Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Poltorak.
Alex, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
While working with Chicago Public Schools as an Education Pioneer Fellow in 2010, I explored how nutrition affects children in school. If a child can’t get enough to eat or lacks healthy food options, concentrating on and succeeding in school become secondary concerns. The clearest evidence of this was low overall graduation rates in Chicago, especially in minority communities that were struggling with consistent access to healthy food and issues surrounding poverty more broadly.
Seeing that Chicago has an abundance of “available” space I dreamed of utilizing these idle rooftops, vacant lots, and empty buildings in urban environments to grow fruits & vegetables as a way to attack this problem directly within communities. We started The Urban Canopy with a vision of helping to create a sustainable and equitable food system. To make this lofty vision more achievable, we break it down into more measurable missions of A) Community/Health, B) Environment, C) Local Economy. How can we feed people, while being better stewards of the environment, and creating job opportunities in a more resilient local economy.
Immediately after the fellowship, we started constructing the first components of our idea in the Spring of 2011. An initial Kickstarter campaign helped raise about $12,000 for a pilot rooftop and indoor farm, which included a simple composting system, hydroponic grow towers, 2 beekeepers with 5 hives, a small wheatgrass production system, and even our first 3 Community Supported Agriculture members. Over the last 7 years, The Urban Canopy has grown to a team of over 20 passionate people leading the company’s several “branches” of operations detailed below.
Has it been a smooth road?
Of course, not, there have been many struggles and obstacles along the way. We are constantly growing and evolving which presents new and unique challenges at every turn. However, this is the beauty of a local food cycle. We are not interested in creating an inflexible system that growers, retailers, or consumers have to fit into. We are more interested to respond to the needs of our communities and adjusting. We want to maintain flexibility so that we can be responsive to our customers, crew, and the communities we serve at large.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
We are pioneering the local food cycle to create a more sustainable and equitable food system in Chicago. We are growers, distributors, composters, and community partners who seek to directly impact our city for the better. We strive to make local healthy produce more accessible to all, reduce the miles fresh food travels, and create and maintain local jobs.
Founded in 2011, The Urban Canopy is comprised of five main programs which include our IFarm (indoor farm), OFarm (outdoor farm), LUCSA (Local Unified Community Supported Agriculture), Farmers Markets, and Compost Club. Our IFarm grows wheatgrass, microgreens, and is where our seedlings start off; it is also the oldest of The Urban Canopy programs. Our OFarm is the core of our organization. We grow many different varieties of greens, fruiting and root veggies. This fuels our LUCSA and Farmers Market programs. LUCSA is a CSA delivery service that partners with other local producers to deliver a well-rounded share to our members weekly or bi-weekly. Each share includes bread, mushrooms, eggs, and a rotating beverage in addition to seasonal fruits and veggies. It is a collaborative effort among many different producers, artisans, and food businesses. Our Farmers Market program reaches the widest customer base throughout the summer season. From as far north as Rogers Park to as far south as Roseland you can find an Urban Canopy booth set up at a market 6 days a week. Finally, Compost Club is likely our most popular program. It is a residential, commercial, and event composting service that can be enjoyed by all. Whether you live alone in an apartment, work in a large corporate office, or are just throwing a dinner party we can provide composting services for you. We deliver and pickup compostables from hundreds of individual residences around the city and are expanding our zones constantly.
What sets us apart and what we are most proud of is our crew and culture. Our organization is designed around a tree analog. The roots are the values and principles we pride ourselves on and that inform our decision-making process. The Trunk is a group of individuals that execute tasks that impact all the different branches (programs). The Trunk is responsible for making long-term developmental decisions as well as executing tasks that another crew depends on. The Branches are our programs: OFarm, IFarm, LUCSA, Farmers Markets, Compost Club. The leaves of the tree are all the different customers and communities we serve. This analog helps our organization internalize that we are all connected and the operations of one branch influence the rest of the tree. In addition, our crew also participates in multiple branch operations and decisions. We all are apart of everything because what one person does impact the entire team. Transparency and open communication are the foundation for how we make this type of interdependency work on a daily basis. We consistently check-in with each other about how our day is going, provide feedback, and make suggestions for future improvements or new projects. We all flow from one branch to the other and witness the food cycle at different stages every day.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Chicago is a booming place for food businesses and anyone starting out can find their niche. Our advice would be to find something that no one else is doing and do it well – frankly, do it the best you possibly can. Our city is a big place with lots of room for new organizations to thrive you just have to find where you fit best.
Pricing:
- Residential Compost Club Services starting at $15 – $35 depending on frequency
- Commercial Compost Club Services starting at $15 – $75 depending on frequency and bucket size
- LUCSA shares full season membership $42/share – $48/share depending on frequency and payment type
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.theurbancanopy.org/
- Email: info@theurbancanopy.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theurbancanopy/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheUrbanCanopy/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheUrbanCanopy
Image Credit:
Matthew Bowie Photography
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
