Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
USA - FLORIDA: Brick Street Farms Was On A Podcast!
What an exciting opportunity we had this week to sit down with Feeding Tampa Bay to record a podcast episode about how we grow our produce and our dedication to sustainability
Farm in a Box with Shannon and Maddy of Brick Street Farms
What an exciting opportunity we had this week to sit down with Feeding Tampa Bay to record a podcast episode about how we grow our produce and our dedication to sustainability.
We also got a chance to discuss how our non-profit organization, Desert Farms, is partnering with them to work towards a hunger-free Tampa Bay. Click below to listen to the full podcast.
Listen
Feel Confident In Starting Your Project With This 3-Part Webinar Series!
Even with effortless, turn-key container farms, there are still questions left unanswered for those interested in getting startedThis three-part webinar series will take you step-by-step through what you need to know before you start, how to select the best business model, and your options for financing the project
Even with effortless, turn-key container farms, there are still questions left unanswered for those interested in getting startedThis three-part webinar series will take you step-by-step through what you need to know before you start, how to select the best business model, and your options for financing the project.
By signing up, you will:
Hear and learn from first-hand experiences
Access knowledge and resources from Growcer and Farm Credit Canada
Break down how to get growing year-round into smaller, digestible steps
If you’re interested in growing food for your community but don’t know where to start or are stuck along the way, sign up for the webinar series today!
Register now for all three sessions:
July 13 - Getting Started
July 27 - Choosing a Business Model
August 10 - Financing your Project
Excited for you to join us,
The Growcer Team
BrightBox Farms’ Gideon Saunders Sees Alaska’s Future For Agriculture In Hydroponics
Nestled next to an otherwise ordinary house on Kodiak is a shipping container. It looks out of place, but the garden in it is even more noticeable
July 8, 2021
Nestled next to an otherwise ordinary house on Kodiak is a shipping container. It looks out of place, but the garden in it is even more noticeable. The growing area of the BrightBox Farm looks like a prop from a movie about space exploration – the vertically oriented hydroponic farm has its own perfect microclimate.
The use of this shipping box has enabled Gideon Saunders to conquer the seasons that otherwise rule Kodiak Gardens.
“There we worked with Freight Farms, who build 40-foot containers, high cubes, 2.50 m high, 2.40 m wide, standard containers, only slightly higher, very insulated, highly insulated R-28. So we agreed with them and picked out a unit and then delivered it to us, ”Saunders said.
Freight Farms made the interior of the shipping container. Inside, there are shelves with lettuce and other greens, interspersed with panels of blindingly bright ultraviolet light. A panel filled with nutrients feeds into a water tank on the back, which in turn feeds drips into the hydroponic system. The air is supplemented by a carbon dioxide tank, which ensures that the plants do not lack for anything.
The container is completely controlled by an app. And it even comes with built-in bluetooth speakers. But for the container, function is more than form – Saunders boasts that he could grow 1,000 heads of lettuce a week in less than 30 hours.
It doesn’t just look futuristic. Saunders believes systems like this will revolutionize agriculture.
“I think it’s the future. I mean, we can get into the politics of agriculture and water rights and freshwater use worldwide, and global warming and all these hot topics – 8 billion, 9 billion, 10 billion people, how do you feed them? The population is growing – how do you become more efficient with your food? Well, when it comes to vegetables and leafy greens and what we do, we use 95% less water than traditional farming. We do not use herbicides, pesticides or insecticides. So no glyphosate, no Miracle Grow. Chemically nothing bad. You can control it. So it’s the future of agriculture, ”Saunders said.
This type of production is not cheap. Saunders says the device costs around $ 100,000 with shipping and handling. But as technological advances inevitably push prices down, it becomes more cost-effective for smallholders to invest in such equipment.
And Saunders says it’s already inexpensive, although its container is complemented by a small homemade addition in its garage. He sells microgreens as a subscription service, in which he provides his subscribers with bags of greens for a monthly fee, and through sales at the local farmers’ market. Even on an island known for its horticultural and merchant shipping challenges, herbivores can enjoy fresh, locally grown produce year round.
Contain Inc Announces Finance Arrangement With Edible Beats For FarmBox Foods Container Farm
The container farm is being built and customized for Edible Beats, and will produce ingredients for all of the EB concepts, Linger, Root Down, Vital Root, El Five, and Ophelais
NEWS PROVIDED BY
July 07, 2021
Contain Inc announces a financing agreement arranged between Edible Beats Restaurant Group & a prominent lender for a FarmBox Foods container farm.
Image courtesy of FarmBox Foods
With the FarmBox Food container, we can grow hyper-local, organic, year-round produce that will be featured at all of our restaurants. We feel this is just the beginning of what we can grow”— Justin Cucci of Edible Beats Restaurant Group
RENO, NV, UNITED STATES, July 7, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Contain Inc is pleased to announce a financing agreement arranged between Edible Beats Restaurant Group and a prominent lender for a controlled-environment container farm, FarmBox Foods. Edible Beats is a locally owned Denver-based restaurant group known for its diverse menus and healthy, plant-based dishes that highlight local and seasonal ingredients. Edible Beats will be able to grow herbs, leafy greens, salad greens, and various produce organically and year-round with the container farm that will be attached to their Vital Root location.
“We have always sought opportunities to be more responsible to the sourcing, growing, and handling of the incredible ingredients that we get,” said Justin Cucci of Edible Beats Restaurant Group. “With the FarmBox Food container, we can grow hyper-local, organic, year-round produce that will be featured at all of our restaurants. We feel this is just the beginning of what we can grow, and we are eager to add the mushroom grow operation in the future”
Image courtesy of Unsplash
Edible Beats purchased the container from FarmBox Foods, a Colorado-based company that builds automated farms that grow gourmet mushrooms, leafy greens, and culinary herbs. To FarmBox, controlled-environment agriculture is the future, and this deal is one of many leading us towards a more decentralized and eco-friendly food system.
“I think we’re going to see a lot more of these types of programs going forward,” said Chris Michlewicz, Chief Public Relations Officer at FarmBox. “Restaurants are realizing that their produce is fresher and has a longer shelf life when they have a container farm on site. It’s a reliable and sustainable source of food, and it’s more eco-friendly because you no longer have to transport food in from elsewhere.”
Image courtesy of Unsplash
Likewise, Contain Inc is thrilled to support Edible Beats as it ventures into indoor ag. “We're delighted to have assisted SemiMojo and FarmBox Foods in this innovative initiative. Contain is always excited to see more fresh food made available to consumers. Customers appreciate freshness and quality produce, year round. Restaurants and container farms make this possible”, said Doug Harding, Head of Leasing & Vendor Relations at Contain Inc. “We are thrilled to have collaborated with Edible Beets and Farm Box Foods on this project. It aligns perfectly with Contain's mission of supporting the controlled environment agriculture industry in its financing needs”.
The container farm is being built and customized for Edible Beats, and will produce ingredients for all of the EB concepts, Linger, Root Down, Vital Root, El Five, and Ophelais.
About Contain Inc
Contain is out to empower the indoor ag industry of tomorrow. Our first and key mission is bringing easier and faster financing to controlled environment agriculture, but we aren't stopping there. We create platforms to move the industry forward, and most importantly, find ways to make indoor ag more accessible to farmers of all stripes.
