4 minute read
Crunchy
Words by Helena O’Neill
Bibhas (Benji) Biswas has turned his family home into an urban farming operation
A need to introduce local and responsibly grown micro herbs, micro veges and edible flowers to Invercargill plates is the driving force behind the urban farm Crunchy.
In 2019, Bibhas (Benji) Biswas turned his family home in Invercargill into an urban farming operation. “My wife was pregnant, the baby was coming, and I wanted to resign from my job. So I started researching what I could actually do. I realised most of the products here come from Christchurch or further north. Then restaurants would complain that the product was not top quality. It would lose so much of its shelf life.”
“The whole thing started in the garage, gaining a little bit of experience from growing seeds. My wife Liv got scared because I’ve never been a farmer before.”
Fast forward two years and Crunchy is now supplying more than 40 restaurants, cafés, hotels, and shops. Bibhas is also planning to get into supermarkets. “We started with one or two microgreens, and then we learned how to grow sprouts. We now grow five different kinds of sprouts. Then we learned how to grow lettuces.” “There are no pesticides, no sprays on our food. We’re creating a whole system that can reduce the food mileage and also increase food quality.” Starting a business shortly before the Covid-19 pandemic also came with its challenges. When government restrictions came into force last year, Crunchy was solely supplying restaurants. “It was challenging. We were shut and so had no income. We still needed to pay the rent and all those other costs. We had to stop and think about how we would change our strategy.” “At the end of the day, you have to be creative and innovative to be able to work through whatever situation arises. We came out really strong. We grow more microgreens than before Covid, we grow more sprouts than we ever did, and we grow more lettuces than we ever did.”
His engineering background is proving useful, allowing him to design his own indoor climate control growing system for the vertical farm. He says five shelves are producing almost 1,000 heads of lettuce a week. “Now we’re also growing outdoors in grow bags, about 5,000 grow bags allowing us to grow 1,000 heads of lettuce a week out there.”
He is trialling just under 2,000 red and yellow raspberry plants, as well as experimenting with courgettes and mushrooms.
Right now the urban farm is split between vertical farming indoors, and the outdoor operation in grow bags. In the next 12 months, Bibhas plans to move towards a commercial operation with tunnel houses. Bibhas also works as a personal coach with the goal of helping empower people. Late last year, he self-published a children’s book called Arya and the Boatman and has plans to write more books. Hailing from a village in the Indian state of West Bengal, he came to New Zealand eight years ago and only learned to speak English after arriving here. In 2012 Bibhas became a qualified electronics and instruments engineer in India. “I was mad on my cricket.”
He wanted to play cricket and a friend recommended that he go to New Zealand. Much to Bibhas’ surprise he successfully gained a scholarship from SIT (Southern Institute of Technology). The John Wright Sports Scholarship covered the first year of study fees but not travel or living costs. The scholarship is named after former New Zealand cricketer and Indian coach John Wright. “I was brought up in a very poor family back in India and I didn’t have that sort of money. So I went to one of my uncles and asked if he could help me out. He sold some land and gave me the flight money. I had less than $200 in my pocket.” With little English he struggled to find a job, eventually finding work washing dishes in a restaurant. After a year he got a job as an activities coordinator at ILT Stadium Southland where he worked with children for four years. “My work with the kids, that’s where I learned my English. I’ve learned a lot.”
Playing cricket while studying was a dream come true, and he continues to play for a Southland team. In 2018 he left ILT Stadium Southland to start his own company, Be Champion, offering professional development through personal coaching and mentoring. A year later he started Crunchy. “It has been a great journey, the past eight years have been life-changing.”
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