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Ikea Now Grows Lettuce In Shipping Containers At Its Stores
04.11.19
The salad with your meatballs will now be ultra local.
[Photo: Ikea]
Outside its stores in Malmö and Helsingborg, Sweden, Ikea is now growing lettuce in shipping containers. The company soon plans to begin serving the greens to customers at its onsite restaurants.
[Photo: Ikea]
For the company, it’s a step toward more environmental sustainability. “There is a need to find better solutions to produce more healthy food using less land and water and at the same time decrease food waste,” says Catarina Englund, innovation and development leader for the Ingka Group, the company that runs most Ikea stores globally. “Urban farming has the potential to transform the global food value chain, as it aims to produce local fresh food within close proximity to meet demand, all while using less natural resources.”
[Photo: Ikea]
Inside each shipping container, a hydroponic growing system holds four levels of plants, or up to 3,600 heads of lettuce. There’s no soil, no pesticides or herbicides, and, like other indoor farming, the system uses up to 90% less water than growing crops in a field. LED lights, running on renewable energy like the rest of the Ikea store, are tuned to help the plants grow as quickly as possible. The lettuce also gets nutrients from food waste.
[Photo: Olle Nordell/courtesy Bonbio]
“What we feed the plants is actually [made] out of food waste,” says Fredrik Olrog, the cofounder and managing director of Bonbio, the company providing the indoor farming system to Ikea. “That’s our uniqueness: We’re actually trying to make the future of farming circular.”
Bonbio is a part of a larger group, OX2, that makes fuel from food waste, and discovered a way to capture critical nutrients for farming–like nitrogen and phosphorus–as a by-product of making that fuel. It means that food waste from Ikea’s own restaurants can be used to help more food grow. “At these two sites, we’re doing a fully closed loop system–we’re actually taking their own food waste,” Olrog says.
[Image: Ikea]
For Ikea, food is a relatively small part of its overall carbon footprint (despite the popularity of its restaurants). But as it works to improve sustainability across the company, moving to a circular model and experimenting with renting the furniture that it sells, food is a piece of the solution. Globally, more than 30% of climate emissions are connected to food. At its restaurants, the company has started moving to more plant-based food–from veggie meatballs to veggie hot dogs–and is working to cut food waste in half. Growing food itself is the next step. Ultimately, the company aims to become “climate positive,” meaning that it reduces more emissions than it creates.
[Photo: Ikea]
As it works with Bonbio, “we will explore how to become self-sufficient in growing our own local fresh, healthy, and sustainable salad greens in vertical farms–at the same or lower cost levels as conventionally grown food,” says Englund. As with most indoor farming projects, it’s starting with greens. “For the time being, it’s easiest to grow vegetables with short growth cycles that can generate high yields per surface area, for instance, lettuce and kale,” she says.
The cold, dark winters in Sweden make it a particularly good place to test the system, since lettuce is imported for much of the year. Greens grown on-site can be better tasting (having lived in Sweden as a Californian, I can attest to the sadness of Swedish produce departments at grocery stores) and avoid the emissions of transportation. In tests that will last for a year, the partners are studying how much lettuce the system can grow, and how the unique nutrients that the system is using can improve the nutrition of the final food.
“The aim is to learn to be able to optimize and establish best practices and proof of concepts for vertical farming within Ikea operations,” says Englund. At the pilot stores, Ikea plans to initially serve the lettuce in its cafes for its own employees, and once it is satisfied with the production routines, will begin serving the lettuce to customers in its restaurants.
“In the long term, Ingka Group hopes to be self-sufficient with locally grown, circular lettuce and other leafy greens,” she says.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adele Peters is a staff writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to some of the world's largest problems, from climate change to homelessness. Previously, she worked with GOOD, BioLite, and the Sustainable Products and Solutions program at UC Berkeley.
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Ikea Harvests First Hydroponically-Grown Lettuce
Courtesy of Ikea & Bonbio
4th April 2019
Ikea has harvested and served its first “home-grown” lettuce as part of a year-long trial exploring how food can be served more sustainability.
The Swedish furniture giant is growing lettuces in containers outside its department stores in Malmö and Helsingborg, Sweden, working alongside circular farming expert, Bonbio.
Each container conceals a high-tech growing operation comprising 3,600 lettuce plants in an area of 30 m2.
The container has four levels and is full of different sizes of lettuce. The seeds are sown in batches, so there is always lettuce available for harvesting.
No pesticides are needed during the growing process because the farming takes place in a closed system.
The lettuce is grown hydroponically in water containing liquid plant nutrients extract from organic waste – including food waste from Ikea’s restaurants.
This, Ikea said, means the lettuces require 90% less water and less than half the area than those that have been conventionally growth.
“It is not every day that we have a harvest celebration at Ikea and it is really fun for us to finally be able to serve our own lettuce. It is fresh, crisp and has a bit more taste than regular lettuce,” said Ann Holster, responsible for Ikea Sweden’s restaurant operations
“We will start serving the lettuce in our staff canteens, but hope to soon be able to offer it to our customers.”
World’s Top Furniture Retailer Set To Begin Serving Home-Grown Salad
The world’s biggest furniture retailer is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile
Ikea, which demonstrated one of the LED-powered containers at an event at a store in Kaarst, western Germany, expects to start serving home-grown salad to customers at its restaurants from pilot projects at two stores in Sweden next month.
Circular farming involves waste food being turned into nutrients that are used to grow new crops.(iStock/Representative Image )
April 04, 2019
Reuters | Kaarst
The world’s biggest furniture retailer is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile.