Contact Contain:
Doug Harding, Leasing & Vendor Relations
doug@contain.ag | 760-330-1199
About Edible Beats
Edible Beats is a locally owned independent restaurant group that operates such diverse concepts as Linger, Root Down, El Five, Ophelais, and Vital Root. “Walking the walk” is important to us and the various aspects of sustainable & local food sourcing, up-cycled design, and authentic Hospitality.
About FarmBox Foods
FarmBox Foods was founded to help provide a sustainable, eco-friendly food source to places where there is a lack of access to farm-fresh produce. The company’s mission is to use container farms to decentralize the food supply chain and empower local communities.
Doug Harding
Contain Inc
doug@contain.ag
Visit us on social media:
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LinkedIn
Container Farming To Increase Food Security In The Caribbean
As part of our Grow Food Here series, join us for a live conversation with Freight Farmers, Lincoln Deal, and Latesha Gibson from Eeden Farms
Hear How Eeden Farms Is Bringing Fresh,
Local Produce To Their Island.
As part of our Grow Food Here series, join us for a live conversation with Freight Farmers, Lincoln Deal, and Latesha Gibson from Eeden Farms. Throughout the event, we’ll explore how they brought container farming to the Bahamas to reduce the island’s reliance on food imports and serve their local community with the freshest local food available. We’ll also discuss the challenges farmers face in the Bahamas, what they’re currently growing in their three container farms and their plans for the future.
At the end of the event, Lincoln and Latesha will answer your questions through the live q & a
Register Now
Wednesday, July 14th, 2021 12 PM EST
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Freight Farms And CEO Vanzura Set To Reinvent Container Farming
June 17, 2021
The global pressures exacerbated by COVID-19 and the rippling toll it takes on the international community has made one thing clear: preparedness is everything. The Coronavirus has exposed vulnerabilities in the global health network that no one could have imagined. Food production and distribution must now reset their agendas to prepare for catastrophe.
Freight Farms, a 2011 Agtech company that pioneered hydroponics-based container farming, is committed to preparing the world for the next disaster by reinventing the way we grow food.
“Fill in the blank with the institution, how prepared are you for the emerging trends that are impacting the world,” Freight Farms CEO Rick Vanzura explained. “Sustainability issues, land availability, water availability; those issues obviously preceded COVID-19, but we think there’s going to be a greater sense of urgency around folks expecting us to have an answer and be prepared for these global trends, as opposed to being reactive.”
Vanzura looks to channel his decade of experience as a restaurant executive, growing Wahlburgers from a single restaurant to a $100 million dollar institution, as well as greatly expanding Panera Bread, to redefine food production and distribution as a whole.
Freight Farms uses container-based “vertical farming” to do just that, allowing farmers to produce hundreds of high-quality local crops from a 320 square foot shipping container which automates the farming process for maximum efficiency.
Vanzura plans to expand and distribute these self-contained, sustainable farms to a wide diversity of industry segments. The priority will of course be the global communities that need them the most. “We see the Freight Farm as a perfect fit for countries with food access difficulties, short growing seasons and inherently challenging climates. There’s probably no location where having a hyper-local, highly traceable, always available solution isn’t going to make sense in some way,” he added.
In the name of access to high-quality food, in a sustainable model built to withstand a natural disaster, Freight Farms has now distributed their automated, hydroponic farms to 48 U.S states and across the world to 32 different countries, boasting success and efficiency from the Arctic wilderness, to the desert, and to concrete jungles.
Freight Farms believes that its emphasis on access, preparedness, and sustainability will be more necessary than ever in the wake of COVID-19, as well as global trends of food insecurity and environmental uncertainty. Vanzura explained that the company has already reacted to shifting demands by supporting small-scale farmers as they set up drive-through produce stations to reach customers directly.
Freight Farms CEO Rick Vanzura
“Demand during this time for that hyper-local, fresh product has certainly ramped up,” Vanzura added. “Hopefully, once people get a taste of it, they will understand the difference, and post Covid, our containers will become an industry staple.”
Vanzura sees his role as not only expanding to agriculturally vulnerable countries abroad but also increasing access to high-quality food across institutions in the United States. He wants to specifically target universities and has partnered with foodservice provider Sodexo to ensure local food is available to as many people as possible.
Vanzura says he was forced by his children to move beyond the world of crafting a restaurant chain’s vision and use his knowledge to make the world a better place. Freight Farms, with Vanzura’s leadership, has the ability to change the way we think of farming and change the world.
Freight Farms hopes to combat international uncertainty, face the threats of climate change, and provide people with fresh produce regardless of climatic constraints and difficulties. “Healthy food is a right, not a luxury,” and Freight Farms is helping make this mission statement a reality.
Lead photo: A Freight Farms container has unprecedented environmental control and exceptional ease-of-use to unlock your growing potential.
To learn more about Freight Farms and how they are reinventing container farming, visit their website.
Total Food Service is a monthly B2B foodservice publication and website covering foodservice and hospitality news, industry trends, and exclusive interviews.
CANADA: Thursday, July 8th, 2021 - 12:00 PM EST
Sit back and learn more about Growcer's beginnings, our farm's uses, and essential considerations for starting your own Growcer project. It will be an informal opportunity to ask our team questions and learn more!
Every first Thursday of the month, we'll be hosting a Meet and Eat that anyone can join; however, we're going to have it on the second Thursday in July to accommodate for the statutory holiday on Thursday, July 1st.
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Thursday, July 8th, 2021
12:00 PM EST
USA - FLORIDA: St. Pete’s Brick Street Farms Gets Multi-Million-Dollar Investment From Lykes Bros
Lykes Bros., one of the oldest and largest agribusinesses in Florida, is putting a big bet on the future of farming as it invests in Brick Street Farms, an urban farm, and market in St. Petersburg
May 20, 2021
Photo credit: Brick Street Farms
Lykes Bros., one of the oldest and largest agribusinesses in Florida, is putting a big bet on the future of farming as it invests in Brick Street Farms, an urban farm and market in St. Petersburg.
Lykes is making a “significant” investment in Brick Street Farms, the two companies announced at a news conference Thursday. The amount of investment was not disclosed, but a news release described it as “multi-million dollar” investment. Lykes will take a 20 percent ownership stake in Brick Street Farms because of the deal, Mallory Dimmitt, vice president of strategic partnerships at Lykes, told the St. Pete Catalyst.
Brick Street Farms will use the investment to accelerate the expansion of Brick Street Farms hubs, an all-inclusive onsite farming and retail shopping experience in urban cores, said Shannon O’Malley, founder and CEO. The company has self-contained, environmentally sustainable THRIVE containers that will be placed in each hub. Each hub will grow between 16 to 20 acres of farmland on one-third acre lots.
Mallory Dimmitt, vice president at Lykes Bros., announces investment in Brick Street Farms while Nikki Fried, Florida Ag Commissioner, looks on.
The first new hub will open in St. Petersburg’s Warehouse Arts District in late 2021, with an expansion to Tampa in early 2022 followed by more hubs on the east coast, O’Malley said.
“We are the future of farming, and our new investors have the perfect expertise to help us take our successful business model in sustainable farming to feed more people healthy food,” O’Malley said.
The two companies first connected in November at the Florida-Israel Agriculture Innovation Summit, hosted by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said Nikki Fried, Florida Department of Agriculture Commissioner.
The collaboration meets several goals, including feeding people in urban locations, fighting urban food deserts and food insecurity, bringing farm-to-fork produce closer to people and bringing cutting edge agriculture technology to everyone.
