fresh herbs from Irma
/The large Irma food store alongside the railway station at Østerport in Copenhagen is now selling herbs that are grown in the store and they are growing in full view in the middle of the vegetable section immediately inside the entrance.
There is a large double cabinet with a hefty black frame but with glass on the sides and in both the doors. It looks a bit like the normal cool cabinets used now in many food stores to keep salad stuff fresh although here there are four shelves in each half and on each shelf a turntable but instead of a flat platter these turntables have grooves or channels that spiral out from the centre.
Herbs are sown in a growing medium in a small plastic pot …. cone-shaped and just over 30mm high and internally just 25mm across internally at the top and with a small lip that holds the 'pot' in its place on the turntable. There is no bottom to the cone …. that's where the roots grow out.
In the pots at the centre of the turntable there are just a few shoots breaking out but as they are turned under lights they move outwards and grow as they go so the finished plants are harvested from the edge. The full growth period is three weeks and the cabinets are planted half a week apart to provide a continual harvest.
Plants taken from the outer rim are put in a waxed brown-paper cone with labelling and set out for sale on shelves across the front of the unit.
At the moment the store is growing Greek basil, Italian basil, coriander and parsley.
The herbs are about as clean as any natural product can be; there are no synthetic pesticides and the system is said to use 95% less water than growing the herbs in a glass house and there should be little or no waste …. both for the store who can judge uptake or for the customer.
The whole system comes from the German company Infarm.
It was launched officially on the 21 November 2019 by the Danish Food Minister Mogens Jensen.
oh ….. and that plug of basil in the last photo …. enough to go with fresh pasta and pine nuts that night and a tomato salad the night after.
