NIU’s Flower grows sustainable approach to food production

DEKALB, Ill. — Chef Bryan Flower hurries toward one of the raised “free-to-pick” vegetable, flower and herb beds that flank Neptune North residence and dining hall on the Northern Illinois University campus in DeKalb.

“What you’ll see now is mostly herbs. There’s some beautiful fresh sage,” he said, pinching off a few and crushing the silvery-green leaves between his fingers.

“You’ve got some beautiful sage and then some celery. I love sage, especially at Thanksgiving.”

Flower steps over to another bed, where some tomato plants still offer a late-season crop.

“Here, taste this. A lot of people don’t realize that is after a frost is when you get the most tasty items. It concentrates the sugars. The kids just love these to death,” he said, offering his guest some ripe, sweet cherry tomatoes.

If someone meeting Flower on the NIU campus can’t quite envision him as an electrician, working deep in the smoke and steam of a massive steel mill in South Africa, well, Flower couldn’t see himself doing that, either.

Flower was born in England and raised in South Africa. He started out not in food service, but as an electrician.

“I was a qualified electrician when I was 19 in South Africa. I was in a few different places. I was working for a steel mill and I didn’t really like it,” he said.

He left the steel mill and went to work for Xerox Corp. Deciding that wasn’t a fit, he left South Africa and his career as an electrician to enter the world of food service.

Going to work in food service for Hilton International has taken Flower all over the world.

“I ended up coming to the United States a few times, not to work, but to visit,” he said.

Flower was offered an opportunity to work in the United States and decided to make it his home. He worked in the hospitality food-service sector, working in hotels and casinos.

His work brought him to Chicago, where he started his career in higher education and institutional food service at Robert Morris University.

Flower was culinary instructor and then associate dean of the university’s School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality.

“That’s where I met my wife,” he said.

Flower earned his master’s degree at Robert Morris University and in 2014 started his career at NIU in the position of food systems laboratory coordinator.

In August 2020, Flower was named associate director of food systems innovation. The NIU Edible Campus program started in 2023 with a federal Small Business Association congressional funding grant through Sen. Dick Durbin’s office.

Flower’s wife’s family lives in the area. A wish to be closer to her family prompted the couple to purchase 12 acres of land south of DeKalb.

When it comes to food production, Flower’s passion for sustainability extends from campus to his own table.

“I am a trained farmer on YouTube University,” he joked.

Their Red Home Farm started out with chickens and then moved on to larger livestock.

“We still have cattle, pigs in the summer, egg-laying chickens, goats,” he said.

When it comes to his own farm, Flower practices what he preaches on sustainability.

“We raise our animals regeneratively, so they are grass fed, grass finished, pasture raised. We don’t feed them any grain. It’s all part of knowing where our food comes from and being very diligent in that process,” he said.

Flower’s decades-long career as a chef and in food service influences his work at NIU and in his own home kitchen.

“As a chef, it’s very important for me to know where my food comes from, where my ingredients come from. That is part of what we are trying to do here at the university,” he said.