Wild Roots: Composting Built Into Daily Life

When I met with Jessica Guyant, owner of Wild Roots, I was genuinely inspired by her story.

Jessica grew up in Wisconsin but left in the late 1990s. She lived in Montana and spent many years in Hawaii, where she worked on a boat. During that time, she also lived in Colorado. She ran businesses focused on reuse, including a higher-end thrift store and later a furniture store. She opened the furniture store because she had collected so much secondhand furniture.

Jessica said reducing, reusing, and recycling mattered to her long before Wild Roots existed.

Jessica met her husband, and they traveled and lived in different places before returning to Wisconsin. Jessica said she has always paid attention to her health and wanted more variety when it comes to nutrition. After moving back, she bought the building that became Wild Roots. At the time, it was unfinished, and she knew it would take a lot of work to turn it into what it is today. The space was renovated by hand over time, and Wild Roots opened in 2018.

Composting was already part of daily life before Wild Roots partnered with Hsu Growing Supply. Paul Cage collected food waste for her when he worked at a community garden downtown. Her scraps were collected and composted there. When that ended, Jessica said she took compost buckets home every day. She loaded them into her car and brought them to her family’s hobby farm to compost. In winter, the buckets were heavy and frozen. The compost wasn’t enclosed, so wildlife got into it. Jessica said she found pineapple rinds scattered around her yard.

Jessica also said she wasn’t sure where Paul went after he left the community garden. Later, she said Paul started working for Hsu Growing Supply as our food waste and recycling guru, and that is how they connected again.

Even with those challenges, Jessica kept composting.

Jessica lives on a hobby farm where she and her family grow food and raise animals, including goats, dogs, rabbits, chickens, and a rescued cow. They have a large garden at home, and Jessica also grows food at Wild Roots during the summer months using large planters built by her husband. In winter, plants are brought home and cared for there.

Jessica and her family buy soil and compost from Hsu Growing Supply to grow food. She also composts food scraps and then buys compost again the following season. She described it as a full cycle: grow, compost, and grow again.

At Wild Roots, composting is built into the kitchen setup. Food scraps from smoothies, juice, and plant-based menu items go directly into compost containers. Jessica said employees do not need reminders because the system is easy and they already care about plants and soil.

Wild Roots composts food scraps, compostable service items, and packaging whenever possible. Jessica estimated that the business adds thousands of pounds of compostable material each year through the program.

Jessica also said that 24% of landfill waste is food waste, and that number is not okay with her. Composting matters to her because she sees it as necessary and worthwhile.

For Wild Roots, composting is not treated as a special initiative. The team already values it because it aligns with her business values.