Vertical Farming Innovator Urban Crops Opens U.S. Regional Headquarters

November 1, 2016

Vertical Farming Innovator Urban Crops Opens U.S. Regional Headquarters

Posted By: Rosemary Gordon | Email

Growing crops in a climate controlled multi-layer environment with the LED lights achieves shorter growth cycles, higher water efficiency, flexible but guaranteed harvests and safe and healthy crops. Photo courtesy of Urban Crops.

Urban Crops, a Belgian agriculture technology company, recently established operations in the U.S. The company opened an office in Miami, FL, that will be responsible for North and South America.

Urban Crops is a solution provider in the closed environment, vertical farming industry and is expanding its business globally through its own offices as well as a network of sales agents. Pieter De Smedt is leading the U.S. operations for Urban Crops.

The company creates tailored growth infrastructures, which are turnkey, automated, robotized, and able to be integrated into existing production facilities or food processing units. Urban Crops also has its own range of growth container products.

The company also can supply seeds, substrates, and nutrients for all its growth recipes. Currently, more than 160 varieties of crops that can be grown in Urban Crops’ systems using growth protocols developed specifically for indoor farming by the company’s team of plant scientists.

Growing crops in a climate controlled, multilayer environment with LED lights achieves shorter growth cycles, higher water-use efficiency, flexible but guaranteed harvests, and safe and healthy crops, according to Urban Crops. The grow infrastructure can be installed in new buildings, as well as in existing (industrial) buildings, or unused spaces. The grow infrastructure also gives the clients the possibility to grow, harvest, and consume locally, every day, and in any chosen quantity.

Urban Crops’ main office is in Belgium, where the company has built the largest European automated growth indoor farm to date, which is used mainly for R&D purposes and test runs for potential customers.

“Opening an office in the U.S. became a necessity as we received numerous requests in the past months from the American continent,” says Maarten Vandecruys, Managing Director of Urban Crops. “Our grow systems and business model make it possible for all people that have interest in the agri-food, medicinal industry, or any other industrial crop production to start its own production activities, leveraging on our proven know-how of plant science and plant grow infrastructure.”

De Smedt adds: “Supplying innovative and high-quality solutions, products, and services is our core strength. Our U.S. presence is thus a very important factor if we want to service our clients and sales agents from this continent.”

Urban Crops is currently looking for sales agent candidates. For more information, contact Pieter De Smedt at pieter.desmedt@urbancrops.be, or 786-479-8902.