Ikea, which demonstrated one of the LED-powered containers at an event at a store in Kaarst, western Germany, expects to start serving home-grown salad to customers at its restaurants from pilot projects at two stores in Sweden next month.
“The conditions are perfect for maximum taste and growth and you also have the sustainability advantage because you don’t have the transport,” said Catarina Englund, innovation manager for the Ingka Group, which owns most Ikea stores.
The containers, managed by circular farming firm Bonbio, have four shelves, carrying up to 3,600 plants in total, fed by nutrients extracted from organic waste, including leftovers from Ikea’s restaurants.
Circular farming involves waste food being turned into nutrients that are used to grow new crops.
The system, known as hydroponic farming, means the plants need no soil or pesticides, and use 90 percent less water and less than half of the area of conventional farming, with the LED lights to be powered by renewable energy, Ikea said.
One of the world’s biggest sellers of LED lights, the retail major also sells home hydroponic kits for hobby indoor gardeners. Englund said about 15-20 kg of salad can be harvested a day from each container and the fact that the lettuce will be grown on site means production can be precisely tailored to the demand of a store, reducing food waste.
Sales of Ikea food like hot dogs or Swedish meatballs account for about 5 percent of the group’s 35 billion euros ($39.34 billion) of turnover.
Microgreens Grown Locally Gain Popularity At Area Grocery Stores, Restaurants
Microgreens — tiny plants smaller than baby greens but more mature than sprouts — have been trending in popularity with chefs, restaurants and area farmers markets
Locally grown microgreens on top of cornmeal crusted walleye with spring vegetable ragout at the Winds in Yellow Springs. LISA POWELL / STAFF Lisa Powell
Kaitlin Schroeder, Staff Writer
Microgreens — tiny plants smaller than baby greens but more mature than sprouts — have been trending in popularity with chefs, restaurants and area farmers markets.
The nutrient dense produce have grown popular as a way to color and flavor to sandwiches, soups, salads and stir fries.
“They are really high in their nutrient value and they add a good presentation to your entree,” said Dean Sink, with Hydro Growers, based in Pleasant Hill, who has added microgreens to his business about five years ago.
Most of their business is with restaurants, though Hydro Growers does have a booth downtown at Second Street Market.
Michelle Mayhew, Dorothy Lane produce director, said microgreens have been a long growing trend that grew from restaurants — where food trends tend to start — to grocery stores and home cooking.
“People started using them as garnishes and found out how flavorful they are,” Mayhew said. “It’s definitely growing because we went from like three varieties to six to eight. So that tells you the trend is growing.”
Small hobby farms and larger operations have started producing microgreens in recent years. 80 Acres Farms, which does indoor vertical farming and is expanding in Hamilton, grows microgreens and Waterfields in Cincinnati is one of the larger suppliers of the specialty greens to chefs in the region.
The crop has a quick turnaround since the plants are harvested so early. It’s a product with a short shelf life, which has created a market for local farmers to be the suppliers, said Sam Wickham with Fox Hole Farms in Brookville.
Wickham said her farm’s products are on shelves at two of the Dorothy Lane Market locations and they are also a vendor at Oakwood and Centerville farmers markets.
“They are pretty popular. They are kind of our workhorse right now,” she said.
Stephen Mackell, farm manager with Mission of Mary Cooperative in the Twin Towers neighborhood, said his organization has taught classes in the past on microgreens and said they help attendees understand the difference between microgreens and sprouts.
Sprouts have been a popular item on grocery shelves in kitchens for longer than microgreens and are germinated seeds that typically have sprouted but haven’t done photosynthesis yet. Microgreens are grown until they have a few leaves and are a green product.
“It tastes like you are eating a plant rather than a little protein sprout,” Mackell said.
IKEA To Start Serving Salad Grown At Its Stores
IKEA, the world's biggest furniture retailer, is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile
April 04, 2019
A basil plant and a red lettuce grown without soil, using nutrients and water while LED-lights give it the light it needs to grow, is pictured.
KAARST, Germany (Reuters) - IKEA, the world's biggest furniture retailer, is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile.
IKEA, which demonstrated one of the LED-powered containers at an event at a store in Kaarst, western Germany, expects to start serving home-grown salad to customers at its restaurants from pilot projects at two stores in Sweden next month.
"The conditions are perfect for maximum taste and growth and you also have the sustainability advantage because you don't have the transport," said Catarina Englund, innovation manager for the Ingka Group, which owns most IKEA stores.
The containers, managed by circular farming firm Bonbio, have four shelves, carrying up to 3,600 plants in total, fed by nutrients extracted from organic waste, including leftovers from IKEA's restaurants. Circular farming involves waste food being turned into nutrients that are used to grow new crops.
The system, known as hydroponic farming, means the plants need no soil or pesticides, and use 90 percent less water and less than half of the area of conventional farming, with the LED lights to be powered by renewable energy, IKEA said.
One of the world's biggest sellers of LED lights, IKEA also sells home hydroponic kits for hobby indoor gardeners.
Englund said about 15-20 kilograms of salad can be harvested a day from each container and the fact that the lettuce will be grown on site means production can be precisely tailored to the demand of a store, reducing food waste.
Sales of IKEA food like hotdogs or Swedish meatballs account for about 5 percent of the group's 35 billion euros ($39.34 billion) of turnover.
