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Plantlab Uses €20 Million Investment To Open New Vertical Farms In The Netherlands, The U.S. And The Bahamas
"On a surface area the size of only two football fields, it is now possible to produce enough crops to feed a city of 100,000 residents with 200 g of vegetables each on a daily basis"
25 July 2020
Dutch scale-up PlantLab has raised a first external investment of € 20 million from De Hoge Dennen Capital. The company has developed a globally patented technology for ‘vertical farming’, an efficient method for growing vegetables and fruits. It will use the injection of capital to open indoor production sites in various countries, including the Netherlands, the US, and the Bahamas.
Over the last 10 years, PlantLab has succeeded in developing innovative and revolutionary technology for efficient urban farming, which is already being applied in a commercial production site in Amsterdam. The new technology enables growing vegetables on a large scale very close to the consumer, without using any chemical crop protection agents. On a surface area the size of only two football fields, it is now possible to produce enough crops to feed a city of 100,000 residents with 200 g of vegetables each on a daily basis, the company claims.
“This injection of capital will enable us to open up additional production sites and further perfect our technology”, explains Plantlab CEO Michiel Peters. “The increasing population of the planet and the climate crisis are posing new and enormous challenges to the production of food for the world’s population. We have no choice but to grow our food more sustainably and efficiently, and that demands innovative and revolutionary solutions.”
PlantLab’s production sites can be set up anywhere in the world, even on barren land or urban areas. Due to optimized temperature, moisture, and light control, the crops grow to their full potential, while water use is reduced by as much as 95%, Peters says. Light is provided by specially developed LEDs that provide the specific wavelength needed by the plant for photosynthesis.
New CEO, new CFO
De Hoge Dennen is part of the investment company founded by the De Rijcke family, the former owners of Kruidvat. The company has made previous investments in the online supermarket Picnic, the salad producer De Menken Keuken, and the electric bicycle brand QWIC. CFO Jelle Roodbeen says he wants to help PlantLab make a real difference on a global level. “It will make healthy and delicious vegetables affordable and accessible to everyone, in an environmentally friendly and sustainable fashion.”
In addition to the injection of capital by De Hoge Dennen, Frank Roerink and Michiel Peters are joining the scale-up company as its new CFO and CEO, to strengthen the management team. PlantLab has its vertical farming R&D center in Den Bosch and a commercial production site in Amsterdam. PlantLab employs over 60 people.
PlantLab
PlantLab specializes in technology for innovative urban farming and aims to supply the planet with a sustainable source of food for the future. The company was founded in 2010 in Den Bosch with the goal of revolutionizing the production of food for our planet. Over the last 10 years, the company has already invested € 50 million in the development of technology. The goal is to grow healthy, day fresh vegetables close to the consumer anywhere in the world without the use of chemical crop agents, while at the same time reducing water consumption to an absolute minimum.
More on Plantlab at Brabant Brandbox
Lead Photo: © Plantlab
Dutch PlantLab Raises € 20 Million In First External Investment Round
’This injection of capital will enable us to open up additional production sites and further perfect our technology’, explains Michiel Peters, CEO of PlantLab
Production Sites For Vertical Farming Rolled Out On a Global Scale
Den Bosch (the Netherlands), 22 July 2020 – Dutch scale-up PlantLab has raised a first external investment of € 20 million from De Hoge Dennen Capital. The company has developed a globally patented technology for ‘vertical farming’, a hyper-efficient method for growing vegetables and fruits. It will use the injection of capital to open indoor production sites in various countries, including the Netherlands, US, and the Bahamas.
PlantLab management team: Leon van Duijn (founder), Marcel Kers (founder), Michiel Peters (CEO), John van Gemert (founder) and Frank Roerink (CFO)
Over the last 10 years, PlantLab has succeeded in developing an innovative and revolutionary technology for hyper-efficient urban farming, which is already being successfully applied in a commercial production site in Amsterdam. The new technology makes it possible to grow fresh, healthy, and delicious vegetables on a large scale very close to the consumer without using any chemical crop protection agents. On a surface area the size of only two football fields, it is now possible to produce enough crops to feed a city of 100,000 residents with 200 g of vegetables each on a daily basis.
Innovative solutions
’This injection of capital will enable us to open up additional production sites and further perfect our technology’, explains Michiel Peters, CEO of PlantLab. ‘The increasing population of the planet and the climate crisis are posing new and enormous challenges to the production of food for the world’s population. We have no choice but to grow our food more sustainably and efficiently, and that demands innovative and revolutionary solutions.’
Left: Michiel Peters, right: Plant Production Unit Manager Tobias Glimmerveen pinching tomato plants
PlantLab’s production sites can be set up anywhere in the world, even on barren land or urban areas. Thanks to optimized temperature, moisture, and light control, the crops grow to their full potential, while water use is reduced by as much as 95%. Light is provided by specially developed LEDs that provide the specific wavelength needed by the plant for photosynthesis. ‘Our technology makes it possible to grow crops anywhere in the world very close to the consumer. The crops then no longer need to be transported over long distances. The result: less CO2 emissions, lower cost, and less food waste’, says Peters.
Making a difference
De Hoge Dennen is part of the investment company founded by the De Rijcke family, the former owners of Kruidvat. The company has made previous investments in the online supermarket Picnic, the salad producer De Menken Keuken, and the electric bicycle brand QWIC. CFO Jelle Roodbeen: ‘We are convinced that PlantLab’s technology will make a real difference on a global level. It will make healthy and delicious vegetables affordable and accessible to everyone, in an environmentally friendly and sustainable fashion’.
