The one nagging question is scale. Lyfe has figured out how to get 10,000 pounds of brussels sprouts to tables in Palo Alto with minimal spoilage, but what about getting 100,000 pounds to nine more cities? A million pounds to 100 cities? Roberts hopes to see his chain expand to 500, even 1,000 restaurants within several years. Can America’s farmers possibly grow, process, and deliver enough fresh, local, organic, hormone-free, non-antibiotic-addled, health-saving, world-redeeming ingredients?
It’s clear that as of now, the answer is most definitely no. The morning after my lunch in Palo Alto, a Lyfe delegation treks to San Juan Bautista, California, to visit Earthbound Farm, the nation’s largest grower of organic produce. Earthbound supplies Costco, Safeway, and Walmart with prewashed and packaged tenderleaf (more commonly known as salad greens) and now controls 49 percent of the organic lettuces market—which means it keeps a lot of people in arugula, frisée, and romaine.