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Lettuce Grow’s Subscription Service Promises to Make Texas Gardening Much Simpler
Actress Zooey Deschanel at the Lettuce Grow launch party. Photo by: Julia Keim.
BY PAULA FORBES
March 13, 2019
Growing plants in Texas involves a steep learning curve. Even if you grew up seeding and weeding at the side of a knowledgable green thumb, there’s a lot of collective wisdom to internalize before you’re harvesting your own vegetables. Our warmer winters mean an entirely different planting schedule than is suggested on the backs of seed packets. Scorching hot summers require vigilant water management. Plus, the bugs more than live up to that old cliche that everything is bigger in our state.
Lettuce Grow, a startup from Emmy- and Grammy-nominated actor and singer Zooey Deschanel (known for New Girl, 500 Days of Summer, and the musical duo She & Him) and her husband, entrepreneur Jacob Pechenik, is an attempt to make that curve a little less steep. On March 10, 2019, at the South Congress Hotel, they hosted a launch party for the Austin-based company, which will begin shipping to its first subscribers soon.
The couple, who have two young children, split their time between Austin and Los Angeles and are familiar with the peculiar challenges of growing veggies here. “In a place like Texas, you have these [weather] extremes,” Pechenik says. With their backyard hydroponic system and accompanying subscription service, he claims, they want to enable people to “grow twenty percent of their food.” It’s an ambitious goal, but Lettuce Grow automates many aspects of gardening, effectively giving its customers a shortcut to homegrown produce. “You might not have a green thumb,” Deschanel says. “We want to do all the extra work that might stop people from growing a garden at their house.”
Here’s how it works: When you sign up, Lettuce Grow ships you one of their “farms.” Made from ocean-bound plastic (plastic that wouldn’t have been recycled otherwise), the farms are vertical hydroponic gardening systems. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil. You set the grower in a sunlit area, fill it with nutrient-enriched water, plug it in, and then add the seedlings that Lettuce Grow ships you monthly. That’s it, more or less.
Deschanel and Pechenik in front of two of Lettuce Grow’s “farms” at the launch party on Sunday, March 10, 2019. Photo: Laura Hajar
The plant varieties have been selected to work well based on your geographic location, and the types of plants Texans can expect to receive through the subscription service will be tailored to the seasons and the weather. Lettuce Grow works with local farms to grow the seedlings. In Austin that farm is Agua Dulce, owned by Deschanel and Pechenik’s Farm Project. Varieties are tested and chosen for flavor, yield, insect resistance, climate compatibility, and more.
The goal is to get your Lettuce Grow farm to a point where it’s producing enough vegetables that you can harvest some every day. That way, says Pechenik, “you can start to build a lifestyle around eating at home, cooking at home.” The company has an accompanying app that advises when to harvest; advises when to clean, add nutrients, or add water to the Farm; and provides recipes and tips for eating your bounty. You can even send in photos of your plants if they seem to be struggling, and they’ll offer advice—or change the variety of plants in your subscription box to some better suited to your space.
All of this hand-holding comes at a price: Farms range from $399 to $469 depending on size, and the accompanying subscriptions cost between $49 and $69 monthly. But Lettuce Grow claims that, at peak season, the smallest farm produces $78 worth of produce a month—so if you stick with it, you’ll eventually save money. For those who want to garden and can afford the system, it removes plenty of hurdles to starting a garden. (Lettuce Grow also donates one farm and accompanying membership to “a school or community-based organization” for every ten subscriptions it sells.)
Pechenik discusses one of the company’s hydroponic growing systems.
Laura Hajar
“I am drinking the Kool-Aid,” says Stephanie Scherzer of Austin’s Rain Lily Farm, who has worked closely with Lettuce Grow in selecting varietals and growing seedlings. She admires the system for being accessible to children and the elderly as well as its performance. Scherzer says she’s been able to grow watermelon, eggplant, and peppers in her prototype farm and that the cooling properties of the hydroponics system extended the Texas growing season for crops like thyme, watercress, and kale. (For now, the service sends members mostly greens and herbs, but greater variety is planned.)
Deschanel says she’s enthusiastic about Lettuce Grow because “it’s really such an advantage to grow your own food.” She notes that freshly picked vegetables retain the most nutrients and that picking only as much food as you need to eat can reduce food waste. She adds that her daughter loves picking the vegetables, and the Lettuce Grow system provides a starting point to get kids involved in gardening. “It’s a great way to explore the food you’re eating and explore healthier options too.”
Lettuce Grow is taking preorders for its first round of subscriptions. Farms begin shipping in three to five weeks, and it’s available nationwide.
VIDEO: New York Restaurant Basement Farm to Table
Underneath two-star Michelin restaurant Atera in Lower Manhattan is an actual working farm. Using LED lighting and hydroponics, Farm.One grows rare herbs and greens for some of New York City’s top restaurants. We talk to the founder Rob Laing about his venture and get a taste of what he’s growing.
FRI, MAR 15 2019 • 1:02 PM EDT
Ikea Sweden To Start Growing Lettuce
Ikea Sweden will grow its own lettuce next year at two of its locations. In cooperation with waste processing company Bonbio, Ikea will begin cultivating in containers in Malmö and Helsingborg in the course of 2019. Part of the plant food will come from organic waste. The goal is for the lettuce to be served in Ikea restaurants.
"More than 25 percent of carbon dioxide emissions come from food. This project is in line with Ikea's ambition to find innovative and sustainable solutions to environmental problems," says Jonas Carlehed, Sustainability Manager at Ikea. Ikea Sweden already supplies organic waste to various recycling companies, including a biogas plant in Helsingborg from OX2 Bio, a sister company of Bonbios.
