Michelin-starred Chef Dan Barber produces seeds through Row 7 Seed Company in part to enhance the flavor of vegetables.
Badger Flame beet slaw, made from beets from the Row 7 Seed Company.
Koignut squash is another variety offered by the Row 7 Seed Company.
Upstate Abundance potatoes from the Row & Seed Company.
Honeypatch Miso Crumble is a recipe that can be made from vegetables grown with seeds from the Row 7 Seed Company.
News Reporter
Koignut squash is another variety offered by the Row 7 Seed Company.
PITTSFIELD — When Michelin-starred Chef Dan Barber looks back for inspiration, he sees the Berkshires.
The summers and many weekends he spent at his grandmother’s Blue Hill farm in Great Barrington led him to devote his life to food. “I feel indebted to the Berkshires. The beauty of the place, its open space, the many farms dotting the landscape. It’s what inspired me to become a chef,” he said.
His personal experience with farms is also what’s inspiring his current venture: Row 7 Seed Company. Barber brings together farmers, chefs and seed breeders to find and refine new vegetables that will not only be shelf-stable, but also flavorful and nutritious.
Now he wants to add a fourth partner: grocery shoppers.
After spreading the new seeds among chefs and farmers, as well as several tests at Wegmans and Sweetgreens, four of these vegetables are coming to Whole Foods in the greater Boston area. Of the many plants tested, The Badger Flame Beet, Honeypatch Squash, Robin’s Koginut Squash and Upstate Abundance Potato were chosen for this first rollout.
If it works, the plan is to sell the vegetables nationally. For now, he hopes people in the Berkshires will buy his seeds for the next growing season.
Michelin-starred Chef Dan Barber produces seeds through Row 7 Seed Company in part to enhance the flavor of vegetables.
Barber thinks that a major obstacle to people eating more vegetables is because they’re made to be a dish’s supportive character.
“We don’t breed vegetables to be the main actors on our dinner plate; we breed them to be sideshows to the proteins,” he said.
Twelve years ago, he invited plant breeder Michael Mazourek and confronted him.
“Why do we need to add maple syrup or brown sugar or something else to make squash taste good? You’re a squash breeder. Why don’t you create a butternut squash that tastes good?” said Barber.
Mazourek was stunned.
“I’ve never been asked to breed anything for flavor,” he replied.
Barber remembers that exchange as “an extraordinary comment.”
He was shocked to learn that flavor, a quintessential quest in his fine-dining restaurants, was not a criteria.
Through more research, Barber came to understand how big the obstacle was.
“The people who determine seeds are selected from our big agribusiness companies and food processors and distributors,” he said. “It doesn’t lead to a tasty vegetable. Vegetables are selected for shelf life for long distance travel; all these other things that are not what a chef is looking for.”
Honeypatch Miso Crumble is a recipe that can be made from vegetables grown with seeds from the Row 7 Seed Company.
Since that conversation in 2010, seed monopolies have strengthened. In 2008, six companies controlled more than half of the world’s seed sales. In 2018, Michigan University professor Philip H. Howard, published an updated chart. It was now only four companies (Bayer, Chemchina, BASF and Corteva) that dominated the market.
Barber says that in this system most organic produce is at a disadvantage. “Organic farmers are growing conventional seeds. Seeds that were developed conventionally with chemicals,” he said. “That’s also the reason it’s more expensive.”
Out of this stark reality Mazourek and Barber founded Row 7.
Upstate Abundance potatoes from the Row & Seed Company.
To create better crops Row 7 asks for feedback from chefs and farmers. In the process, some seeds have been discarded.
“If the yield, the disease resistance or the agronomic characteristics are not strong, we don’t bring the vegetable forward into our seed catalog,” said Barber. “We’re not just looking for flavor, it has to be something scalable to a large number of people.”
Barber thinks the breeds Row 7 has created prove that you don’t have to give up on flavor to get shelf life and yield.
The vegetables Row 7 currently offers through Whole Foods are more expensive than regular and organic produce. For example, the Badger Flame Beets 1.5 pound bag costs $4.49, the Upstate Abundance Potatoes are priced at $5.49 also for a 1.5 pound bag.
Badger Flame beet slaw, made from beets from the Row 7 Seed Company.
Barber hopes to make it more affordable with time. “Conventional food has an r&d [research and development] advantage on organic. There’s so much money pouring into conventional seed production, that it’s much more efficient and much cheaper,” he said. “But what if we invest it in organic seed production? We’d have stronger organic plants and we have cheap organic food.”
Aina de Lapparent Alvarez can be reached at aalvarez@berkshireeagle.com.
Did you know the Berkshire Athenaeum offers free seeds for library members?
News Reporter
Aina de Lapparent Alvarez is a news reporter at The Berkshire Eagle. She graduated from Columbia Journalism School.
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