24 August 2018 - Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS), the Scottish-based agritech business, has today unveiled its first indoor vertical farming demonstration facility. Based at the James Hutton Institute, Perthshire, it is arguably the world’s most technically advanced indoor farm.

The IGS facility utilizes its ground-breaking, patented power and communications technologies to address the key challenges facing the indoor farming industry. Fundamental barriers of the cost of power and labour have inhibited the sector’s expansion to date, as well as the inability to produce consistent and quality produce at scale. The IGS technology has been designed to overcome these barriers and significantly lower the cost of production overall.

With global market growth predicted at 24 percent over the next three years, the opportunities for IGS are substantial, with over 95 percent of its technology solutions expected to be exported. IGS will not be producing crops for sale but will be collaborating with growers, retailers, and international organizations to deliver the hardware and software platforms to revolutionize indoor growing environments.

Approximately 150 jobs are expected to be created in by 2021 in areas such as software, data, engineering, robotics, and automation. Significant demand is already being realized amongst growers, retailers and national governments aiming to address food security issues and alternative methods of production in their regions. 

Vertical farming offers huge reductions in water wastage, the elimination of the use of pesticides and a huge reduction in food miles. It allows produce to be grown locally and on demand, which could reduce fresh food waste by up to 90 percent.

The Scottish-led team at IGS has developed, patented and productized a breakthrough, IOT-enabled power and communications platform consisting of patented electrical, electronic and mechanical technologies. All this is managed by a SaaS & data platform using AI to deliver economic and operational benefits to indoor growing environments across the globe. This technical solution enables the reduction of energy usage by 50 percent and labour costs by 80 percent when compared with other indoor growing environments. It also can produce yields of up to 200 percent more than that of a traditional greenhouse.

David Farquhar, CEO of IGS commented: “The opportunity to unveil Scotland’s first vertical farm, and arguably the world’s most technically advanced indoor facility is a hugely exciting one for the whole team. As a Scottish-founded and led team, we have captured horticultural, engineering and software skills from within Scotland to make this business flourish.

“The global horticulture market is crying out for new approaches to enhancing food production in terms of yield, quality, and consistency. It is also searching for ways to reduce power consumption and labour costs and our technology has been designed to fundamentally address this.

“Annual industry spend exceeds $10 billion with compound annual growth of 24 percent. We are well positioned to help our customers profitably expand their businesses on the back of this growth.”

The location of IGS’ first vertical farm at the James Hutton Institute, a world-leading crop research facility, was deliberately chosen to enhance collaboration opportunities. Scientists and researchers at the Institute will be working with the team at IGS to better understand how growing under lights can impact different varieties of crop growth, as well as drive, increased productivity.

Professor Colin Campbell, CEO of James Hutton Institute commented: “There have been fantastic synergies coming out of the combination of the IGS technologies and Hutton’s cutting-edge plant science and collaboration. There are genuine potential game-changing opportunities both for new and conventional horticultural and agricultural systems that can come from our collaboration.

“The fact that Scottish innovation and Scottish science have again led the world with something that has massive economic potential locally, as well as globally, with benefits for the environment due to more efficient energy, water, and nutrient use is hugely exciting.”

IGS was established in 2013 as an indoor horticulture business with a vision to deliver commercial viability to the vertical farming model by improving productivity - yield, quality, and consistency - whilst dramatically driving down the cost of power and labour through Total Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA). 

John Swinney, MSP for Perthshire North and Deputy First Minister of Scotland unveiled the plaque to mark the official launch of Scotland’s first vertical farm.

About IGS:

IGS was formed in 2013 www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com. Its purpose was to bring indoor horticulture to commercial reality by combining efficient internet-enabled smart lighting with automation and power management. The founders’ experience combined extensive knowledge of horticulture, industrial automation and big data. 

It launched its first indoor vertical demonstration facility in August 2018.

David Farquhar was appointed CEO of IGS in November 2017. A seasoned transformation and business growth technology entrepreneur, he joined the company to drive its global expansion and raise its next funding round. 

About James Hutton Institute:

The James Hutton Institute is a world-leading, multi-site scientific organization encompassing a distinctive range of integrated strengths in land, crop, waters, environmental and socio-economic science. The Institute has a staff of nearly 550 and 125 Ph.D. students and takes its name from the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment scientist, James Hutton, widely regarded as the founder of geology, a farmer, and pioneering agronomist. www.hutton.ac.uk