Taking Mache Mainstream

By Lisa McLaughlin

THE GREENS KEEPER

There was a time in the U.S. when salad meant a wedge of iceberg lettuce. But in the late 1980s, as European salad mixes like mesclun were capturing the attention of gourmets, visionary farmer Todd Koons had the idea of packaging an organic spring-lettuce mix. Mesclun had never been grown in a large-scale industrial way, and mass cultivation proved to be a challenge. But Koons persevered, and by 1993 his company was farming 10,000 acres a year and shipping bagged spring mix nationwide. His enterprise helped change the way Americans get their greens, earning Koons, 45, the nickname "the Johnny Appleseed of salad."

Koons' passion for leafy produce began when he was a boy. While he was growing up on a self-sustaining farm in Oregon, his chores included saladmaking. Not long after he turned 18, he parlayed that skill into a several-year stint as a chef at the famed Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, Calif., before moving into the produce industry.

His latest green obsession is mache, also known as lamb's lettuce or corn salad. Full of antioxidants, vitamin A, calcium and potassium, and with a buttery texture, the sweet, nutty green has been cultivated for centuries in Europe but wasn't widely available commercially in the U.S. When Koons' Epic Roots shipped its first field-grown mache in 2002, the bags could be found in fewer than 100 stores; now more than 3,000 stores carry them. And last year Burger King added mache to its mixed salads, moving the greens that much closer to the mainstream as a salad staple. But Koons believes this is just the beginning, and he is already embracing his new nickname, Mache Man. --By Lisa McLaughlin