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How McDonald's and Fast Food Drive Hydroponics · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, the founder of Utrema Ltd.
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  As I say on every episode, we manufacture interesting fertilisers.
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  Novel biostimulants and organic biopesticides, which we sell all around the
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  world to businesses and direct-to-consumers in the UK and also, as of today, Ireland.
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  So if you're an Irish grower, check out utrema.co.uk for
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  some really interesting novel technology today i
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  want to talk about a different aspect of fresh
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  produce cultivation because on this podcast
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  i mentioned supermarkets a lot when it comes to fresh produce
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  production and high value supermarkets i mentioned
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  restaurants and high-end restaurants for novel crops like wasabi and things
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  like this but i also i want to just I don't want to underplay the role that
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  fast food has because some of the figures for the amount of fresh produce used
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  by fast food restaurants is crazy.
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  Now there are bespoke small operators in fast food so non-chain fast food restaurants
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  that do things like gourmet burgers and things like this where they use a lot of microgreens.
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  A company near me called Aquafarm they supply microgreens and edible flowers
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  to a number of fast food restaurants in the Leicester area shout out to them
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  but there are let's think about the really big boys things like McDonald's a
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  study showed that in Europe McDonald's.
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  Consume or their customers consume 65,000 tons of lettuce a year.
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  That's more than half the UK's annual lettuce production across Europe.
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  Or 20% of all of European iceberg lettuces go to McDonald's.
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  And in North America, when the Happy Meal introduced apple slices.
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  They instantly became the largest
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  single buyer of apples in the u.s
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  food service sector so that's colossal
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  so you think about it the dollars have got circa 40
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  000 restaurants worldwide and they
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  every burger comes through with probably with
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  exceptions obviously lettuce onions tomatoes those gherkins
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  so cucumber apples and
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  then some restaurants sell salads as well
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  but rarer in the uk for that
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  so they are certainly one of the
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  largest buyers of fresh produce on earth and it's
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  not just meat and starch heavy they are consumers of
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  vast quantities of crops and many of which will be grown hydroponically think
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  about other fast food restaurants like taco bell mainly us
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  focused although lots of restaurants appearing in
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  the in the uk now because it's
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  obviously tex-mex type food obviously lettuce tomatoes
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  onions again make up a very high proportion of their their menu but probably
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  not as much as mcdonald's on a per meal basis subway probably one of the highest
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  i would have thought because of the selection that you get Subway so there'll
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  be vast consumers of cucumbers,
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  peppers, lettuce and I mention this because.
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  Being able to look for alternative customers for your products could be you
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  know don't think outside the box don't always think supermarkets and and high-end
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  michelin star or you know,
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  gourmet restaurants because this is where the money is you know nando's in the
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  uk is an example that's chicken and chips and that that is one of the biggest
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  most profitable companies in the uk.
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  Now what chains have a high share of fresh
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  produce in the menu so we're talking about total volume mcdonald's
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  is the absolute key or subway in total tons
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  but what about the fraction of the menu that
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  is made up of fresh produce what's the highest proportion well obviously it's
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  going to be your sort of salad bowl and and you know things like just salad
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  salad works but also lots of Asian...
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  Chinese korean sort of not not
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  just standard chinese restaurants but the more healthier
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  options that you can get and panera bread which is very much a u.s based brand
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  not at all i've never seen one of those in the in europe but let me know if
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  you have probably one in london i would imagine then you've got things like
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  chipotle which will obviously have a lot of fresh.
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  Avocado i would assume for their guacamole i would
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  imagine that's made in store because guacamole that's pre-made
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  is pretty rank pizza hut is
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  an odd special case before 2012 pizza hut
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  was reportedly one of the largest purchases of kale in
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  the u.s but they used
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  it mostly as a decorative garnish on salad bars not as a menu highlight not
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  many people were actually eating the kale if they were they were probably in
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  for a surprise because they'd probably been there for quite a long time peterhut
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  is in a bad way in the uk and lots of the restaurants have closed down.
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  So there you go there's the if you were able to get a contract to supply one
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  of these large chains with a
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  particular vegetable or even fruit then you would be onto a massive winner,
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  and you would secure it for long term but as
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  i said previously it's very difficult to secure these sorts of contracts
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  as i've tried in the past when it comes to samphire when
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  i tried to grow that commercially as a sort of side project for the utreema
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  one of the many things i do often i set up small little trial companies to to
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  try doing different things try doing beneficial insects at one point and then
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  eventually i got persuaded to take up golf instead of doing these side projects during the winter,
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  because it was cheaper to play golf.
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  Unbelievably, it was cheaper to play golf than it was to set up these companies.
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  And I wasted less wasted.
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  Less money doing it i must be the only person in the world who takes up golf
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  in the winter and does it to save money there you go so not that i'm particularly good at golf.
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  But that that's been hydroponics daily for today a bit of a um side journey side project into,
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  fast food and their use of fresh produce
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  and hydroponically grown fresh produce many of it will be and
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  i'll just highlight that where we are now selling
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  direct to customers in ireland and Ireland is a
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  massive importer of fresh produce
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  lots of countries are but Ireland particularly and there's
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  massive opportunities for fresh produce and hydroponic
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  growers in Ireland because of this massive
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  import differential and the
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  the difference between the imports and the export in Ireland would be
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  even starker but it wasn't for the fact that lots of mushrooms are
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  grown in Ireland and that is classed as horticulture however
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  they're not plants they're more closely related to humans than they
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  are plants so really shouldn't be horticulture so
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  we're talking at least a sort
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  of 500 million pound export import gap for ireland for fresh produce so crazy
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  and they do import export a lot to the uk but as i say that's mainly probably
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  strawberries and mushrooms that is mainly focused on but if you know different
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  then please let me know and if you're an irish.
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  Hydroponic grower or potentially hydroponic grower then please do
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  get in touch and more than happy to help you out with any problems
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  or queries or questions you might
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  have about setting up or pest disease weeds problems
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  weeds challenges physiological issues anything
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  like that if you're already operating then just let
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  us know okay so that's been hydroponics daily for today if you've liked this
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  episode then please leave an apple podcast review if you're not an apple podcast
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  don't bother leaving a review because it doesn't help the podcast but do make
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  sure you follow the podcast and check out utreema.co.uk that's everything for
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  today thank you very much for listening and i'll see you again tomorrow.