Microgreens Growing for Restaurant Wholesale Accounts
Originally published Sep 5, 2026 — Business Cortex
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Grow microgreens (sunflower, pea shoot, amaranth) in trays under grow lights in a garage or spare room, selling on standing weekly wholesale orders to two or three restaurant accounts rather than trying to build a broad consumer customer base.
Heavy-duty 10x20 trays start around $15, and a full garage-scale rack with shelving and grow lights runs $500-700. Real cost per tray (seed, medium, power, water, packaging, and labor at $20/hour) comes to $5-7. Sunflower trays retail $18-22, pea shoots $16-20, amaranth $25-35, with margins running 66-79%. Growers target $25-40/tray wholesale — 10 trays/week nets roughly $108, 50 trays/week around $490. The presenter warns that overwatering or dense sowing causes mold that can wipe out an entire tray (and miss a delivery) in a single afternoon.
Someone with reliable indoor growing space who's willing to build 2-3 solid restaurant relationships and treat consistent delivery as the core of the business rather than trying to sell broadly to consumers.
The margins are genuinely attractive and the space/equipment requirements are modest, but the presenter is honest that the failure mode is both fast and total — a single contaminated tray from overwatering can take out an entire week's crop and cost you the account, so this rewards careful, consistent process more than volume.