From left, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman and Shannon O’Malley, founder and CEO, Brick Street Farms
Brick Street Farms is a hub of innovation and creativity and is the only female-founded and led company in the vertical farming industry, said St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman. He also highlighted the work of the company’s non-profit Desert Farms Foundation.
“Not only is Brick Street Farms working to make us healthier by providing us some of the best and freshest food around, but through its 501c3, Brick Street Farms is working to end food deserts through the Tampa Bay area,” Kriseman said.
Every urban environment struggles with food deserts, said Tampa Mayor Jane Castor.
“The problems that occur from those food deserts are often times for many communities insurmountable. This is a solution to so many problems,” Castor said.
She also praised the company’s business model. It is financially successful by providing produce to a number of restaurants, Castor said.
While an urban focus might seem like an unusual fit for company like Lykes, which owns hundreds of thousands of rural acres throughout the state, “We know from our experience that innovation is what moves the agriculture industry forward,” said Dimmitt, who will join the Brick Street Farms board of directors.
“In addition to innovations in sustainable production and the technology it uses, the job opportunities and related job training and skills are key to Florida’s future and to our health and wellness,” Dimmitt said. “What could be better medicine than high-quality nutrient-dense greens grown close to the consumer where they have direct access, all while creating community.”
Brick Street Farms, at 2233 3rd Ave. S. was founded in 2016 by O’Malley and her husband, Brad Doyle. Read more about O’Malley in St. Pete Catalyst‘s Hustle profile.
Modular Hydroponic Growing Spaces In Freight Containers For Local Food Production
Freight Farms’ design was the first containerized vertical growing environment using hydroponic technology
May 17, 2021
Southeastern Pennsylvania Correspondent
A Massachusetts company has developed a unique, hydroponic growing environment in closed 40-foot freight containers that are being used world-wide to grow produce in areas with bad soil or weather conditions not conducive to outdoor growing.
Bay State natives Jon Friedman and Brad McNamara were developing rooftop greenhouses in the early 2000s when they realized a modular, hydroponic container might be a more viable solution.
Hydroponics wasn’t something new. Historians believe this soilless gardening can be traced back to hanging gardens of Babylon in Iraq built by King Nebuchadnezzar about 600 BC. Nutrient-rich water was pumped to the gardens from the Euphrates river to sustain its plants. A water-based growing thread continued through history and in the 1930s a University of California scientist, William Gericke, coined the term from the Greek word “hydro” (water) and “ponics” (work).
Friedman and McNamara, who were building outdoor, roof-based gardens on older residential buildings, looked outside the box, and turned their focus to widely available shipping containers.
They thought they could provide the equivalent of 2 acres of growing space in traditional 40-foot-by-8-foot containers and extend growing seasons year-round everywhere — especially in areas that couldn’t support traditional outdoor agriculture or in parts of the world affected most by climate change.
They named their company Freight Farms and placed their first container less than a decade ago. Now the concept is catching on worldwide.
View Photos From Freight Farms
Freight Farms’ design was the first containerized vertical growing environment using hydroponic technology. It was initially funded by a Kickstarter campaign in 2012, where they raised the funds to build a prototype to allow local food production to be available to everyone, anywhere.
The first commercial unit was installed at Boston Latin School, the oldest public school in the U.S., to produce fresh produce for the school cafeteria as well as serving as a teaching classroom for high school students.
“The company has placed 350 units in 48 states and 32 foreign countries,” Friedman said.
The company also introduced proprietary software called “farmhand” to help automate many farm processes, and is manufacturing its 10th generation container, the Greenery S, incorporating the latest technology and automation for vertical, hydroponics growing.
Growing Strong
Hydroponic Operation Supplies High-End Restaurants
Art Petrosemolo, Southeastern Pennsylvania Correspondent
Although the Freight Farms container units are capable of growing a variety of produce, leafy greens are its specialty and the best choice for farmers looking to sell their harvests year-round.
Containers also have been embraced by educational institutions to supply fresh vegetables for cafeterias and serve as learning and teaching space.
St. Joseph College in Standish, Maine, has been operating a Freight Farms unit for years to both supply fresh vegetables to its dining facilities as well as for student employment.
The site also has been a tool for community involvement with St. Joseph students working with a town Institute for Local Food System Innovation utilizing the Freight Farms container in partnership with a large hydroponic farm and commercial processing kitchen for events and agritourism.
With a decade head start in the business, Freight Farms does not have major competition in hydroponics container gardening production, although, in recent years, it has seen significant growth in multiple indoor soil- and water-based farming formats including warehouses, greenhouses and pods that are addressing growing produce year-round.
Climate change has increased concern about food production for growing populations worldwide with extreme weather conditions and higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Friedman and McNamara have always been aware that the challenge to expansion for stand-alone, container gardening is the cost of power and each new rendition of their growing units has addressed both power consumption and automation to be more efficient.
Their latest Greenery S model uses growing lights that are 50% more efficient than previous models and the technology allows farmers to choose pre-set growing modes to maintain higher yields — 20% higher than earlier models — while prioritizing energy use.
Addressing affordable and clean power for customers, Freight Farms recently partnered with Arcadia, a Washington, D.C., energy company to offer affordable, renewable power options for customers.
Going forward, Friedman said growing container units will continue to become more efficient, allowing owners to increase their growing yield while having more control of their energy use to power the unit.
Slide Show Photos:
Lights and plant arrangements in Freight Farms new Greenery S model container.
Photo provided by Freight Farms
Leafy greens grow in Freight Farms’ own Greenery Farm container.
Photo provided by Freight Farms
This Freight Farms container is ready for shipment.
Photo provided by Freight Farms
Freight Farms' containers under construction in their Vermont facility.
Photo provided by Freight Farms
Lexy Basquette, Freight Farm’s on-site farmer, checks on some of her growing plants.
Photo provided by Freight Farms
Greenhouses, Vertical Farming and Urban Ag: Controlled-Environment Agriculture Has Growth Potential
Paul Post, New York Correspondent
Czech Startup Introduces New Container Farm To The Market
A container farm supplied by GreeenTech will soon be parked in Prague's Smíchov district. The hydroponic container farm will grow herbs, vegetables, and small fruits. The other two containers will go to Dubai and Shanghai
Delivering To Prague, Dubai, And Shanghai
A container farm supplied by GreeenTech will soon be parked in Prague's Smíchov district. The hydroponic container farm will grow herbs, vegetables, and small fruits. The other two containers will go to Dubai and Shanghai.
"We bring a unique and modern approach to agriculture. With vertical hydroponics we will start food self-sufficiency not only in the Czech Republic," promises co-founder of GreeenTech Karolína Pumprová, who three years ago was at the birth of the Prague urban hydroponic farm HerbaFabrica, which supplies herbs to Prague restaurants.
The co-founders of Greeentech
She was later joined by entrepreneur Dmitrij Lipovský, who, after a year-long working stay in China, where he focused on ecology and sustainability issues, saw a TV report about the HerbaFabrica farm, and was so intrigued by it that together with Karolína Pumprová and technology director Milan Souček, they created the concept of GreeenTech, a technology, and cultivation company that was officially established last July. Dmitry Lipovsky invested six million crowns of his own money in the start-up and became CEO of the company.
