your business journey.

My journey with GreenLoopFarms has been a rollercoaster ride as we started the business with little knowledge of running a business and the agriculture industry in Singapore. 

In our first month of running our farm operationally, we were not careful about the produce that we brought into our farm. What seemingly was an innocent strawberry plant, led to the spread of a disease to our hydroponic systems. This set us back for another month for the start of our production as well as additional costs as we had to find ways to continue servicing our customers. It was through this experience that we learnt some of the vulnerabilities of running an indoor farm and we have been extra cautious since then.  

One of our notable successes would be our collaboration with Mercedes-Benz. Having run multiple events and outreach programmes, Mercedes-Benz approached us for a collaboration to show case bits of our farm in their Star Experience, a client engagement session. Through this collaboration, not only were we able to share the variety of tasty microgreens our farm offers, but also have started an on-going partnership with Mercedes Café, a cafe located within the Mercedes-Benz Center for showroom visitors, where we continue to collect their milk cartons to upcycle for our workshops. 

4. What's next for GreenLoopFarms?  

Our mission at GreenLoopFarms is to help people reconnect with the roots of their food. Experiencing how we have impacted visitors at our farm, we hope to have a bigger space where we can reach out to a wider audience. We are working towards building a Sustainable Experience Hub, where people would be able to learn more about the process of their food – while getting their hands dirty to harvest their produce and grow their own as well!