Microgreens last about a week to ten days after you cut them. That short life is the whole problem with selling them, and it is also the best pitch you have: nothing a chef gets from a broadline truck was cut this morning.
To find customers for microgreens, start with chefs at independent restaurants that plate with garnish, then caterers, then grocers. Find them by name, bring a small sample tray between lunch and dinner, ask one question, and turn the best trials into a standing weekly order with a printed price sheet. The tray is the pitch. Everything else is making sure the second delivery is as good as the first.
Three lists, in this order
Chefs first, because one restaurant orders every week and tells other chefs. Caterers second, because they buy in bursts around events and pay well for appearance. Grocers and co-ops last, because they want steady volume, barcodes, shelf-life data and often a slower payment term. Naomi Alvarez, who runs a 600-square-foot grow room called Brightleaf Microgreens outside Asheville, tries to land five chefs before she calls a single grocer. That order keeps her cash moving and her pack sizes simple.
Keep the three lists separate in your sheet. A chef wants a tray on Tuesday afternoon. A caterer wants to know your lead time for a Saturday wedding. A co-op buyer wants a spec sheet. Mixing them makes every message vague.
Finding restaurants that already garnish, by name
You are looking for plates that use something small and green as part of the dish. Search Google Maps for the 15 closest restaurants in categories that plate carefully: tasting menu, farm-to-table, sushi, brunch, cocktail bars and bistros. Then open each menu. Words like pea shoots, herb salad, micro, sprouts, garnish or "finished with" are a signal. So are photos on their own Instagram with a scatter of green on the plate.
For each restaurant write down the chef's name (the website's "about" page or a local food article usually has it), the owner, a menu item that already uses a green garnish, and who the current supplier might be. Aim for 40 names. That is a month of weekly sample trays. The method of pulling businesses from the map and finding who runs them is covered in how to get leads from Google Maps, and how to find local business leads has the wider version. If you would rather not do the researching by hand, Rocketship can search for restaurants and chefs by name and preview 25 before it spends a credit.
The sample tray and when to drop it off
One tray per restaurant, delivered Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday between 2 and 4 p.m. That is after lunch service and before dinner prep gets loud, and it is three days ahead of the weekend order. Tuesday is best. A chef who tastes something Tuesday has time to build it into Thursday's weekend list.
What goes in it: four varieties in 2-ounce clamshells (for Naomi, pea shoots, red radish, sunflower and red amaranth), each labeled with the variety, the harvest date and her phone number, and a one-page price sheet clipped on top. She cuts them the same morning. A sample that arrives wilted or two days old is worse than none.
She asks one question at the hand-off: "Which dish would you try these on first?" It is not a sales question. It tells her which variety to bring next week, it shows whether this person controls the menu, and it gets the chef talking about their own food. Write the answer down.
The tray costs about $5.90 to make: 8 ounces of greens at roughly $9 a pound is $4.50, plus four clamshells at 35 cents each. Twenty trays cost her $118. Your costs will differ; do the same arithmetic with your own.
A first email to a chef, with a sample
Send this two days before the drop, so the tray is not a surprise. Include your address and a line saying how to stop getting email from you, as US commercial email rules require.
Subject: Pea shoots for the halibut?
Hi Andre, I saw the halibut with pickled fennel on your fall menu. I grow pea shoots, radish and red amaranth 14 miles from you and cut them the morning I deliver. I'd like to leave a free tray of four varieties on Tuesday between 2 and 4, no order needed. Where should I leave it, and who should I ask for?
Naomi Alvarez, Brightleaf Microgreens, 7 Orchard Row, Asheville. If you'd rather I didn't write again, reply "no thanks."
If you want the general version of this email for any local owner, read how to cold email a local business owner. And if the restaurant is one you will also sell something else to, how to sell to restaurants has the walk-in and phone scripts that go with it.
Turning a sample week into a standing order
Plan four weeks per restaurant, not one visit.
- Week 1, Tuesday: drop the four-variety tray. Ask which dish they would try first.
- Week 2, Tuesday: bring one larger clamshell of the variety they named, plus a photo of a plate where it works. Ask: "Want to try a pound for the weekend at the trial price?"
- Week 3: deliver the trial pound, invoice at the normal price, and text them Friday for feedback, if they agreed to texts.
- Week 4: propose a standing order. "Same time every Tuesday, two pounds of pea shoots and one of radish, billed weekly. Text me by Sunday night if you want to change it."
Naomi samples 20 restaurants in week 1. Eight answer the question. Five take the trial pound. Three settle into a standing order of about 3 pounds a week at $26 a pound. That is 3 x 3 x $26 = $234 a week, or $12,168 over a year, from tray costs of about $150. These are planning numbers, not a promise. The point is that a sample is cheap compared with one regular customer.
If a chef goes quiet after the tray, one follow-up with a different variety is fair. Then follow the pattern in how to follow up with a lead who said not now: come back after their next menu change, not before.
The standing-order price sheet
Keep it to one page. List each variety with the size and price: 4-ounce clamshell at $6.50, which is $26 a pound, and 1-pound bulk at $24. Add a minimum delivery of $40, the delivery day and window (Tuesday and Friday, 2 to 4 p.m.), the order cutoff (text or call by Sunday 6 p.m. for Tuesday), and the payment terms (invoice every Friday, due on receipt). Add a replacement promise: if anything arrives wilted, send a photo within 24 hours and she replaces or credits it. That one sentence removes most of a chef's worry about buying something that dies in the walk-in.
Check your state department of agriculture about any license or food-safety rules for selling produce to restaurants, and expect larger accounts to ask for liability insurance.
Delivery and pricing that survive a busy Friday
Chefs forgive a lot, but not a missed delivery before a weekend. Harvest the morning of delivery, pack in a cooler with a cold pack, and text "15 minutes out" so the back door is not a surprise. Deliver between services, never during one. If nobody can sign, leave the order in the walk-in or at the back door with the invoice, and text a photo. Keep 10 percent extra on hand so one short tray never becomes a short order.
Hold your price for at least a season. If seed or labor costs rise, say so and move once, in writing, with a month's notice. Chefs notice a supplier who is steady far more than one who is $0.50 cheaper.
For tracking 40 restaurants through four weeks each, a spreadsheet works for a while; a four-tab Google Sheets CRM layout shows one that holds up. The mix of chefs, caterers and grocers is a lot of follow-ups for one person. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required. The AI workers run the email and follow-up loop while you cut greens.