ARCHIVE: Go Beyond Farm-to-Table, Offer Roof-To-Table Meals!

Originally published on September 17, 2018 on Medium

Read the original article here

A new technology will allow Philippine restaurants and buildings to offer the freshest produce grown in gardens and farms right on their roofs!

If you are a restaurant owner or commercial developer, imagine always having the freshest fruits, herbs, and vegetables for your customers coming straight from a farm or garden in your own property. Imagine your restaurant always having farm-fresh ingredients that haven’t had to endure hours or days in transport. Imagine a mall being able to sell produce that comes straight out of their own in-house farm to tenant restaurants or supermarket customers.

Already, restaurants and commercial establishments around the world are promoting farm-to-table or garden-to-table philosophies. But take that to the next level and have the garden or farm be actually in the same property as the restaurant or mall. To be able to do that in the urban areas of the Philippines is the dream.

Unfortunately, many restaurants and commerical areas in Philippine cities simply don’t have the space to have their own garden or farm. Urban real estate is expensive after all.

But what if it turns out you actually do have the space? What if the roofs and roof decks of your restaurant or building could be made more functional, turning them into more than just protection from the elements and into productive and beautiful roof farms where you can plant various kinds of crops, herbs, and produce? Not just potted plants and plant boxes, but fully functional actual gardens with soil that people can walk on… only on a roof. That is now a reality.

In 2015, SPECSERV, Inc. and De La Salle Araneta University (also known as “The Green University”), started the Bungkal Rooftop Experimental Farm. This pilot project uses the SPECSERV Roof Garden Engineering System Bungkal to maintain a productive roof farm on the roof deck of the university. Bungkal (which is short for Bubong Kalikasan or Nature’s Roof) is an innovation from the European roof garden engineering system, DAKU, which SPECSERV Inc. is the exclusive distributor of.

The beginning stages of the Bungkal Rooftop Experimental Farm

“What if the roofs and roof decks of your restaurant or building could be made more functional, turning them into more than just protection from the elements and into productive and beautiful roof farms where you can plant various kinds of crops, herbs, and produce?”

Since the project started, the roof garden has successfully planted, harvested, and sold to market several farm products such as lemon grass, stevia, eggplants, lettuce, tomatoes, and many others.

The farming procedures do not require any additional high tech or complicated equipment to make it work. Bungkal allows for just the regular and simple way of planting seeds in soil and harvesting produce.

The roof where the garden of De La Salle Araneta is installed has also never experienced any problems. Since Bungkal is meant to be installed on a structure’s roof, it is guaranteed to be leak free, with no floods or mud, low in maintenance, low water consumption, and light weight, meaning it can be easily installed even on the concrete decks of existing buildings. Bungkal’s special feature is that this particular system of roof garden has a long life, unlike other cheaper roof garden systems. Where most roof gardens are later converted into concrete patios and terraces because of numerous problems, leaks being the most prevalent, Bungkal roof gardens hold the track record for lasting the longest, the oldest being installed 15 years ago. On an average, Bungkal gardens installed 10 years ago still exist and are problem-free.

Fresh lettuce and herbs growing on the De La Salle roof farm

Bungkal will be offered to the market in the last quarter of 2018, with strong after sales services to be included, since this has been the traditional practice of SPECSERV, Inc. for the past 35 years to all its customers.

This means that soon your restaurant or commercial establishment can partake of this concept of Roof to Table Freshness in the Philippine Market.

For further inquiries about this amazing new system, contact SPECSERV, Inc. at specservinc.main@gmail.com or visit our website at www.specservinc.biz