Food Pedalers’ business sprouts with Vancity investment

"I like it that we’re doing something innovative; we’re always trying something different and exploring." – Chris Thoreau, founder of Food Pedalers

Food Pedalers is an urban farm with a difference. Specializing in microgreens—sunflower, pea, buckwheat and radish shoots—founder Chris Thoreau ensures that every crop that leaves the farm receives the personal touch, as his team makes all their deliveries to restaurants, grocers and farmers markets by bike.

Vancity helped Food Pedalers with their initial growth through the Local Food Micro-Loan Fund via FarmFolk City Folk, and provided them an enviroFund grant for $37,000.

“We’re going to modify a shipping container using greenhouse principles, which will give us natural sunlight throughout the year and increase our production cycle from five to 12 months,” he says. “It’s going to help us build relationships with restaurants and farmers markets and it’s really allowing us to take that next step as a small business. I like it that we’re doing something innovative; we’re always trying something different and exploring. For a small organization like ours, $37,000 is a major game-changer.”