KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Many restaurants in the Kansas City area embrace the “farm-to-table” concept, promising diners the finest dishes with local, fresh ingredients.
Where is the farm that is supplying the table?
One farm is located in the Crossroads Arts District of Kansas City, Missouri. Missing Ingredient is an urban farm that supplies food to more than 20 restaurants and makes almost 80 deliveries a week.
Rows of various greens, microgreens and tiers of flowers fill the room of the urban garden. Ladybugs patrol the plants to keep unwanted pests away.
“These products are all non-GMO, herbicide, pesticide, fungicide free,” said Joey Carr, the co-founder of Missing Ingredient.
Carr and and his partners noticed food consistency and delivery while working in the restaurant industry, believing things could be handled a better way.
“We started floating around the idea and we spent a lot of time in research. We researched local food, we researched grocery stores, just everything that was going on in those spheres and sort of came to the conclusion that it could be done differently — that everything doesn't have to come on a train or an airplane, and there might be a real business to be able to be made out of it,” Carr said.
What started in a basement quickly became a booming business. Missing Ingredient hopes to expand into a larger space to meet the demands of a growing clientele.
“What you’re going to see ultimately from Missing Ingredient is going to be a larger footprint in the restaurant industry, but then also see our products on grocery store shelves,” Carr said.
More information can be found on Missing Ingredient’s Facebook page.
