4Roots Farm is all about health, sustainability, and changing the way consumers think about food
By Beth Kassab
Soon after the onset of COVID-19, local restaurateur John Rivers found a way through his “Meet the Need” program to bring hot meals to people who gathered for weekly giveaways at the Plaza Live in Orlando’s Milk District.
community with the nonprofit 4Roots Farm. The multifaceted operation, where the second phase has gotten underway, already includes classrooms, growing areas, and a teaching greenhouse.
Four years later, the visionary Rivers has come full circle in his years-long journey to build a healthy community through healthy food with the nonprofit 4Roots Farm, an 18-acred farm campus within a 40-acre protected wetland.
Rivers’s overarching philosophy of wellness includes not just food but a hearty, heaping helping of the arts as well, which is why last year he invited leaders of arts organizations to tour the farm.
Jennifer Evins, who’s president and CEO of United Arts of Central Florida, liked what she learned. Says Evins: “We also believe that collaboration and arts integration in this very important organization will be a catalyst to helping 4Roots fulfill its mission and deliver a holistic experience for visitors and the artists, too.”
The operation is set on 40 acres off John Young Parkway just west of the Country Club of Orlando in the city’s emerging Packing District—a wellness-themed development overseen by Dr. Phillips Charities (which is also a major financial supporter of the farm).
The 4Roots Farm Campus, which broke ground in 2021, inspires diverse audiences to grow, source and prepare food in new and healthy ways. The first phase includes classrooms, growing areas, and a teaching greenhouse. The second phase will see the opening of an event center, a permaculture forest, a community greenspace with a stage, four guesthouses, and a headquarters building for the Culinary Health Institute. In 2025, there’ll be a farm-to-table restaurant. (There’s already a 4Roots Café at the Orlando Science Center.)
Rivers’s vision is to change the way people think about food to help solving problems—like poor health outcomes related to diet, food insecurity, and farm waste.
“You have to inspire them,” Rivers said on a recent podcast episode with Dr. Monica Aggarwal, a preventive cardiologist and chief medical officer of the Culinary Health Institute. “Without that inspiration, you can teach them all you want but it’s not going to change the decisions they’re making on a day-to-day basis.”
The institute is focused on improving whole-person health through education, services, and clinical programs while researching the effects of nutrition on health—from the germination of seeds to the tracking of health outcomes.
Rivers is a former pharmaceutical company executive and barbecue master behind 4Rivers Smokehouse. He says his success selling ribs and brisket is the catalyst behind his larger mission, which is personified by 4Roots Farm. The farm’s goal is fixing a broken food system through sustainable agriculture and using food to promote good health.
The $65 million project—which includes such partners as Dr. Phillips Charities, AdventHealth, Orlando Health, Florida Blue, and Pepsi—is “a community asset that’s intended to be thought-provoking and change people’s relationship with food,” says 4Roots Executive Director Tommy Ward, who previously managed off-site events for the 4R Restaurant Group.
“The world changed in 2020, especially for restaurants,” says Ward. “But we’ve fed more than a million people by taking the food to them.” Meet the Need still “rescues” excess produce—more than 790,000 pounds worth so far—that would otherwise go to waste. Since its inception, the program has served more than 1.8 million meals.
“Florida has a billion pounds of produce that goes to waste every year, but 20 percent of kids are living with food insecurity,” Rivers noted on the recent podcast. Part of the solution, he said, lies in consumers changing the way they think and shop. Why pass over a bruised apple when it’s just as nutrient-dense as one that’s unblemished? And does it really make sense to expect our favorite fruits and vegetables year-round when they only grow locally for a few months? Added Rivers: “The most impact to the broken food system is the consumer.”
Sustainability and the elimination of waste are themes that are repeated across the 4Roots Campus and reflected in the recently opened Education Center, the first major structure on the site. “Every piece of this building is intentional,” says Ward. “From the materials to the operating system—we harvest all the rainwater and turn it into potable water. We produce more energy than we need.”
Shades and fans automatically adjust throughout the day to combat the late summer sun and keep the building’s temperature comfortable. Head farmer Josh Taylor says the philosophy extends to how food is grown on 4Roots Farm. “Really the main key is closing waste loops so that waste from one thing is input into something else,” he points out. “Whether that’s a leaf or mulch or an animal that has died in the woods, there’s bioavailable energy for plants.”
On a recent afternoon, Taylor walked a reporter alongside the campus’s greenhouses, where rows of lettuces and vine plants such as tomatoes are already sprouting. Just steps from the greenhouses, volunteers are planting the beginnings of a permaculture food forest.
The 4Roots concept includes fruit trees, lemongrass, edible hibiscus, and tropical spinaches—all foods that grow easily in Florida, are perennial and low-maintenance. “It’s mimicking what happens in rainforests and jungles,” says Taylor. “We’re growing things that want to grow here.”
4Roots leaders hope that they’ll one day be part of some even bigger-picture thinking, such as helping people connect dots between soil microbiome and gut microbiome—the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other organisms of the digestive tract that could unlock keys to human health.
Rivers seems to know, though, that solving such big problems has to start with bringing people to the table, so to speak. So the 4Roots Campus, he said, will serve as a “welcoming point” where people can enjoy a culinary class, a meal or attend an event as an entrée to learn about “everything that surrounds the use and consumption of our food.”
4Roots Farm is also involved in K-through-12 educational efforts (including installation of several school farms), a “Fresh by 4Roots” farmers’ market, an “O-Town Compost” program that facilitates the composting of food scraps by participating homes, and a “Reverse Demand Model” that aggregates bulk fresh produce purchases and directs them to regional farms. It also hosts field trips for students that focus on regenerative agriculture, sustainability, health and wellness, and culinary arts. You can find out more about 4Roots—and become a donor or a volunteer—by visiting 4rootsfarm.org.
