Newcastle Greens: The cutting edge of culinary suppliers

“Taste one” offers Dylan Abdoo, who is Brown’s life partner and business partner, as he hands me a tender leaf.

“It’s pink orach, a mountain spinach,” Brown says. “A crystal salt forms on the back of the leaf. It’s got a slight salt flavour. It’s really vibrant.”

Welcome to a chef’s paradise, the engine room of Newcastle Greens (yes, that’s right, that’s the name of the business – no connection to any political party), a small commercial garden dedicated to raising exotic microgreens.

Brown and Abdoo started the business in 2013, moving to Newcastle to escape the high cost of living in Sydney. The couple met while both working in hospitality at the Sydney Opera House. Abdoo’s family had property in Wingham, Brown’s grandparents had lived on a property in Bulahdelah.

They landed in Waratah, the house having a suburban back yard with green grass and an aggregate driveway. While Abdoo had a job as a chef, Brown focused on growing microgreens. They built their first greenhouse tunnel for about $3000.

The first crop was wheatgrass, bound for the Sydney cafe scene. 

“Our first order was 14 trays of wheatgrass,” Abdoo recalls. “We drove to Sydney to sell it. We were charging $11 a tray. We weren’t making anything.”

 Nobody in Newcastle wanted wheatgrass – the couple ended up serving a lot of it to their chooks.

They proved they could grow microgreens, it was just a matter of refining what chefs wanted. Brown operated the garden on her own, and was always browsing through seed catalogues for rare plants that taste great. Abdoo was working as a chef, running two kitchens. But about 18 months ago, he came into the business full-time.

Now they grow more than 30 varieties of microgreens and 15 varieties of edible flowers, tantalising chefs with the cutting edge of tiny taste sensations. Chickpea shoots, popcorn shoots, sunflower shoots, mizuna, red vein sorrel, radish, red clover,  linarias (flowers), brassicas. They offer a plethora of rare leaves and flowers and specialty lines, nearly all of them which they raise themselves from seed.

Their customers include Muse Dining, Restaurant Mason, EXP, Scratchley’s, Apothecary Kitchen, Talulah, several hotels and cafes in Port Stephens, Hawks Nest, Newcastle and the Central Coast.

From their modest beginnings, Newcastle Greens now have more than 70 customers and deliver 1400 boxes (each full of microgreen punnets) every week. They supply two wholesalers with a good chance of more clients in the near future.

“We always want to keep the direct connection,” Abdoo says. “We sell it, we want to make sure we know where it is going – not sitting in cool rooms. If it ends up hanging around in cool rooms or in transit, it’s not going to end up being what we want it to be.”

They grow and deliver exotic shishito capsicums to Tetsuya’s in Sydney and Muse. They grew half a dozen rare cucumber varieties last year, including Mexican sour cucumbers (which look like miniature watermelons) and Sikkims (which look like brown dinosaur eggs). They have two new types of kale underway and are raising Romanesq broccoli seedlings (which look like bright green succulents).

On Sunday Brown delivered a box of freshly-grown punnets of Empress of India nasturtiums to cooking guru Christine Mansfield in Sydney for a food photo shoot. 

Meanwhile, on Sunday Abdoo was in the kitchen at Scratchley’s, preparing one course for the 2017 HMRI Gastronomic Lunch that included local beef, cipollini onions from Tasmania, white shiitake mushrooms from the Blue Mountains, and a sauce made from Newcastle Greens own herbs and wild garlic they had hand-picked. 

One of their proudest success stories is the Lamborn pea tendril. The tendrils come from the Lamborn snap pea plant. The variety is grown for its tiny, delicate branches, rather than the leaves. It has a very sweet, hollow stem and is used in Michelin-star restaurants overseas. 

Developed by renowned botanist Calvin Lamborn on his Idaho property in the US, this variety of snap pea is known for its leafy green foliage, small shoots and lack of spindly tendrils. 

After 12 months of negotiation, Newcastle Greens secured an exclusive Australian supply of Lamborn seeds for five years. Newcastle Greens’ first season’s crop of Lamborn pea tendrils went to Muse Dining, with chef Troy Rhoades-Brown enthusiastically backing the project. A beautiful illustration of the Dr Calvin Lamborn pea tendril adorns Muse Dining’s autumn menu.

