UAE: Growing Salads In Dubai
Uns is the largest operational farm in the UAE and was designed with the intention of providing fresh high-quality produce to the masses of the UAE.
Here at Uns Farms, we took a different approach to the typical ‘concept’ warehouse vertical hydroponic farm, as we believed that these types of projects need to be large in order to make a real impact and actually address food security. To do this, we took the bold step and built a large-scale vertical farm inside a warehouse complex. Uns farm has some 2,000 ebb n flow benches that have 2.88m2 growing area each. This makes Uns one of the largest warehouse growers with over 5,700 m2 of growing space available now.
A global crisis like the COVID19 virus has really highlighted the importance of local produce and the stability it can provide.
Uns Farms being a large operation, has always meant that we grew products for all segments of the market. So, from the start, we had three main product lines or divisions.
Gourmet for the HORCEA industry, Premium for the mass supermarket industry then our specialty lines for all markets. The HORCEA industry has been impacted in a big way, however, there is still a market given the home delivery of food from the Restaurants. Our premium baby leaf market has seen an increase in market share due to the supermarket sales increasing, so people although not eating out still have access to our produce through our distribution in local supermarkets.
Uns is focused on growing the best quality mixture of leaves which we pack as baby leaf’s in a range of six mixes. These are grown for quality, taste & texture. Our micro herbs have always been grown to order so by doing this the slowing down of the market our damage has been limited. Distributors take care of the sales in both the HORECA and retail, while we take care of the growing. Therefore, we are diversified and not too dependent on anyone's market segment.
Customers can reach us for our products through some large chain supermarkets and we are exploring online platforms, but we are constantly battling to expand our reach through as many mediums as possible.
We also have a steady flow of sales directly from the farm and people are welcome to purchase our products directly from the farm as well.
So as one door has closed in hospitality, we have other doors of opportunity and are always looking for the next one. Innovation is not just growing, but sales and distribution are key.
One benefit of indoor warehouse growing is we have more food security, However, we are based in Dubai so now as the summer is arriving we are seeing ‘Normal’ greenhouse farms slowing production down due to the heat and humidity. Here at Uns Farms we are actually increasing production and expanding. Our quality increases due to us being able to control the conditions that we grow in. So we aim to continue to provide our fresh salad and expand our range as indoor growing allows us to be relatively safe from outside elements.
Our products are salad mixes and we have designed them to cater to multinational tastes and cuisines to fit the diverse community of the UAE.
Uns farms were built as a large-scale commercial facility, with the intention of supplying high-grade consumer-based salad products. We were built with the vision to address the masses and to help the UAE fight its dependence on imports and build food security. Given that this farm is the largest in the country,