Modular solution
GreeenTech currently has three divisions, each with its own unique product and business and marketing direction. Urbanio is a modular system whereby the company builds an urban hydroponic farm according to the customer's requirements. The price in this case starts at one and a half million crowns and depends on the number of modules purchased and the environment where it will be built. The technology was to be officially launched at Expo 2020 in Dubai.
GreeenBoxes are containers coming with GreeenTech's technology. The price for the smallest size supplied, 13 x 3 x 3 meters, is in the lower units of millions of crowns. The third division is HerbaFabrica, which sells crops to distributors and end customers. The company intends to offer its franchise in the future.
These containers make it possible to grow crops practically anywhere and anytime, even in the desert. According to Lipovský, the company will produce three containers this year, the first of which will be located in Prague's Smíchov, while the others will also be presented at the EXPO in Dubai. It is to Dubai and also Shanghai that the company wants to expand in the medium term.
"The goal is to build full container farms and to continuously improve our technology. But we are a startup, so we are constantly in a turbulent process," smiles the CEO of the company over the next plans and reveals that the final investment round with external investors is also now underway.
Everything from the container design to the software solution is being developed in-house. Some of the technical equipment is supplied by Siemens CR, which is also a long-term technology partner.
GreeenTech wants its technology to contribute to a sustainable solution to a potential future crisis around food shortages. The founders of GreeenTech promise a recurring harvest of local vegetables full of vitamins and intense flavor. Since the crops do not undergo protective spraying, they are suitable for children and allergy sufferers.
The business model for GreeenBox and Urbanio technologies work on both a sales and rental basis. "For both options, there is an 'after-sales service, where we supply seeds, substrates, fertilizers, as well as spare components for the technology and remote farm management," Lipovský explains.
He adds that GreeenTech also started offering the HerbaShare service to businesses, shops and restaurants a month ago. This is a structure with a cold box for preserving produce, where the company regularly delivers microgreens and vegetables. "Now we want to focus more on businesses as people come back to the office. We believe this is a really interesting employee benefit and a way to have a vitamin bomb right in the workplace," he concludes.
Source: StartupJobs
For more information:
Greeentech
info@greeen.tech
www.greeen.tech
18 May 2021
N.Thing To Export Smart Farms To UAE After $3 Million Deal
The contract, set to proceed next month, will allow the firm to construct vertical smart farming containers in the UAE by December this year.
May 17, 2021
South Korean agriculture technology company N.Thing said Monday that it has recently inked a $3 million deal with Sarya Holdings in the United Arab Emirates to export smart farms.
The contract, set to proceed next month, will allow the firm to construct vertical smart farming containers in the UAE by December this year. The container can reduce the use of water up to 98 percent compared to a typical farm and cultivate crops in any environment, whether that is in Siberia, the Middle East, or Seoul.
“The UAE reached out to N.Thing as food security emerged as a key issue amid the coronavirus outbreak,” a company official said.
In February last year, Sarya Holdings conducted a proof of concept test on N.Thing’s container to verify the technology. During the test, Sarya planted four different vegetables -- batavia, kale, Boston lettuce, and oakleaf -- in eight test containers and observed their growth cycles, nutrients, quality, and more.
The test proved that N.Thing’s smart farm containers built in the UAE can produce up to 1.5 metric tons of crops per container, which was 42 percent more than initial estimates.
N.Thing received the best innovation award at the Consumer Electronics Show last year.
Lead photo: The interior of N.Thing’s smart farm container (N.Thing)
By Kim Byung-wook (kbw@heraldcorp.com)
Freight Farms Releases Next Generation of Container Farming
Freight Farms released the 10th generation of their container farming system – Greenery S, which has several key improvements on its predecessors
4 May 2021
Freight Farms released the 10th generation of their container farming system – Greenery S, which has several key improvements on its predecessors.
Since its founding in 2013, Freight Farms has been dedicated to making modular vertical farming technology accessible to more communities around the globe in a sustainable fashion. Their systems use a hybrid of hardware, software and services to make food production possible for anyone of any background, anywhere in the world.
“Greenery S represents the apex,” Jon Friedman, COO and co-founder tell Future Farming, “leveraging the excellent design and intuitive automation to streamline workflow while driving up yields.”
LED technology
Greenery S has several key improvements on its predecessors. This includes the new Dynamic Lighting Control, which uses LED technology that allows farmers to customize the lighting spectrum, intensity and duration for optimal plant yields. It also features a brand new user-centric Workstation design making for a sleek, self-contained and multi-functional farm command center.
Text continues underneath image
LED technology allows farmers to customise the lighting spectrum, intensity and duration for optimal plant yields. - Photo: Freight Farms
More consistent harvests
This new generation also brings with it an update to Freight Farms’ farmhand software that includes a new feature called “Recipes.” This update allows farmers to obtain more consistent harvests.
“Operators simply choose the crop they wish to grow and farmhand automatically adjusts in-farm settings for that crop production,” explains Friedman. “In-farm cameras and sensors gather information and continuously improve the precision of the recipes over time, aggregating data from the entire farmer network to determine patterns that lead to exceptionally successful harvests.”
Of all their systems, Greenery S combines Freight Farms’ most optimized combination yet to allow farmers the highest possible yields at the highest quality with the fastest rates.
Lower startup costs
With lower startup costs, Freight Farms reports that their Greenery S farm system can grow an equivalent of 2.5 acres of traditional farmland with 12 harvests per year. According to Friedman, it typically takes their farmers two to three years to see returns on their initial investments.
Greenery S is now available for purchase worldwide.
Jaclyn Krymowski
Correspondent for North America
Read more about: Vertical Farming Indoor Farming Container Farming
What Is A Container Farm?
A container farm is usually a vertical farming system built inside a shipping container. The benefits of placing a farm within a container, rather than a building, are that it is transportable and can be squeezed into existing spaces, such as in car parks or on farmland
30-04-2021 LettUs
Container farming, vertical farming, indoor farming… What do they all mean? Are they all the same thing? In this blog, we’re going to explain exactly what a container farm is and what the benefits of growing crops in this way are.
The controlled environment agriculture club
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is a term for using different technologies to grow food indoors. In CEA, these technologies ensure the best growing conditions and protection for specific crops. This is slightly different to just indoor farming - by nature, indoor farms simply protect crops from external forces such as weather and pests. A container farm would be an example of CEA, as would other indoor farms such as vertical farms and high-tech commercial greenhouses.
A container farm is usually a vertical farming system built inside a shipping container. The benefits of placing a farm within a container, rather than a building, are that it is transportable and can be squeezed into existing spaces, such as in car parks or on farmland.
Since it is classified as a temporary structure, you typically don’t need planning permission for a shipping container. This can be particularly useful for those who rent their farmland. However, there are always exceptions and the necessary checks should always be made before making arrangements. As long as there is level ground, access to electricity, water & wifi, a shipping container can fit into a range of different settings.
Serving communities, big or small
Since they’re easy to transport, container farms can be easily deployed as and when they are needed. This means they could be used for research or social-impact projects, without needing to build a permanent facility. Shipping containers are also modular, which means multiple containers can be used to build a larger facility and businesses can scale their operations appropriately. They also have the potential to be bedded into existing container parks - these are dotted around the UK and are usually shipping containers made up of independent shops, cafes, and restaurants. One container farm could supply fresh produce to all of these.
In this way, container farms have the potential to be a positive disruptor within our food supply networks and strengthen our local food security by reducing our dependence on imported produce. Food waste and carbon caused by food transportation would also be reduced by strategically placing containers in key locations within communities.
