ITALY: Zero Farms Delivers Its Salads To Regional Supermarkets
After years of R&D by the company team, they're now aiming to create an ideal environment, combined with software and technologies for the aeroponically growing salads, arugula, aromatic herbs, and packaged microgreens. All crops are grown in a Pordenone-based production site. The formerly abandoned warehouse has a capacity of producing up to 30 tons per year.
"This launch is proof that Zero farming is the solution to enable access to quality products for a wide range of consumers." This is how Zero's CEO Daniele Modesto explains the entry into the Italian market. The company now presents its first products on the shelves of the Eurospesa supermarkets in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto.
"We entered large-scale distribution starting with local groups, because we needed to take measures with some processes that were new to us. The processes had to be refined before going into national distribution groups," explains Daniele.
"It all started with a visit to the Expo Milano in 2015. What struck me most was a small glass cube that contained basil, arranged in multiple layers, illuminated by LED lights: the embryonic prototype of a vertical farm. From there on, I tracked down the designer and contacted him."
This appeared to be Paolo Battistel, one of Europe's greatest experts in soilless cultivation and today's scientific supervisor of Zero. He then told me what vertical farming comprised and that it would be a new frontier of agriculture. He said that it often clashes with the economic unsustainability of the project." Modesto then shared his idea with Andrea Alessio, owner of a company that deals with industrial photography with a strong passion for the product and the management of production processes."
In 2018, Zero was born in the Italian commune, Pordenone. Initially self-financed with the first partners, it later saw the first investments of other industrial companies in the area. At the beginning of 2021, the company entered the national and international agritech market as Zero Modular Architecture. This is a proprietary hardware-software technology to mass-produce, on an industrial scale, production plants in vertical farms. Namely, a transversal technological platform that involves the combination of standardized components, all produced independently by Zero, which is quickly assembled in disused industrial spaces regenerated into farms powered by clean energy.
Read more at Fruitbook Magazine (in Italian)
8 Apr 2021