"Because we can regulate light, temperature, supply of water and food, we are unaffected by weather influences and we can guarantee a large quantity of fresh locally grown vegetables all year round," says Fredrik Olrog, director of Bonbio. Ultimately, the Ingka group, the largest franchisee of the Ikea brand, hopes to become self-sufficient in terms of lettuce and other leafy vegetables. "This way we avoid transport costs and we don't need soil or crop protection. The required electricity comes from our own wind power plants," says Catarina Englund, innovation manager at the Ingka group.
Bonbio will use a cultivation container of 30 m2 for this project, but will create a total cultivation area of 80 m2. They achieve this by growing vertically on four floors. Each floor has 45 gutters and there is room for 20 cultivation bins in each gutter. It's grown hydroponically, using only 10 percent of the amount of water needed for traditional cultivation. The climate parameters, such as light and carbon dioxide, are controlled by sensors. After five to six weeks, they expect about 18 kg of lettuce to be harvested per container.
Source: www.mynewsdesk.com
Publication date : 12/19/2018
Nothing Is Wasted In This Greenhouse Restaurant
It has been there for a while, restaurant the Green House in the center of Utrecht (Netherlands). On April 9, the restaurant opened its doors, and since then the visitors have been able to enjoy food which is harvested above their heads in the greenhouse. The video below gives a good overview of the restaurant.
For more information, read the article published before on Horti Daily.
For more information:
The Green House
Croeselaan 16, 3521 CA Utrecht
Netherlands
+31 (0)6 2213 1447
info@thegreenhouserestaurant.nl
www.thegreenhouserestaurant.nl
Publication date : 12/13/2018
Local Startup Making High-Tech Gardens Grow
JOSH MANDELL @joshuamandell
November 19, 2018
Babylon Micro-Farms has created an indoor growing system that allows customers to farm organic foods inside their home or business. Credit: Andrew Shurtleff, The Daily Progress
Babylon Micro-Farms has created an indoor growing system that allows customers to farm organic foods inside their home or business. Credit: Andrew Shurtleff, The Daily Progress
When Charlottesville’s Silk Mills building opened in 1895, it brought a new manufacturing business to a local economy that still was based upon agriculture.
Today, the building on Harris Street houses a team of “farmers” who build circuit boards and write code as they tend to their crops.
Another tenant, Babylon Micro-Farms, hopes to bring the technology used by large-scale urban farms to small businesses and individual consumers.
“We want to make advanced, controlled agriculture accessible to more people,” said Alexander Olesen, Babylon Micro-Farms co-founder.
(From left) Babylon Micro-Farms Will Graham, Graham Smith, Alexander Olesen and Sam Korn stand in front of a new indoor growing system. Credit: Andrew Shurtleff, The Daily Progress
Since its creation in 2017, Babylon has installed automated hydroponic systems at several Charlottesville eateries, including Corner Juice and Yoga, Three Notch’d Craft Brewery and Kitchen and the University of Virginia’s Observatory Hill dining hall. The company currently is finishing its most complex project to date inside the Boar’s Head Resort’s Trout House.
Dale Ford, Boar’s Head’s executive chef, said he expects the hydroponic farm to produce 300 heads of lettuce each week — enough for all of the resort’s dining locations.
“Putting together a small urban farm inside what we consider to be a legendary, iconic building for our property was a great combination,” Ford said. “The thought that we could grow produce from an heirloom seed and track the analytics and data from germination to harvest and tell the story of that food to our guest — that is pretty special.”
Olesen and co-founder Graham Smith built their first micro-farm for a social entrepreneurship course at UVa. That wooden, pool table-sized prototype has given rise to tall, transparent setups that can be precisely programmed to provide water and nutrients to multiple crop varieties at once.
Will Graham, Babylon’s director of marketing and sales, said the company ships pre-seeded trays and programs the micro-farms in advance to make indoor farming a “plug-and-play” experience for its clients.
Credit: Andrew Shurtleff, The Daily Progress
Many other companies are trying to capitalize on the efficiency and environmental sustainability of hydroponics. A handful of urban farming startups have attracted enormous investments this year.
BrightFarms, which operates a 250,000-square-foot greenhouse in Culpeper County, raised a $55 million Series D investment round in June. Gotham Greens, based in New York and Chicago, raised $29 million in an investment round this past summer.
Beanstalk, another indoor farming startup founded by UVa graduates, participated in the Y Combinator accelerator program this year.
While Beanstalk hopes to disrupt the wholesale market for produce, Babylon Micro-Farms is targeting individual restaurants and health-conscious consumers. The company is scheduled to unveil a residential model of its micro-farm in December, with an estimated starting cost of $3,500.
“When we looked at the industry, we saw that it was confined to massive commercial industrial operations and small DIY kits,” Olesen said. “That doesn’t make any sense, and it reflects the problems of the larger agricultural system.”
Babylon Micro-Farms soon will sell its own produce at local farmers markets and groceries. It has donated greens to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.
“We grow hundreds of crops and experiment with all sorts of rare varieties and herbs that you can’t get in Charlottesville,” Olesen said. “If we say it’s that easy, why wouldn’t we be doing it ourselves?”
