A group of students at St Mary’s College in Wellington is tackling New Zealand’s sustainability issues using microgreens.
The five year 12 students, Antonia Gray, Rae Lyons, Amie Whitney, Rachael Bakhos and Hannah McLellan, have become Sprout It, a young enterprise team bringing microgreen growing kits to the market.
CEO Antonia said they developed the product to try and help people get more nutrients in their diet.
“Microgreens have almost 40 times more nutrients that their grown counterparts, like broccoli.”
“We also wanted to be sustainable, we’ve got a reusable glass container, so everything is biodegradable, recyclable.”
The team decided to reuse insulation mats from My Food Bag boxes as wool growing mats. The kits also come with seeds, recipes and information cards about the microgreens.
The team hoped to sell their kits at the Harbour Side markets, and were donating some profits to KiwiHarvest, which collects food that would otherwise go to waste and distributes it to people who need it.
Amie said she had always wanted to do young enterprise.
“You get really hands-on business knowledge, which as a 16-year-old is quite valuable, and you don’t get many opportunities to get into the business world this early on.”
“It’s hands-on,” Antonia said, “we have to make and sell a product ourselves”
Rachael said it was making a product for a year-10 market day that inspired her to do Young Enterprise.
“There is so much you don’t realise, you look at a business and see the product, but actually being behind the scenes, there is so much more that goes into it.”
Rae said she wanted to do something in the business world when she finished school, so it gave her a chance to test the waters and see whether she enjoyed it.
As for Hannah…”I kind of got dragged into it, but I actually really enjoy it. I did economics in year 10, and I haven’t done it since. Having the opportunity to do this is really interesting and fun.”
The girls recommended people give Young Enterprise a try if given the opportunity.
“Its so worth it,” Aime said.
The students are selling their kits via email, [email protected].
Source: stuff
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