The DROP & GROW container farm
LettUs Grow’s container farms are powered by aeroponic technology. This is a soil-less system that uses a nutrient-dense mist to irrigate crops - boosting oxygen levels and encouraging healthy root stock. Whilst hydroponic container farms are more common, DROP & GROW uses aeroponics to optimise crop health and increase growth rates.
Our container farms have also been designed with the grower in mind. DROP & GROW:24 includes a separate preparation area, providing ample space for the grower to do their job. Our farms have also been designed to be easy to maneuver within and check on your crops.
Celebrating vertical farming technology
DROP & GROW wasn’t designed to be inconspicuous. Quite the opposite! We think urban farming, new technologies and feeding local communities is something to shout about, so a DROP & GROW on your site is an opportunity to start a conversation and encourage your customers to learn more about the benefits of vertical farming.
If you want to take a positive step towards a more sustainable and resilient food supply chain in the UK, then talk to LettUs business development team about why a container farm might be in the right choice for you. Find out more...
Source and Photo Courtesy of LettUs Grow
VIDEO: One Sure Way To Save Our Soil – Don’t Use Any
The advantage of container farming is the ability to create commercial-scale production within a small space the size of your standard 40-foot shipping container through vertical farming techniques
In the push for regenerative agriculture and soil rehabilitation, container farming has an important role to play.
The idea behind regenerative agriculture isn’t new, but this year it is front and center as one of the key initiatives of the official Earth Day 2021 campaign: Restore Our Earth™.
According to the Earth Day organization, overfarming has caused soil capacity in the U.S. to decline dramatically, losing soil 10 times faster than it can be replenished. The result is that in many places, the land has as few as 60 harvests left before it is completely depleted. Unfortunately, with ownership of farms increasingly concentrated in the hands of industrial or foreign producers, the promise of short-term profits wins out over long-term solutions that would prioritize soil health.
What is regenerative agriculture?
Regenerative farming takes an opposite position. As a school of thought, it is a method of farming that actively fights soil degradation by restoring carbon to the soil, which has a double benefit of renewing the viability of the land while simultaneously removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There are many different types of regenerative agriculture, here’s a helpful video to explain the main three:
But between destroying the soil and saving the soil, there’s a third option: not using any soil at all. This is the premise behind container farming.
Container farming to save soil.
Container farming is a subset of the indoor farming industry, which includes everything from greenhouses and warehouses to at-home tabletop setups. The advantage of container farming is the ability to create commercial-scale production within a small space the size of your standard 40-foot shipping container through vertical farming techniques. Inside the container, plants are protected from the external elements and nurtured using nutrient-enriched water, powerful red and blue light, and optimal temperatures.
Notice anything missing? Oh yeah–soil!
Container farming with hydroponics completely eliminates the need for soil to grow food, which is great news for the whole regenerative agriculture movement. Since regenerative farming is based on the idea of protecting soil, container farming is able to take the whole idea to the logical extreme by not using any soil–period.
Not only does container farming prevent the further degradation of soil, but it actually frees up land to be actively regenerated. At Freight Farms, our containers (each capable of growing an average of 2 acres of food) have already saved 700 acres of land… which’s equal to about 530 football fields!
Additional sustainability benefits
Beyond regenerative agriculture, which is primarily focused on soil, container farming brings many additional sustainable benefits. The Greenery S is able to save:
Water: 99% less water than is used in conventional agriculture.
Food miles: we move the farms, not the food. Instead of trucking/shipping food from a centralized location, we put the farm as close to the final consumer as possible.
Carbon emissions: in addition to reducing food miles, we’ve partnered with Arcadia to make it easy and effective for our farmers to get onto the renewable energy grid and make their carbon footprint just one-quarter of what it would be if they were farming using industrial farming methods.
Regenerating communities
While regenerative agriculture may start with soil, the implications on climate change, food access, and food security are clear. In the same way, container farming is also more than just improving the sustainability of our agriculture system. In addition to saving soil, land, water and reducing food miles and carbon emissions, container farming unlocks many important social gains:
Independence: when we are not reliant on soil, land, and climate, we can make any place a farm. This makes it possible for us to create the distributed system we need to combat the harmful effects of industrial farming and centralized food systems.
Equality: independence from soil and land also creates more food equality, since individuals and communities need fewer resources (money & land) to create commercial-scale farms.
More farmers: Soil is complicated and nuanced, it takes huge amounts of experience and education to know how to do regenerative agriculture properly. With container farming, everyone can be a low-impact farmer.
More varieties: Conventional agriculture is beholden to monocropping, which improves the unit economics of growing food but also increases the risk of crop failure, blight, and soil degradation. Container farming makes it possible to grow hundreds of plant varieties, introducing people to new types of plants and growing public perception of the diversity you can have with fresh greens. This can have an overall positive effect on market demands and help move the whole system away from relying on mono-cropping.
Learn more about the Earth Day Restore Our Earth™ campaign and check out how Freight Farms is helping support the regenerative farming movement with container farming!
Freight Farms
Empowering anyone to grow food anywhere. Freight Farms makes local food accessible in any climate with the Greenery™ container farm.
April 23, 2014
Follow Earth Day Earth Day 2021 Sustainability Regenerative Agriculture Agriculture
This Is What The Future of Farming Looks Like
Vertical farming is nothing less than exactly what it sounds like. As opposed to spreading crops out along the ground, beds are effectively turned on their side, and grown on vertical panels
Why Grow Plants Horizontally When You Can Grow Them Vertically?
What do most people think of when imagining a farm? Typically: Acres upon acres of crops, fed by an extensive irrigation system, with tons of pesticides and heavy machinery— in other words, an image of modern farming that’s simply dated. Today’s most technically advanced farms don’t require nearly as much water or chemicals and take up just a fraction of the footprint. How? The answer is simple: Vertical farming. Specifically, the brand new Greenery S hydroponic system by Freight Farms.
Vertical farming is nothing less than exactly what it sounds like. As opposed to spreading crops out along the ground, beds are effectively turned on their side, and grown on vertical panels. This isn’t exactly new; some of the earliest indigenous farmers would plant crops on layered terraces to achieve similar results. But the modern form of vertical farming is barely two decades old. While it’s proven hyper-efficient, the technological cost of entry has also traditionally proven to be high, requiring expensive lights, temperature and irrigation control systems, and enormous amounts of electricity — to say nothing of capital. Until now.
Enter Freight Farms, a fully-functional farm in a 40-foot container. Launched in 2011, Freight Farms’ mission is to build accessible, modular vertical farming technology that empowers anyone to grow fresh, healthy food in their local communities — wherever that may be. While industrial farms tend to rely on GMO seeds, extensive pesticides, and centralized distribution systems, Freight Farms has worked tirelessly to cram 2.5 acres worth of farmable land into a 320-square-foot shipping container that can be placed almost anywhere and scaled up (or down) to meet your individual needs. Whether you’re a small restaurant looking to grow your own vegetables, an entrepreneur looking to bring fresh food to a food desert, or even just a homestead hobbyist, the Greenery S by Freight Farms is here to make your vertical farm aspirations a reality.