Company Working To Bring Fresh Produce To U.Va. Dining Halls, Charlottesville Businesses And Homes
Babylon Micro-Farms has developed a system using hydroponic farming to make growing fresh produce more sustainable
By Rupa Nallamothu | 10/10/2018
In hydroponic farming, plants are grown in nutrient-rich, water solvent mineral solutions rather than in soil. Courtesy Babylon Micro-Farms
Babylon Micro-Farms, founded by University alumnus Alexander Olesen during his undergraduate years, has developed a system using hydroponic farming to make growing fresh produce sustainable for the urban consumer. The Babylon team has recently installed more apparatuses in the University dining halls, Charlottesville businesses and consumers’ homes.
Olesen developed Babylon Micro-Farms, a hydroponic farming system, to create an urban farming system easily accessible by consumers. During the spring semester of 2016, in the early stages of the company’s development, Olesen utilized several entrepreneurship resources available through the University.
“We started with the social entrepreneurship class, but then the founders went through the HackCville Alpha program, which was very helpful for them,” said Will Graham, the director of sales and marketing at Babylon. “From there, they went through the Darden iLab.”
In hydroponic farming, plants are grown in nutrient-rich, water solvent mineral solutions rather than in soil. This farming method removes environmental limitations to maximize respiration and absorption of nutrients in plants, which contribute to a greater harvest yield. Genetically modified organisms, pesticides or inorganic fertilizers cannot be used in a hydroponic culture.
Moreover, hydroponic farming can help reduce the distance between where a food item is grown and where it is sold by allowing plants to grow in normally inhospitable environments, such as inside urban buildings. This system could potentially allow restaurants and homes to grow plants inside their own spaces.
Since hydroponic systems are generally used in mass production due to their high cost, they are not readily available for urban consumers performing small-scale farming. Hydroponic systems also usually have restrictions on the types of plants that can grow in them.
However, Babylon Micro-Farms seeks to make hydroponics available for personal use and has developed technology that allows consumers to grow several different types of plants in their systems.
According to Graham, the Babylon team has several types of systems with varying degrees of technology. Some of the systems have two different reservoirs to allow different types of plants that require different types of nutrients or stratified sections of the same crop to grow on the same system.
The farming system has several versions which were developed throughout the growth of the company. Initially, the systems could not monitor the growth of the plants on each rack and were not stratified enough to grow multiple different types of produce on the same apparatus. Now, racks are divided based on the type of plant and can also be scanned into an app, which displays available information and data from the hydroponic system.
“You should able to scan a farm and tell it where you're putting plants, and it can adjust the lights and nutrients to grow something,” Graham said.
The Babylon team began testing prototypes around Grounds in 2017 after building an early model through HackCville, and received funding by winning $6,500 from the Green Initiatives Funding Tomorrow grant. After earning the GIFT grant, the company utilized the resources of Darden’s iLab, or the W.L. Lyons Brown III Innovation Laboratory — which supports the growth and development of business at an early stage by providing them resources, such as funding opportunities, legal services and faculty support.
According to Patrick Mahan, an electrical engineer at Babylon, the resources at the iLab helped the Babylon founders navigate the process of establishing a business.
After obtaining a financial basis for the project, the Babylon team installed their micro-farms in dining halls at the University. At Newcomb and O’Hill, these systems are utilized to grow produce used to prepare meals. On Sept. 12, the Babylon team installed two new systems in O’Hill and Runk.
"We mostly got positive reception,” Mahan said regarding the placement of systems in dining halls. “Part of it was almost confusion because they had never seen anything like it before, so they weren't sure what it was doing. But once they saw the plants start growing and saw the workers harvest the plants, I think they came around to it.”
Although Babylon is still installing systems in O’Hill and Runk, the team is also working on creating new technologies. Currently, they are developing a solar powered farm at the Morven Farm with the Morven Kitchen Garden.
The Morven Kitchen Garden, similar to Babylon Micro-Farms, is part of a student-run undergraduate sustainability initiative, according to Morven Kitchen Garden manager Stephanie Meyers. Students manage a community-supported agriculture program on a one-acre sustainable garden, donated by philanthropist John W. Kluge.
In addition to the project with Morven, the company is expanding their work outside the University. The Babylon team has implemented their hydroponic systems in Boar’s Head Resort and Three Notch'd Craft Kitchen & Brewery, two local businesses a few miles away from Grounds.
Babylon has also provided prototypes for personal use in the home, which are being used to further develop a hydroponics system available for purchase by local consumers.
Co-Living Series - Alexander Olesen on Innovating Urban Agriculture With Micro-Farms
August 28, 2018
Indoor farming can be a solution to encouraging people to integrate nature into their urban lives. As part of the Co-Living Series, we asked Alexander Olesen, founder of Babylon Micro-Farms, to explain how his project is making this experience more user-friendly and more sustainable.
When nature enters the household
Urban agriculture is currently a trending initiative in the Western World and considered as a potential solution to making cities more sustainable. The Micro-Farm is an automated indoor farming appliance that was designed in Charlottesville, Virginia (USA) by a recent graduate from the University of Virginia. It allows anyone to grow fresh leafy greens, herbs, flowers and vegetables at the push of a button. Through Babylon’s proprietary technology, it grows a wide variety of plants two times faster and uses up to 90% less water.
Access to hydroponics plant cultivation has been limited by three main problems: the cost of technology, growing expertise and space requirements.
Design is fundamental to adapting our cities for the future. In order to get people to engage and learn about innovations, we must embrace design as the first line of attack when introducing people to new ideas.
