Farm Direct

Farm Direct is Hong Kong’s first Aquaponic vegetable market, where all the salad greens are locally grown and delivered fresh daily to town. I came across this shop through a friend’s recommendation as I’m a huge fan of butter lettuce.
The store is slightly bigger than a bathroom in a mid-​sized hk apartment– I’m guessing affordable rent in wanchai/​causeway Bay Area is hard to come by. However– they use the space well and I guess that’s what that matters.
Once you enter the glass door you are surrounded by walls of fresh salad greens: lush, billowy green and red butter lettuce, romaine lettuce, and other in identifiable salad greens with roots still intact. I highly recommend the butter lettuce: it’s tender, crunchy and smooth: the freshness is really hard to beat. As it’s grown in water, the leaves are very clean and only needs minimal rinsing before consumption.
In addition to salad greens they also sell a few other types of vegetables, some self grown, some outsourced, but all organic. As well, they also carry some pantry staples like pasta, olive oil, vinegar, and various salad dressings.
They are doing an ‘opening discount’ of buy 2 get 1 free, meaning at $ 70, you can have 3 bags of fresh greens, which is sufficient for a salad for 4 – 6 pax. If you look at it that way it’s actually a very good deal. However, I find that the lettuce heads are getting smaller and smaller (perhaps consumption is faster than growth? I don’t know). Farm Direct compensates by bagging 2 small lettuces together for the same price, but the quality of the vegetables seems to be lower than when they first open. Nonetheless, I will still support them as I feel that local farming should be encouraged.

I cannot recall how many times I have passed by Farm Direct on my way to Causeway Bay and thought ‘I’ll come by on my way back’. And I hadn’t…until last night.
The shop is on a corner and it stands out for the bright green color of its walls. The ‘green’ and ‘farm’ is what called my attention from the beginning and I assumed they mainly sold vegetables. Since they are very close to a wet market, I had always opted to have a look at the market first and then come by the shop, but I always ended up way to overloaded with bags of veggies and fresh fruit.
In fact, they sell vegetables but they have an added value and I was pleased to find out, finally. There were two very kind ladies at the shop, who didn’t speak much English but made a great effort to explain to me what their philosophy is: they grow hydroponic leafy greens in their farms located in Fanling. That means they don’t use soil in their production, only water that carries all the nutrients the seeds need to grow. Although they are not certified organic, they don’t use any harmful chemicals in the production and their seeds are non-​GMO. All their products (leafy greens mainly) are packaged with the ‘Farm Direct’ logo and come with a little pot so that they can stay fresh for 4 to 5 days in the refrigerator. They are a little pricey, around 35 to 40 HKD a piece.
Together with their greens (all kinds of lettuce that I didn’t know exist!) they have a few more food items on display: organic salads from IPC Foodlab, tomatoes from Holland, quinoa, croutons… But the bulk is made up by their farm produce.
Browsing around the shop it occurred to me they may also have some chia seeds, which I had been looking around for a couple of days. They didn’t but they noted the name and said they may source them sometime in the future.
Whether it was their kindness or the vibe of the place, I walked away with a ‘Lollo Red Lettuce’ that I chopped and had for dinner. On top of it being flavorsome, it just felt right to support Hong Kong local produce and producers. It may not be the place to shop on a regular basis for your weekly greens but it is worth paying it a visit from time to time.