Small Green, Big Vision

It's ostensibly a horticultural business, but the first thing you notice when you turn in the gate at Gibbston Microgreens isn't a paddock or a tunnel house: rather, the hum of a carefully managed indoor farm, tucked into a tight cluster of specially developed containers.

Step inside one of these containers and you'll find vertical racks stacked six levels high; neat trays in rotation; LEDs glowing over crops destined to become a finishing flourish on a plate.

For Gibbston Microgreens founder, Chris Wilkinson, that contrast is the point: "Most people think if you grow microgreens, you're growing them out in your garden," he says. "But actually, it's quite scientific. It's a laboratory-like environment for the most part – very clean, very efficient, but also very fresh."

Chris didn't arrive at horticulture through a life spent on a family farm or via an agronomy degree. Instead, the spark came during a stint in hospitality, about 12 years ago, while working at Queenstown's Sherwood Hotel – a community-minded place that treated its market garden as a lesson in food resilience and provenance.

"It's a cool environment because you have a customer looking out over the garden at everything growing and they click: 'Ah, that's where the potatoes and the leafy greens in my meal come from. That's where they get the mint tips for the cocktails'."

One afternoon a chef and good mate at the Sherwood made Chris an offhand offer: grow him some microgreens and he'd buy them. Chris started experimenting at home in his flat on a simple kitchen rack. Small beginnings, but he says microgreens immediately made sense on several levels.

"They're aesthetically pleasing, they're very nutrient dense and, crucially, they're hyper-perishable: in this region where we're a long way from major growing centres, chefs want them grown here so they're fresh."

Soon, with Chris's early output sitting in trays of living greens on the pass at the Sherwood, chefs would "snip and serve", and diners could see freshness being added to their meals in real time.

The hotel's sustainability ethic also sharpened his instincts for the less glamorous parts of food: packaging, transport, and waste.

He remembers deliveries arriving with plastic liners that served no real purpose and was satisfied when he came up with a method of eradicating them. Today, the company's signature 'living trays' are returnable; the growing medium used to nourish the microgreens is made up of natural fibre that can be composted or worked back into the company's developing food forest outside.

Just as important was how Chris chose to sell. Rather than disappearing into a wholesale chain, Gibbston Microgreens delivers directly, building a relationship with the people who plate their product.

"I'm quite a people person," he says. "If there's a problem, you tell me, I'll resolve it that day. In a small town where word travels fast, the producer becomes someone you know, not just a logo on the side of a box."

Central Otago is a place of extremes: picturesque scenery, yes. But also dramatically contrasting seasons that can be brutal on tender crops.

"When it comes to food production in Queenstown, it's hard… it can be really extreme. Good for wine though!" he laughs.

After dabbling with a small glasshouse insulated with bubble wrap and a heater, the anxiety of temperature swings pushed Chris toward a more controlled environment. His solution was disarmingly practical: repurposing end-of-life refrigerated containers.

Inside, vertical tiered racking multiplies the footprint. In two of the containers, he says, the space is "times six" – a neat example of what happens when you treat space constraint as a design brief. The operation has grown deliberately, container by container — one for a year, then a second, now five on site, including a packhouse and a central walk-in chiller.

Chris talks about the operation's layout the way a chef talks about a kitchen: every step costs.

"Time is money and every time you're walking around, every step is a cost," he affirms.

The work is also relentless. Microgreens don't pause for weekends, and the business runs seven days a week. Today Gibbston Microgreens consists of two full-time staff, with a former team member managing its social media. The company, he says, is small enough to feel personal, but big enough to keep up with demand.

'Local' is also more than a buzzword for Chris: it's a logistical consideration.

"We're hyperlocal. We don't even go to Cromwell or Wānaka. Some clients swing by to pick up on their way through the Kawarau Gorge, but most are reached on a tight delivery schedule that minimises the distances so we can keep quality really high."

The 'direct delivery' model also keeps the feedback loop tight. "That's your market research," he says, describing the casual conversations at the kitchen door that turn into new trials. Such relationships have also evolved into an 'artisan collective' delivery run where, along with microgreens, Chris helps distribute other local, nutrient-dense products like mushrooms, honey, and delicate edible flowers that add pops of colour to cakes and cocktails.

Chris talks about a future that includes more on-site food production beyond greens, including seasonal fruit and nuts, maybe even livestock one day. But he remains guided by what's commercially realistic and what strengthens the local Queenstown food system.

In a region built around hospitality, he believes food can be both product and lesson – an invitation to get curious and support the people growing things nearby, and back practical solutions to waste. It's why, even on frantic delivery days, he tells his team to slow down.

"I always say 'never rush a chat'. Because that's building our brand and that's something that's unique to us over the big guys. It's also how we learn. I wouldn't want the company to run and evolve any other way."