Freight Farms brings a decade of experience to the Greenery S. The Greenery S uses 99% less water than traditional industrial farm systems, mainly because you don’t need to worry about losing so much water to evaporation over acres and acres of land. Furthermore, the Greenery S has built-in temperature controls that make farming viable year-round, with a minimum temperature of -40 degrees Fahrenheit and a maximum of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. And with over five hundred supported crop varieties, you can throw out your hardiness zone map and grow pretty much whatever you want, wherever you want.
Besides being far more cost-effective than purchasing, tilling, planting, irrigating, and harvesting multiple acres of land, Freight Farms also uses data to help you get the most out of your yield. The proprietary farmhand® software integration gives operators complete automation and control over their grow operations. The software connects hundreds of farmers and is constantly compiling data from them to help you better manage your own crops based on learnings from the entire Freight Farms network.
The Greenery S is available now, to everyone. Whether you’re a seasoned farmer looking to scale out your operation or you’re simply looking for an exciting new business opportunity, Freight Farms’ intelligent automation and exceptional design can transform any small space into a commercial-scale farm. Head here to learn more and reserve yours now.
Lead Image: Image by Freight Farms
Futurism fans: This post was paid for by Freight Farms and was written by non-editorial staff. This content does not necessarily reflect the views or the endorsement of the Futurism.com editorial staff.
As a Futurism reader, we invite you to join the Singularity Global Community, our parent company’s forum to discuss futuristic science & technology with like-minded people from all over the world. It’s free to join, sign up now!
New Freight Farms Greenery S Ushers In The Next Era of Smart Small-Space Farming
Five Specialized Systems Allow Farmers to Grow Food 365 Days a Year With Complete Control
Five Specialized Systems Allow Farmers
To Grow Food 365 Days A Year With
Complete Control
NEWS PROVIDED BY
April 21, 2021
BOSTON, April 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Earlier this month, Freight Farms, the world's leading manufacturer of container farming, unveiled its new container farm, the Greenery S. This latest model is the tenth generation of the technology since the company pioneered the small space farming concept in 2013.
The Greenery S features an exceptional new farm design which, when paired with seamless automation, unlocks powerful performance for all users. The Greenery S combines specialized space, light, air, water, and control systems to make it possible to grow 2.5 acres-worth of food in 320 square feet anywhere in the world.
Always keeping the farmer in mind, the Greenery S implements feedback drawn from in-depth customer research to execute an exceptional new farm design which, when paired with seamless automation, unlocks powerful performance for all users. The Greenery S combines specialized space, light, air, water, and control systems to make it possible to grow food anywhere in the world, thereby empowering individuals to grow food locally within their communities to decentralize the global food system.
"The Greenery S brings an entirely new level of design, control, robustness, and ease of use to our already industry-leading growing platform. It is built upon the technology we have developed over the past ten years while introducing a fresh suite of features. This farm is not just a refinement of our past models – it redefines what it means to be a farmer," said Freight Farms co-founder and COO Jon Friedman. "With the Greenery S, we hope to further simplify the process of farming to make the profession as accessible as possible to people around the world."
Industry-Leading Features for Design, Automation, and Performance
Of all the Greenery S features, the most notable are the re-imagined workspace, the enhanced farmhand® automation software, and the dynamic new proprietary LED technology.
All-New Workstation - User-Centric Design
As Freight Farms continues to define and refine what a farm can be, the company focuses specifically on optimizing workflow for their farmers with an all-new Workstation, a sleek, self-contained, and multi-functional farm command center.
Technical components – water and nutrient tanks, dosing panel, pumps – are hidden from view yet easily accessible with a simple push-to-open mechanism for instant access.
The 'Tabletop Riser' separates the workstation into two workzones, and includes an integrated, multi-functional LED bar (for tabletop illumination, plant spacing guidance, and task timing) and four full-range Bluetooth speakers.
Farmhand® Recipes - Network Learning & Automation
The latest release of Freight Farms' companion farming software–farmhand®–takes automation to the next level with the new Recipes feature.
Recipes allow farmers to achieve consistent harvests with the touch of a button: Operators simply choose the crop they wish to grow and farmhand automatically adjusts in-farm settings to optimize for that crop production.
Recipes are built by aggregating farmer network data and determining patterns that lead to exceptionally successful harvests; meaning the list of recipes will grow as the global Freight Farmer community continues to expand.
Dynamic Lighting Control - Power & Precision for Performance
The Greenery S takes a huge leap in LED technology by allowing farmers to customize the lighting spectrum, intensity, and duration of light to achieve their desired plant yields.
The Greenery S features Freight Farms' proprietary LEDs, which emit light with 60% greater intensity and 50% better efficiency compared to off-the-shelf options.
Farmers have precise control over their lights with brand new Eco (prioritizing farm efficiency by reducing power consumption), Performance (prioritizing plant growth for greater yields, and Standard (balances the two) modes.
The Most Versatile Platform in the Indoor Farming Industry
The accessibility and versatility of the Freight Farms platform allow customers to use it in a diverse range of locations and applications. The Greenery S is built with the same specifications as a standard 40-foot shipping container, making it possible to bring and install the farm in any location, such as a city center, tropical island, or area experiencing food insecurity. Once at its location, the 320 sq. ft. container becomes a commercial growing space, capable of producing 2.5 acres worth of fresh food every year. The farm's elite design, in combination with farmhand®, robust training, and access to an elite support team, ensures anyone can run a successful operation without any prior farming experience.
Freight Farms currently services more than 500 trained farmers across 48 U.S. states and more than 32 countries. For more information, visit freightfarms.com.
About Freight Farms:
In 2013, Freight Farms debuted the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food. Now with the Greenery S and integral IoT data platform, farmhand®, Freight Farms has the largest network of connected farms in the world, with global customers in 32 countries and 48 U.S. states ranging from entrepreneurs and small business farmers to corporate, hospitality, retail, education, and nonprofit sectors. To learn more, please visit freightfarms.com, or visit us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
Media Contact:
5WPR
Carinna Gano, Account Supervisor
cgano@5wpr.com
SOURCE Freight Farms
Related Links
USA: This Colorado Company Is Building Farms In Shipping Containers To Help Feed People In Need
FarmBox Foods wants people to be able to farm anywhere, allowing them to access fresh food they otherwise wouldn't be able to
Author: Jeremy Moore
April 19, 2021
FarmBox Foods Wants People To Be Able To Farm
Anywhere, Allowing Them To Access Fresh Food
They Otherwise Wouldn't Be Able To
SEDALIA, Colo. — A three-year-old Colorado company has an ambitious goal: to bring food security, safety, and sustainability to communities in need around the world.
FarmBox Foods aims to achieve that goal by connecting those communities to sustainably sourced food that's grown locally inside one of their container farms.
Their first product was a vertical hydroponic farm, or VHF, built inside a shipping container.
The company has since developed a second product: a gourmet mushroom farm, or GMF.
So far, customers in Colorado include Centura Health, Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets, and the C Lazy U Ranch in Granby.
FarmBox CEO Rusty Walker and COO Jake Savageau joined 9NEWS to talk about how they hope to change the way the world thinks about farming.
9NEWS also spoke with a prospective customer of FarmBox, Cori Hunt of the Denver restaurant group Edible Beats.
(Editor’s note: Responses have been edited for context and clarity.)
As a mission-driven company, what is the mission of FarmBox Foods?
Walker: Our goal and our mission is to get our products out into the communities where we can help develop food security programs. We’re looking to get into food deserts, opportunities where folks in the world might not have access to good, clean nutritional food. And so we kind of strive as a company that’s driven to feed the world one container at a time. And we’re ready to go out and manufacture thousands of these if we can.
