- You have the opportunity to see something go from a seed and some dirt, add a little bit of light, to a finished product.

- It might not be the easiest path forward, but when you get to the other side, you really start to see that you can do it.

It's pretty wild.

(upbeat music) Hi, my name is Vincent Peterson.

- My name is Mark Preston.

- And I'm the CEO of Vigeo Gardens.

- And I'm COO of Vigeo Gardens.

- Vigeo Gardens is an indoor agricultural company.

- We grow in vertical hydroponics systems indoors.

- We specialize in leafy greens, wheatgrass.

- [Mark] Microgreens, lettuce, and basil.

- [Vincent] Providing them 365 days a year to local markets with local labor.

- I have a background in engineering and a passion for agriculture.

Along that path is when I met my business partners.

- A buddy and I were walking on campus, both going to University of Akron, started as a conversation seeing the waste that happens inside of a restaurant.

Why are we throwing away 50%?

Looking inside of a grocery story and saying, "Why are we throwing away 50%?"

- And so they started growing out of a basement.

- We thought we were gonna grow microgreens for cancer patients up at the Cleveland Clinic, and quickly we had to pivot.

- I met them as an engineer, and we decided to branch out and start our own company.

- Got into the accelerating program at the Bounce Innovation Hub.

We were able to expand pretty quickly, make the connections necessary, and kinda validate that basement idea and turn it into a business.

- The grow process starts with the sowing.

- Requires light, it requires water, it requires nutrients.

- We add sustainable compost, add the seed over top.

From germination, they'll go onto our grow systems and they'll spend about a week.

- So we control the variables that affect the shoot zone, or the part of the plant that you see, and we also control the variables that affect the roots on the part that you don't see that's typically under the ground and in the soil.

And by controlling those variables and controlling the environment, you make it a lot easier to have success.

- A big question that people ask is why the red and blue LEDs?

The plants are more efficiently absorbing the red and the blue spectrum.

Using these LED lights, we've found, has been a 10 to 15% increase in our production.

- We wanna grow this thing to a point where it's large enough to where we can get out of the way.

Our success is getting something that ultimately outgrows us and makes it so we can take this national, maybe even global.

- It's a pretty amazing feeling to see somebody eating our product and knowing all the TLC that goes into it, and to know that thousands of people get to experience that every single week thanks to what we do here is a pretty amazing feeling.

- It's not a matter of publicity, it's not a matter of even walking through the store and seeing it on shelves, it's how do you provide sustainable jobs, and how do you have a work environment that's conducive with other people's lives?

That level of fulfillment is what keeps you going.

That's what makes it so the 3:00 a.m. night isn't that big of a deal.