Meet the Modern Farmer: Tony Gibbons, Christopher Washington, and James Livengood

After several years in the restaurant business (including a stint as a maÁ®tre d’ at New York City’s Gramercy Tavern), Tony Gibbons is all too familiar with pre-washed, packaged salad. “At best, it’s flavorless. At worst, it’s slimy and inedible,” says the 30-year-old. So, in 2014, Gibbons and two friends, Christopher Washington, 34, and James Livengood, 29, developed that they call “living salad”: baby greens grown and then sold in trays filled with potting mix so customers can snip the mizuna, rainbow chard, or tatsoi as needed. “You’re not getting a forgettable side salad, but a really interesting part of the meal,” explains Gibbons.

The trio’s Radicle Farm Company also sells cut greens but ensures freshness by shipping only within a 400-mile radius of the company’s greenhouses in Newark, New Jersey, and Utica, New York. The guys hope to expand their operation to other parts of the country. First, though, they’re focused on educating consumers about their product: People have been known to plant Radicle’s living salads in the garden, by mistake, rather than harvest and eat them.