“It’s taken a big hold,” Abdoo says. “Everyone wants it.”

They will soon be adding two more colourful varieties of Lamborn snap peas.

While Brown and Abdoo are the first to admit there has been much trial and error in their business model, they have made several key decisions that have been vital to the growth of the business.

While they are both dedicated to the growing task, they have taken on additional staff to help with the manual-intensive tasks, from making soil, to planting punnets, gathering seeds, and packaging (grown-out punnets in boxes) orders.

“We have a quick growing product, but you have to be hands on all the time,” Abdoo says. “Obviously, when we first started, we went into it blind . . . none of it was calculated. We always want to grow something different, we are always trialling new things.”

The couple also realise each has different strengths: Brown is a gardener, excels at packaging flowers and has an uncanny knack for scouting seed varieties that chefs want (or want to have once they see them). She also takes care of the paper trail to import seeds, like phytosanitary certificates.

Abdoo, with a chef background, is the main point of contact with customers, talking directly to chefs about their wants and needs.

“They [chefs] appreciate someone coming in and talking to them,” Abdoo says. “They all want something different in the flavour department. I remember when I was cooking, if someone came to the back door of the kitchen, like me, I’d be like ‘can you grow this for me? Where do I get this?’”

Abdoo also makes trips to the Sydney markets and acts as a direct produce buyer for several key restaurant accounts.

Further, he has developed relationships with other farmers and is now buying some bigger produce items (like pumpkins and cabbages) direct from Hunter farms and growers for restaurants. He also sources raw product, like garlic, for some budding chef entrepreneurs.

The backyard operation has grown from one tunnel to two tunnels, plus an outdoor garden they use for themselves and to harden up seedlings that will be grown on farms. 

They have expanded to two plots in Cooranbong where they are developing a 1000-square-metre market garden. They have a business relationship with the Cooranbong landowner, who also has two large (60-metre) growing tunnels where they supply seedlings to him and then buy them back at maturity.

Newcastle Greens has always been committed to growing products in soil – the main suppliers in the industry grow product hydroponically.

Abdoo is convinced they made the right decision to go with soil.

“They [our plants] stand up for themselves” he says. “If you take ours out, they will last a week without water. But with the hydroponic set-up, they just fall apart straight away. Once you cut them, there is no body. Kitchens cut ours live. Everything is sold living.”

Watering was another lesson learned the hard way. When they first began, they watered from the top.

“That didn’t work,” Brown says.

“We realised we were ruining the leaves,” Abdoo says. “Once you are introducing water from above, you can have all sorts of problems. You want those leaves, once they are going, and the roots have tapped through, they take all their water from underneath.”

“And you save water by having them in trays,” Brown continues. “You put water in, they take what they need and then you fill them up again. Sometimes we take a liquid seaweed or a powdered seaweed to feed some if you want to go on longer, for the baby leaves.”

With 30 varieties of microgreens, each requires a different pH level and different soils. 

“We have to make all of our soils in a cement mixer, we are rolling soils 13 times a week,” Abdoo says. “We need a good consistent mix. We have soil recipes like chefs have cake recipes. We have to screen soil ourselves. There is no real book on it, no model for this.”

The microgreens grow quickly, going from seed to ready for packaging within four to five days. In summer they grow quicker, and the demand is higher as restaurants are busier. There is little margin for error.

“Twice we’ve had to ring people and say, the numbers just aren’t there, you are going to have to get your product elsewhere,” Abdoo says. “They all do, they all understand, they all jump back on board when we are back up.”

On top of all of the work, the couple have been raising a son, who is now 5. Brown’s teenage daughter was also part of the household until she recently moved into her own place.

The couple are grateful for the support they have received from the industry.

“Newcastle has been great, it’s been so supportive,” Brown says.

On the flip side, they are unsung heroes, supplying that extra special ingredient, local and fresh, to an industry hungry for the best.

The enthusiasm for this project, already four and half years in, has not faded one bit for this couple.

“It’s so exciting, going from cooking to this,” Abdoo says. “It’s a whole different ballgame. It’s new. Honestly, I get off on it.”