In addition to the injection of capital by De Hoge Dennen, CFO Frank Roerink and CEO Michiel Peters are joining the scale-up company to strengthen the management team, which also includes the founding partners Leon van Duijn, Marcel Kers and John van Gemert. PlantLab has its vertical farming R&D centre, the biggest of its kind anywhere in the world, in Den Bosch, and a commercial production site in Amsterdam. PlantLab already employs over 60 people.
About PlantLab
PlantLab specializes in technology for innovative urban farming and aims to supply the planet with a sustainable source of food for the future. The company was founded in 2010 in Den Bosch with the goal of revolutionizing the production of food for our planet. Over the last 10 years, the company has already invested € 50 million in the development of technology that makes it possible to grow healthy, day fresh vegetables close to the consumer anywhere in the world without the use of chemical crop agents sustainably and environmentally friendly, while at the same time reducing water consumption to an absolute minimum. Enough crops can be grown on an area no bigger than two football fields to supply a city of 100,000 residents with 200 g of fresh vegetables every day. As the new technology can be used all year all over the world, it also makes it possible to radically rethink and restructure the logistics chain. The benefits: superior product quality, longer shelflife, much less food wastage, and no CO2 emissions or nuisance associated with long-distance transport. PlantLab aims to make its revolutionary technology accessible to everyone and therefore bring fresh and sustainably grown food within reach for everyone.
For more information:
PlantLab www.plantlab.com
info@plantlab.com
The Decarbonization Promise of Indoor Agriculture is Still in The Seed Stage
The data we do have shows that a combination of efficiency improvements and grid decarbonization can make indoor farms a much better environmental choice for some crops
By Jim Giles
May 21, 2020
Here’s a tale of two chefs.
Both are based in the Midwest and both are preparing a Caesar salad. One uses lettuce shipped from where much of our lettuce is grown: The fields around Monterey, California. The other sources her greens from a nearby indoor farm.
Out in Monterey, the farmer used diesel-powered machinery, pumped water, fertilizer, and pesticides. At the indoor farm, precision systems provided the lettuce with exactly the amount of water and nutrients the crop requires — and no more.
The pickers in California discarded lettuces that didn’t look perfect. That wasn't an issue indoors: Conditions are so well controlled that almost all the crops met consumers’ exacting standards. Finally, when the crop was packed and ready, the indoor farmer drove 20 miles or so to drop the lettuce at our chef’s restaurant. The Monterey produce had to travel 2,000 miles.
Which chef is preparing the more environmentally friendly salad?
Let’s start with the bad news. The story above about indoor farming, a tale about technology can produce dramatic environmental gains — it doesn’t hold true. The Monterey lettuce is currently the better bet, according to a new analysis from the WWF.
For places that are food-insecure, this could be a real game-changer.
The problem with indoor farming, also known as controlled environment agriculture, is the electric grid. Indoor farms use LEDs to light crops. In St. Louis, Missouri, the focus of the WWF study, two-thirds of electricity comes from fossil fuel plants that pump out health-damaging particulates and planet-warming carbon dioxide.
The WWF team combined these and other impacts into a single score that captures total environmental harm. Lettuce grown in St. Louis greenhouses, which supplement LEDs with natural light, scored twice as high as the conventional crop. In a vertical farm lit entirely by LEDs, the difference was threefold.
Now to the good news: Our chef who sources from a nearby indoor farm may not be making the best environmental choice today, but she likely will be soon.
That’s partly because if we look beyond energy use, indoor ag delivers clear benefits. Indoor systems require little or even no pesticides and generate 80 percent less waste. They use less space, which can free up land for biodiversity. The WWF study found that precision indoor water systems use 1 liter of water to produce a kilogram of lettuce; for field-grown lettuce, the figure is 150 liters.
Another reason is that indoor ag’s energy problem is likely to become less serious. Market forces are already adding renewables to the U.S. electricity mix and pushing out coal. Technology improvements in the pipeline also will cut energy use in indoor farms.
PlantLab, a Netherlands-based startup, has developed an LED that’s more efficient in indoor ag settings because it emits light at the exact wavelengths used for photosynthesis. New crop varieties from Precision Indoor Plants, a public-private partnership that is developing seeds specifically for indoor use, may require less light to grow.
This tech is at an early stage, which makes it tough to quantify the future impact. But the data we do have shows that a combination of efficiency improvements and grid decarbonization can make indoor farms a much better environmental choice for some crops. Cutting energy use also will lower costs, making indoor farms competitive on price. It’s fascinating to speculate about what would happen if both these trends came to fruition.
Indoor farms likely would diversify, for starters. At present, indoor farms in urban areas profitably can grow leafy greens but little else. If energy costs come down, cucumbers, berries, and tomatoes also might make financial sense, suggests Julia Kurnik, director of innovation startups for WWF.
When this project ends, key players will already be invested and ready to move ahead with building a pilot system that can be replicated worldwide ...
With more diverse output, the farms could become local hubs that would strengthen the food system’s resilience to extreme weather events and other shocks. "For places that are food-insecure, this could be a real game-changer," Kurnik added.
Venture capitalists already have seen this future; hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed to indoor farming companies in recent years. That’s essential if this industry is to grow, but it’s also great to see an organization such as the WWF in the mix.
After studying the potential, the WWF has convened a diverse group of stakeholders to map out the expansion of indoor ag in St. Louis. In addition to business execs and investors, the group includes civic and community leaders.
"By working as a group to make those decisions," explains the report, "when this project ends, key players will already be invested and ready to move ahead with building a pilot system that can be replicated worldwide, making food production more environmentally sustainable."
I’ll certainly be keeping tabs on progress in St. Louis, and with indoor ag more generally. If you know of a particular project or related technology that deserves a mention, drop me an email at jg@greenbiz.com.
This article was adapted from the GreenBiz Food Weekly newsletter.
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