We’re able to decentralize growing food by being mobile – being able to deploy these by just having a semi come in. We can then lift it up on a flatbed and take it to anywhere in the world. We’ve got two containers going to islands. We’ve got our first container that took off for the island of Jamaica. It’s going to Montego Bay where it’s going to be used behind mega marts on the island. And then we have another container which is our gourmet mushroom farm that’s going to be going to Tahiti where they’re going to be using that to feed the island population which does not have access to that type of food.
One big area that we’re really focusing on is the urban areas throughout the U.S. where they don’t have a lot of land to grow. These farms can go right into the parking lots, behind a church for example. We’re working with a community church on the south side of Chicago that’s looking at placing two of these containers – a vertical hydroponic farm and a mushroom farm – right outside in the parking lot outside the church.
And we think we could bring an educational spin to this where we can have the community grow their own food and supply the community themselves with highly nutritional food that ordinarily they just would not be able to get their hands on. So, we’re thinking that if this pilot program goes well this would be an application that would apply to every inner city throughout the U.S.
Farmbox Foods grows vegetables in shipping containers. Credit: Jeremy Moore, KUSA
Savageau: The mission’s always been to create products that are for the decentralized food insecurity industry. So, we want to create a product that can be deployed anywhere in the world, can run off-grid, and can feed communities. So, we have two different products – the VHF and the GMF. Every product that we develop gets us one step closer to being able to feed a community with everything they need, because you can’t feed communities forever just on leafy greens.
So mushrooms, they’re more nutrient dense, that gets us one step closer. There’s other products that we’re going to develop to get us to that point. But, I think the mission for the company is to be able to deploy these farms into communities where they’re needed, whether that’s a rural area, a food desert in the U.S., an inner city, or somewhere in Africa like Ghana or the Sudan.
We want to align with big ag and we want to help the industry get better. So we want to get food to where it’s needed. We’re looking at doing stuff with food insecurity and food inequality. That’s big with what we’re doing. So, that kind of aligns with our mission. If you look at our food system – just take for instance – you know if you look at a SNAP program or food subsidy program – you’re taking food and giving it to somebody or they’re purchasing it.
But, a lot of that food that they’re purchasing is processed, sugar – I mean, it’s poison. And if you go on a military base anywhere in the U.S., there’s fast food on the base. It’s really what you see. So, there’s a lot of reasons why we’re doing this I think. We can help fix our food system. And we can help educate the youth on how they should eat. We’re doing some stuff with an Inuit community in Alaska. They don’t necessarily know how to fix this food or prepare it or use it. So, I think education is a big part of what we’re doing.
How do these container farms work?
Savageau: When people think of farms, they don’t think of agriculture like this. Vertical hydroponics and indoor ag and controlled environments – it’s been around for a long time. I think that the way that this one works is pretty simple. The water gets fed into a tube system and the water trickles down and goes back into the tank. And where you’re standing – the seedling tray area – the water goes into a tank, into the seedling trays, gets flooded, and then back into the tank.
There’s a software that we use called Agrotech that monitors the temperature, the humidity, the lights – basically, all automated. So, it’s fairly easy to run. You need about 15 to 20 hours a week to run one farm. The GMF farms takes about 25 hours a week. It’s a little bit more intensive. The VHF is the vertical hydroponic farm and that’s the farm that we’re standing in. The GMF is the gourmet mushroom farm, which is the one that you went through earlier. You want to just keep things as clean as possible. The cleaner that you keep it the better it’s going to run.
So, we have a standard SOP, you know, that we implement with our training. Cleaning the floors. Cleaning the tubes. You don’t clean them every time. But, usually, every couple harvests you’ll take the tubes out, wash them out. You’re cleaning the tanks about every 60 days.
But, on average it’s pretty easy to maintain if you’re doing the daily checklist. The seeds are going to be in the seedling tray for about two weeks. Then, they go into the wall. And then they get harvested about 60 days after they start in the seedling tray. So, on average you’re about 60 days from seedling to harvest depending on what you’re growing.
And this farm is really setup for vertical hydroponics. So, it’s leafy greens. You can do hundreds of different types of lettuce. You can do cherry tomatoes, strawberries and peppers. There’s a lot of different things that you can grow in here. Most of our clients are only growing a couple things at one time. You don’t have to worry about weather. You don’t have to worry about if this is in a cold climate like the arctic. You know, they can’t grow food. If it’s in a desert, they can’t grow food. If it’s on an island, they can’t grow food. So, these can be deployed anywhere. And they grow 365, all day, every day. Also, the yield is very high for the square footage. So, you can put these on top of a building, inside of a building. It only takes up 320-square feet. You don’t have any pesticides. So, you don’t have to worry about pests, bugs, mildew, stuff like that’s going to effect the plant as it’s growing. It’s also decentralizing the food system.
So, you’re not having to ship food hundreds of thousands of miles from point A to point B. So, the food is right there. And the nutrients that we use are organic plant-based nutrients. And there’s no pesticides. So, the nutrient density is extremely high compared to something that you would buy – even organic – in a store.
Walker: We grow a variety of vegetables and lettuces. I believe that we’re somewhere in the area of 30 to 40 different types of vegetables and lettuces that we can grow in our farms. And, then of course we’ve got our gourmet mushroom farm which we’re currently growing anywhere from eight to nine different varieties of mushrooms. We’re in the startup phase of running that farm ourselves. So, we’re exploring the different types of mushrooms that we can grow. But, we’re very proud of the folks that are actually running these farms – our staff, very knowledgeable and they do a great job. We’re going upwards to 300 to 400 pounds a week now. We’re not competing with traditional farming. We’re actually a compliment.
Who are your customers?
Walker: One of our first customers is Centura Health. They purchased their first container – which is now sitting at St. Mary’s in Pueblo. They ordered two more containers after seeing how the first container behind their hospital worked. We actually started up a pilot program with Centura Health where we’re now running them as the FarmBox family.
We’re working with Centura Health in identifying not only their hospitals and the patients who are going to be fed through our vertical farm – but then we’re also identifying where the food deserts are and Centura Health will then help us with what we’re going to be growing, and then the communities that we’re going to be serving from those, those particular crops.
We do have a couple that’s looking at doing some farming right here in Sedalia. They’re going to use it to supplement their traditional farming, which will be an interesting pilot program for us to work with them on. We’re working with C Lazy U Ranch out of Granby, Colorado. They’ve ordered a hydroponic farm and we’re going to be manufacturing that. And they’re going to place that at the ranch. They don’t really have access to a lot of good food as far as having it grown right there on the property. So, this will be a nice compliment to the services and the customer experience that they provide their customers by having one of our farms right on site.
Centura Health is one of FarmBox Foods' first customers. Credit: Jeremy Moore, KUSA
One big area that we’re really focusing on is the urban areas throughout the U.S. where they don’t have a lot of land to grow. These farms can go right into the parking lots, behind a church for example. We’re working with a community church in the south side of Chicago that’s looking at – we’re looking at placing two of these containers – a vertical hydroponic farm and a mushroom farm right outside in the parking lot outside the church.
We can have the community grow their own food and supply the community themselves with highly nutritional food that ordinarily they just would not be able to get their hands on. So, we’re thinking that if this pilot program goes well this would be an application that would apply to every inner city throughout the United States.