Making urban agriculture more accessible
Thanks to a high-level of automation and pre-seeded refill pods, the Micro-Farm creates an intuitive user experience simple enough for people of all ages to experiment with. All users have to do is scan in the pre-seeded refill pod and the technology takes care of the rest, it grows automatically from seed to harvest and sends alerts to users.
The automated growing platform is capable of powering a wide variety of urban farming operations. This could range from a small residential appliance, a larger installation such as an amenity at a housing development, or a full-scale commercial operation.
Designing technology and consumables to be adaptable and scalable all while simplifying the user experience is key. Seeing is believing and the creation of eye-catching structures is essential to garnering public support that will ultimately drive policymakers to introduce nature into cities.
The Future
Smart Micro-Farms may soon be commonly found in all sorts of buildings, from offices to schools, apartments, hospitals, or anywhere else. By making automated indoor farming accessible to anyone, Babylon is proactively making people healthier and happier, creating environments that offer a sustainable source of sustenance, as well as shelter!
ABOUT BABYLON MICRO-FARMS
Babylon is an indoor farming specialist, combining cutting edge technology with innovative agricultural methods to empower a new generation of urban farmers. They have created a system that automates all of the complex aspects of plant cultivation.
Watch the video here
Veganism Boom Leads To $1.2 Million Seed Funding Growth For High-Tech Garden Startup
Natufia Labs, Estonian-born startup developing machine-learning technology that grows plants right in the kitchen, announced the closing of a $1.2-million seed round led by Butterfly Ventures, Techstars, and the Dubai-based family company Ginco Investments. The funds raised will be used to enable the company to expand into Europe and the US and will be on sale imminently.
"Natufia Labs” dynamic team has a groundbreaking impact on producing fresh food and changing the ways people consume it," shares Juho Risku, partner at Butterfly Ventures. "Natufia Labs is changing the traditional agriculture model, which has $10B+ in annual revenue in the United States alone."
Around 70% of the world's consumers have reduced or completely cut out meat consumption from their diets. With veganism rising by 600% in the US and 350% in the UK, the global appetite for meat-free and plant-based diets is driving the market to be worth $5.2 billion by 2020. The sales of vegetables alone is estimated to increase by 20% by 2021. However, consumers are struggling to keep this produce fresh and on average one third is thrown away. Estonian-born startup, Natufia Labs is bridging this gap by offering consumers sustainable agriculture at home.
The Natufia Kitchen Garden automatically grows fresh plants, vegetables, flowers and herbs in households and restaurant kitchens all year round. Using machine learning and real-time data analysis the connected garden will process environmental changes and adjust its settings accordingly. The automation increases the vitamin levels by 400%. Currently Natufia offers more than 30 types of fully organic and recycled seed capsules including popular herbs and plants such as basil and kale. The Natufia Kitchen Garden has been built using stainless steel, ceramics and integrating a built-in touch screen.
"Consumers are more aware than ever about what they are buying and they want to know what is on their plate, where it came from, who made it and if it was traded fairly. The Natufia Kitchen Garden empowers consumers to grow their own produce at home. The future depends on the decentralization of food production." says Gregory Lu, CEO of Natufia Labs.
For more information:
www.natufia.com
Publication date : 9/26/2018
Farmshelf Brings Indoor Mini-Farms To Sustainable Chain Oath Pizza
September 24, 2018
Photo: Patrik Hellstrand, Oath Pizza
Earlier today Farmshelf CEO Andrew Shearer announced on Linkedin that the new Upper West Side location of Oath Pizza, set to open this Thursday, will feature one of their indoor growing units.
Farmshelf builds turnkey hydroponic mini-farms, about the size of a bookshelf, for use in restaurants and hotels. Their systems are equipped with sensors which can automatically manage the growing process, so all users have to do is plug in the device and harvest.
By growing produce 15 feet from the kitchen instead of, say, 1,500 miles, Farmshelf units can dramatically reduce food packaging, waste, and carbon footprint. It’s also is a pretty cool marketing gimmick for restaurants which put emphasis on local ingredients.
Oath Pizza is one such restaurant. The fast-casual pizza chain, which started in Nantucket, specializes in local and ethically sourced ingredients. So it’s a natural fit for them to install a grow unit which will let them take the leap from “farm to table” to “restaurant to table.”
According to their website, Farmshelf units can currently support over 50 leafy greens, herbs, and edible flowers. Judging from the Linkedin photo, the only thing the indoor farms will be growing at Oath Pizza is basil. However, their menu also features oregano and spinach, so maybe those will make an appearance at some point down the road.
This could be just the beginning of the Farmshelf-Oath Pizza partnership. Last month, the pizza chain partnered with Aramark to bring their ethical ‘za to new, larger venues, such as college campuses, sports arenas, and office buildings. Oath currently has locations in Boston, D.C., and New York, and this partnership opens them for some pretty massive expansion. It would be a smart idea to bring Farmshelf along with them; their mini-farms provide very visual publicity. Not to mention a great Instagram opportunity.
The Upper West Side outpost will join Farmshelf’s current location lineup, which includes several restaurants in Washington, D.C., as well as The Great Northern Food Hall in New York’s Grand Central Station. Maybe soon college students and baseball fans will be able to see their basil growing right next to their Crazy Caprese pizza — and then Instagram it.
Garden of Eatin’: Local Entrepreneurs Develop A New Way of Growing Greens
Babylon Micro-Farms’ cabinet-sized indoor farms can grow a variety of greens, herbs, edible flowers, fruits, and vegetables. The contraptions may be high tech, but they’re purposefully easy to use: Plug a pre-seeded tray into one of the beds, and technology does the rest.
