Courtesy Foothills Farm
By Susan Elise Campbell
Looking back on their first full year of production, entrepreneurs Max and Nikki Poritzky have counted one ton of produce grown and distributed to restaurants and schools from their hydroponic farming facility, Foothills Farm, in Greenfield Center.
The farm is a 40-by-eight-foot container housing an efficient, vertical growing system that produces high quality lettuces and herbs using a fraction of the space of traditional farming.
The couple have backgrounds and careers in the field of nutrition and come from health conscious families, they said.
She studied nutritional biochemistry at UC Davis and was a commercial executive marketing dietary supplements, an industry in which Max also had an executive career spanning 25 years. He said his mother founded Wild Oats, the first health food store in Saratoga Springs.
“‘Let food be thy medicine’ might sound clichéd, but this is how our families live,” Max said.
The couple met in and resided in California and later while in Boston, their careers and life took a new trajectory. About six years ago Max was visiting a technology museum in San José and was exposed to hydroponic farming at a kiosk display.
“Hydroponic farming lets you grow nutrition-rich food year-round in any environment,” he said. “We were interested in the concept but didn’t know how or if to get into the business.”