Savageau: We have a customer here in Lakewood that’s going to put one in their backyard. They run a small organic farm. We’re looking all the way up into federal government and military, and everything in between.
So, Rusty was talking about FEMA, the UN, UNICEF, those are the big customers that take a long time to build a relationship with. And then we have customers that are all the way down to just an individual that wants one for their property or maybe a couple of people are going to run one for a restaurant or a developer wants one for a small development that he’s doing.
We’re working with a group in New Mexico and they’re building a huge development of about 45,000 houses. So, we’re talking about 100 of these units that are going to be deployed in that area right outside Albuquerque to feed those communities within that area over the course of about two years. We work with a grocer that’s regional. And we work with some other customers that are kind of at a government, federal government level.
I think we’ve done a lot in the last three years. I mean we haven’t gone out and raised any capitol. So, we’ve self-funded it. And I think from that point of view you know we’ve done a lot. We’re kind of at the point right now where we’re just starting to scale. So, we’ve just started our social media. You know SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing). We have a sales team. And orders are starting to come in. We’ve partnered with RK which is manufacturing our units. That’s giving us the ability to scale. Because before that we were building these one or two at a time in Sedalia and now we can build 100 of them. So, that’s really been a huge part of us being able to scale is the manufacturing side.
How much does it cost to purchase and operate the farms?
Jake: This VHF farm – vertical hydroponic farm – starts at $140,000. The GMF starts at $150,000. Then, you have training and deploy, getting it there. So, usually, you’re over $150,000 for a farm. So, your ROI (return on investment) in this product is going to be about 12 months to 24 months depending on what you’re growing and where it is in the world.
The GMF is going to be closer to 12 months because mushrooms tend to be more expensive – again – depending on where it’s going. We have a unit that’s going to Tahiti for example. That ROI is going to be extremely fast because they ship everything in. If there’s a market for mushrooms there, which there is with a grocer, it’s going to be quick. So, the cost of running it with labor and everything you need to grow the plants, usually around $20,000 to $40,000 a year. We’re a mission-driven company. So, money isn’t the first thing that’s important. We want to build a certain amount of these and then every x amount that we build, we build one for free and we send it to a community that maybe our social media has engaged with or given us an idea that ‘hey, this would be a good community.’ And then, we send it there. We pay for it. We train people. And that’s something that we want to do. We can’t do it yet. But, I think that’s coming in the next year.
Why is Edible Beats interested in working with FarmBox?
Hunt: We try to be as local and organic as possible and that’s what brought us here to FarmBox. We can put a box behind a restaurant and have lettuces cut and washed and put on the plate the next day.
Just to have that connection with our food and know exactly where it’s coming from and how it was produced. It’s going to be better quality because it’s not traveling. It’s not ripening in a truck coming from Mexico. Economically, what we can do to not pay the mileage on the vehicles and the gas, the inputs, the emissions, the extra packaging, the plastics.
That’s one of the best things about FarmBox – that what we can do is – if we produce food for our restaurant group – I’m not going to have to buy packaging that’s going to go into a landfill or even need to be recycled. It’ll go directly into the vessels that we’re going to store them in the cooler. We don’t have to worry about marketing and labeling and you know stickers and plastics and all this extra stuff – this hoopla that we don’t need – because FarmBox is a possibility now.
The Farmbox Foods containers allow leafy greens to grow vertically, maximizing space.
Credit: Jeremy Moore, KUSA
We are looking at lettuces and herbs, leafy greens. So yeah, like basils, sage, leaf lettuces, butter lettuces, arugula – these kinds of things that we use that could greatly help our impact. Essentially it’s a self-contained box that you can grow fruits and vegetables in – most likely leafy greens – and it’s a soilless or near soilless medium.
So, essentially you plant your seed in a very small amount of coconut core or soil or peat moss – something to hold the root structure – and that, according to with FarmBox, they’re system is a vertical farming.
So, they have vertical towers and then they put the lettuces in the towers in their small soil medium and then they drip water with enhanced nutrients mixed into the water specifically built for those vegetables. It doesn’t have a lot of soil waste.
For the amount of the surface area you can get way more production out of it and the water that goes through is recycled. Per plant, it uses far less water than any other type of growing system.
RELATED: Why Colorado agriculture groups oppose Initiative 16, an animal cruelty proposal
Eeden Farms Sees Phenomenal Market Response To Pioneering Concept
Lincoln Deal II, the founder of Eeden Farms, said: “The response has been phenomenal. Most days, we are combing growing and facilitating tours because the interest level is so high among restaurants and hotels
An Eeden Farms worker plants seeds for a sustainable future. (PHOTO: EEDEN FARMS)
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A tech-enabled containerized farming company has seen a “phenomenal” response to its offering, according to its founder, who told Eyewitness News “the demand is definitely there”.
Lincoln Deal II, the founder of Eeden Farms, said: “The response has been phenomenal. Most days, we are combing growing and facilitating tours because the interest level is so high among restaurants and hotels.
Lincoln Deal II.
“A lot of the restaurants and hotels are enamored by how fresh the produce is, that they can get it farm-to-table and it’s Bahamian. The demand is definitely there.”
Eeden Farms, located in the BRON Business Centre, Airport Industrial Park, officially launched back in February.
The company currently utilizes three repurposed shipping containers equivalent to 15 acres of farmland and offers fresh organic produce year-round. Its farm system was created by Boston-based Freight Farms, the world’s leading manufacturer of container farm technology.
Deal defended the containerized farming concept, noting that Eeden Farms is the first company to have Freight Farm’s newest model of containerized farms.
“The technology that we are utilizing has never been used here before,” said Deal.
“We are the pioneers of this technology here in The Bahamas despite what misinformation may put out there. We were the first to receive this model from Freight Farms and they own the patent on this particular technology.”
Caroline Katsiroubas, director of marketing and community relations at Freight Farms, told Eyewitness News: “Eeden Farms represents the first entry of our technology into that region and that market. It began in 2020 but the journey didn’t start there. We have been working with him (Deal) for quite a few years, having first met at a conference in 2016.
“We’re in 32 countries right now. In terms of who our client base is, we have a very diverse kind of network of people who are interested in operating the system and it has infinite applications.”
Tags Always a headline ahead, Bahamas news, ewnews, ewnews.com, Eyewitness News, Eyewitness News Online, Nassau Bahamas, www.ewnews.com
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Lead photo: Eeden Farms. (BIS PHOTO/KRISTAAN INGRAHAM)
VIDEO: Inside A Shipping Container Vertical Farm
New farming models are cropping up around the world, including in Sydney, where Sprout Stack is transforming old shipping containers into commercial vertical farms
March 17, 2021
New farming models are cropping up around the world, including in Sydney, where Sprout Stack is transforming old shipping containers into commercial vertical farms.
With lighting in the containers designed to optimize plant growth, and sensors measuring temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide, the approach is more productive than traditional farming — and uses 95 percent less water.
Take a look inside Sprout Stack’s vertical farms.
Polygreens Podcast Episode: 17 - Nicola Kerslake - Contain Inc.
Nicola Kerslake founded Contain Inc, a fintech platform for indoor agriculture, that aids indoor farmers in finding lease funding for their projects
Nicola Kerslake founded Contain Inc, a fintech platform for indoor agriculture, that aids indoor farmers in finding lease funding for their projects. They're backed by Techstars' Farm to Fork program, funded by Cargill and Ecolab.