Living | Jenny Gardiner | 9/19/18
Soon, you might not need a green thumb to farm continually fresh greens at home. For that matter, you might not need a garden, at least not in the traditional sense.
For that, you can thank Alexander Olesen and Graham Smith, two recent UVA graduates who have developed a series of hydroponic micro-farms that are already in use commercially here in Charlottesville.
Babylon Micro-Farms sprung from a challenge UVA professor Bevin Etienne posed in his social entrepreneurship class, in which students were asked to develop a product to help refugees, something with high impact and a low price tag. Something that people would be able to download an open-source design for and make on their own.
In the research process, Olesen says he got “very hooked” on the idea of hydroponics—a method of growing plants without soil—and how it has the potential to use significantly less water than conventional agriculture and grow crops twice as fast.
Olesen quickly realized that there was nothing available to the average consumer interested in trying this game-changing way of growing food. Hydroponics systems are largely limited to massive consumer operations, and worse still, inaccessible to people in developing countries and communities who could benefit greatly from such a product.
The initial micro-farm prototype—for which Olesen and Smith teamed up with Hack Cville—turned out to be low-tech and the size of a small car, and the entrepreneurs realized that if a community doesn’t have access to food, it’s not likely to have access to pH monitors, nutrients, and everything necessary to make the hydroponics system work, either.
“Everything we’ve done since is figure out a way that we can make a platform that allows anyone to engage in hydroponic farming regardless of their background or expertise,” says Will Graham, Babylon Micro-Farms’ director of marketing and sales.
Olesen, who graduated this past spring, spent the summer with Darden School of Business’ iLab, refining the product and securing grants from the iLab and UVA Student Council’s Green Initiatives Funding Tomorrow program, as well as $600,000 from angel investors in order to grow the company from its two founding members to an eight-person operation with a Downtown Mall office. To better serve the customers the company has in mind, it has developed the technology to make the mini farms run themselves. “It’s plug-and-play,” says Graham—at least for the consumer.
“The farm grows crops from seed-to-harvest with no need for maintenance, bringing produce closer to…the consumer. Most of what you buy from grocery stores has been picked days ago and is leaching [nutrients], so you’re getting a more nutritious end-product this way.” – Will Graham
Babylon Micro-Farms provides pre-seeded trays to be placed into the farms, which are big, clear cabinets with four levels of shelving. Each shelf holds beds for seed trays, and each bed is lit from above with special bulbs that give crops a continually perfect sunny day. Once the pre-seeded trays are in the cabinet-farm, technology does the rest of the work.
“In this controlled environment, you’re giving [the crops] the concentrated nutrient profile they’d be taking from the ground, but in a solution form, and with optimized lighting” and more, says Graham. The conditions inside the cabinet are all monitored and regulated by the system, which assesses, among other things, the pH (acidity) of the water/nutrient solution, carbon dioxide levels, air temperature, and humidity, and adjusts accordingly, depending on what’s growing—micro-greens, leafy greens, herbs, edible flowers, fruits, or vegetables.
The system will even stagger harvests so the crops ripen in waves, ensuring dozens of heads of lettuce won’t ripen at once, but a few at a time, just as they’d be eaten.
“The farm grows crops from seed-to-harvest with no need for maintenance,” says Graham, “bringing produce closer to the end goal, the consumer. Most of what you buy from grocery stores has been picked days ago and is leaching [nutrients], so you’re getting a more nutritious end-product this way.”
Currently, there are a few Babylon Micro-Farms apparatuses installed in kitchens around town. There’s one at UVA’s O-Hill dining hall, and another at Three Notch’d brewery, where Executive Chef Patrick Carroll has been impressed with its output. “We love our micro farm from Babylon,” says Carroll of the unit, which is visible from most spots in the restaurant and brewery. “It always excites us to harvest creativity by truly growing local greens. It adds an extra wow factor as guests walk into the restaurant.”
Babylon Micro-Farms is also working on a self-sufficient hydroponic farm at Boar’s Head’s Trout House, one that will provide salad greens, herbs, peppers, and tomatoes, all “exclusive heirloom varieties from the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants” at Monticello, to help provide food for the resort, says Graham. They’ll be installing a micro farm in the new Cava location on Emmet Street in October as well.
All of this condensed growth in three short years is as impressive as the accelerated growth seen in Babylon Micro-Farms’ machines, says Olesen. But the company hasn’t forgotten its roots. Babylon Micro-Farms has teamed with Etienne’s climate resilience lab at UVA, working to develop concepts for low-cost and portable systems, such as a fold-out farm that collapses to the size of a rain barrel and can be sent to areas of food scarcity for disaster relief; places ravaged by increasingly disastrous hurricanes, for instance.
They’ll test the system with UVA’s Morven Kitchen Garden as they work on pilot projects on Caribbean islands devastated by last year’s Hurricane Irma. And for the eager at-home farmer here in Charlottesville? Those systems could be available for order as soon as the end of this year, with a spring delivery, for an estimated cost of $3,500.
Posted In: LIVING
Tags: ALEXANDER OLESON, ALL YOU CAN EAT, BABYLON MICRO-FARMS, BEVIN ETIENNE, CROPS, DOWNTOWN MALL, ENTREPRENEURS, FARMING, GRADUATES, HACK CVILLE, LIVING, LOCAL, O'HILL DINING HALL, STUDENTS, SUSTAINABLE, TECHNOLOGY, UVA, WILL GRAHAM
This innovative $7,000 ‘Indoor Farm’ May Change How America Eats Forever
Sept. 13, 2018
Farmshelf, an indoor farm that lets you grow lettuce and herbs, is sprouting up at restaurants, corporate kitchens and food halls around the country
Farm-to-table is taking root in corporate offices.
