Why Indoor Ag Is Like 3D Printing
As a student, Maarten Vandecruys was looking for a way to scale his impact. After seeing the waste and inefficiency of the old food supply chain, he decided indoor agriculture was how he’d make his mark. He’s kept this focus on impact as Founder and Managing Director of Contain vendor Urban Crop Solutions, working with diverse partners on projects to reduce food waste at IKEA and simulate growing on Mars. We sat down with Maarten to hear what he’s learned in the process.
Maarten Vandecruys, image courtesy of Urban Crop Solutions
What’s Urban Crop Solutions’ signature approach?
We’ve always looked at the industry rather holistically, not as an engineering company, building systems or technology, and not as purely biologists, looking at how to grow things. For us, it always starts with the customer and starts with the customer’s market. It’s the end-user that defines the needs of a producer.
Then we have our plant scientists find the most optimal conditions and then they optimize the yields our client can produce to maximize their profits. Based on that, we can maximize their system, using different lights, sizes, etc.
We see that our growers have enough challenges as it is. At the end of the day, they’re producing living things, so we want to take tech and biological challenges away from them.
You’ve collaborated on projects ranging from reducing waste and supplying greens to IKEA, to simulating life on Mars with Puratos. What did you learn from these diverse partnerships?
One thing that you always see, looking at the two — the Mars project, which is more of a fundamental research approach, while with IKEA, it’s a practical applied project — what you always see is there is still so much about the growth and production of crops that is learning, daily, about new methods and which process is happening inside the plant.
The potential is far from unlocked. In initial trials with Puratos, we are already increasing the yields of wheat fivefold, per square meter of growing surface, not accounting for multiple layers of growth, as in a vertical farm. Economically, it’s still not viable enough, that’s the downside, but we continue to focus on optimizing.
IKEA had a very strong focus on sustainability. We are trying to approach our clients’ projects as holistically as possible. That’s the essence of what we did with IKEA, where we’re producing food from food waste. All waste from their restaurants included in our project were brought to a biogas facility, which provided electricity for our containers, and CO2 for our plants. It’s a real circular system, which functions well as a business case, and also increased interest in IKEA’s dishes using our greens, once they started communicating with the public about where it came from. This is what I see as the start of something very big for the industry.
Image courtesy of Urban Crop Solutions
Some people say indoor farming has overstated its potential to the media and investors. What do you think?
There’s really a lot of similarities with the 3D printing industry. When it was new, it was this big thing attracting lots of investment, only for people to initially find out that it was all too expensive. However, as the tech improved, the costs have gone down, and now there are multiple niches that create huge and sustainable added value.
Indoor vertical farming is very similar in that regard. Will indoor vertical farming feed all of humanity in ten years? Let’s be honest, likely no. Will it offer huge benefits to specific industries and shorten the supply chain with better quality? Yes. This will happen in food, pharmaceuticals, the floriculture industry, and it’s already happening now. It’s not moving as fast as five years ago, but it’s for the best. You start walking before you can run.
What are some of the biggest challenges you see when new growers want to get into indoor ag, especially around financing?
Financing is very important. We always conduct a feasibility study with our clients. It’s mainly an industry of new entrants, people or companies with no experience in food production or distribution. They have a lot of challenges coming towards them. We look at who is their customers, what is the location, what to grow, how are they funded.
It’s a new industry, so traditional funders and lenders aren’t as interested in this. What’s important is that growers can improve their case by covering their risk, and one of the things to help with that is working with a tech provider with a proven track record and customer base. It’s still not as easy as it seems, which is why having an industry-specific provider, like Contain, which knows what the field looks like, benefits each side.
The larger companies are slowly moving into the field, like IKEA and some of the airlines, which creates more credibility towards the banks. Five years ago, that wasn’t happening. It’s only for the best, especially because they are successful.
What’s the common feature among the most successful indoor growers you see, and what can our readers learn from them?
Understand the complexity of the industry. In the end, you are producing a living organism. You’re getting way more output than input, which is pretty unique. In order to do that properly, you need tons of expertise: plant physiology, food safety, etc. It’s not easy to have all of that, especially as a small company. That’s why having the right team is so important, or to put yourself with the right partners. That’s the best way to succeed.
What industry trends are you most excited about?
What I’m most excited about is breeding for indoor ag. In the past, our plants have been bred for disease-resistance and yields. But right now we have more and more interest in collaborations to breed for indoor farms, which unlocks way more potential. We can drop the disease element and focus on quality. This will open us up to new perspectives on food, thinking about the functionality, putting new vitamins in food. If we can maximize the number of crops we grow, while reducing the necessary water, waste, and transport, the impact will be incredible. It’s happening already, whereas in the past it was too little. The impact will slowly drip to the market, and that’s what I’m really excited about.
This conversation transcript has been lightly edited for length and clarity.