Farmshelf, a Brooklyn-based startup, has begun selling indoor farm kits that grow food like lettuce and herbs using hydroponics — a method of growing plants in a water-based, nutrient-rich solution instead of soil. And the product is so popular that corporate cafeterias, restaurants and food halls around the U.S. are dropping $7,000 apiece to buy in.
“We’re building the Lego blocks to grow food anywhere,” founder and CEO Andrew Shearer told Moneyish. “We’ve been called the Nespresso for lettuce; you literally put the plant pod in, and watch it grow.”
Farmshelf looks like an open-air six-foot, four-inch bookshelf stacked with greenery that simply plugs into a wall. Users can choose to grow more than 50 crops, including baby lettuce and basil, on shelves fit with custom LED lights and a nutrient system. The corresponding Farmshelf app monitors how your plants are doing in real-time, and sends notifications when your produce is ready for harvest. Each Farmshelf unit costs $7,000, and can produce 10 pounds of herbs per week and 140 heads of lettuce per month, or $350 to $800 worth of produce each month. Farmers pay a $105 monthly subscription fee that includes nutrients and seed pods.
“We’ve automated all the hardest parts of growing your food to enable people to grow their own food and enjoy it,” Shearer said, adding that the plants spring up two to three times faster than crops in a field would — and using 90% less water. “We can grow a full head of lettuce in 20 to 28 days, where it would take 60 in the field.”
Farmshelf takes users about 30 minutes a week to maintain. The indoor farming chores include filling it up with water, harvesting crops and planting the nutrients when needed.
And companies are digging the concept. American Express has ordered six units for its corporate cafeteria, and the Great Northern Food Hall in New York City’s Grand Central Station has planted the indoor farming unit where customers can see some of their ingredients, like basil, being grown. Celebrity chefs such as Jose Andres and Marcus Samuelsson also have them growing in their restaurants. And Shearer plans to make Farmshelf available to at-home users by the end of 2019, and offer more foods like tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. The cost for home growers is estimated at $3,000, and the model will likely include one Farmshelf mounted on a wall or countertop.
Systems like Farmshelf could make healthy food accessible to more people in areas where fresh fruit and vegetables — and food, period — are hard to come by. Hunger effects more than 1 billion people in the world, and food production will need to double by 2050 in order to meet the need for the world’s growing population, the United Nations estimates. What’s more, about 23.5 million people live in food deserts, or low-income, rural areas where a supermarket is more than 10 miles away. Shearer hopes to combat this epidemic.
“We’ve automated all of the hardest parts of growing your food to enable people to grow their own and enjoy it,” Shearer said.
Of course, there are downsides: Some restaurants gripe that the system costs a lot of lettuce. West Coast-based salad company Tender Greens said that it spent 20% more by growing Farmshelf produce than it might have otherwise, after paying for the machine and maintenance. But it’s sticking with the system because it can grow veggies all year long, and not have to worry about importing out-of-season ingredients.
“My goal has always been not to have to ship lettuce across the country, but to grow locally,” Tender Greens co-founder Erik Oberholtzer told Moneyish. “The benefit is having a reliable supply year-round so we can really scale these systems while continuing to support organic farmers.”
While Farmshelf is making major headway in bringing farming to the masses, urban farming has been around for decades. Americans used urban farming techniques during the Great Depression and both World Wars to grow their own food. And more recently, former first lady Michelle Obama has done her part to champion for vegetable gardens in schools to help combat childhood obesity.
Hydroponic Farms Become Produce Alternative For Local Businesses
By Desiree Montilla | September 20, 2018
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- A couple of places around the city will soon be farming indoors when their hydroponic gardens from Babylon Micro-Farms are installed.
Babylon Micro-Farms is a company that focuses on bringing fresh produce to the table using hydroponic control technology.
The company said it will be installing hydroponic gardens at a couple of University of Virginia dining halls and the Trout House at Boar's Head Resort.
Three Notch'd Brewery already installed a hydroponic farm and has been using it for a month to help produce spices and herbs for dishes.
Patrick Carroll, executive chef at Three Notch'd Brewery, said the company reached out to them and offered this alternative indoor method to grow their produce.
"We use a lot of different microgreens for garnishing and also for soups," said Carroll.
Carroll said a representative from Babylon Micro-Farms approached him with the idea to bring their farming indoors.
"The great thing about hydroponic is that you can grow pretty much the same thing with no soil and 50 times faster than with soil," he said.
He also said the hydroponic farm is an important feature to show their guests the way they handle their food.
"It's a huge wild factor for guests because you don't see this anywhere. I think that it really draws people to the restaurant," Carroll said. "They see that we're really doing craft things here growing our own food and harvesting our own food."
The hydroponic farm also challenged Carroll to use new herbs in recipes.
"It kind of challenged me a little bit more to learn about what it tastes like and what would go well with it and then we would put that in our menu," he said. "Since we change our menu every week here at Three Notch'd, it's actually easier for us to do because we have new micro-greens and greens coming out for us."
Babylon Micro-Farms said it'll be installing hydroponic gardens at Newcomb and O-Hill Dining Halls at UVA on Friday.
The Trout House renovation is expected to be completed in late October.
Local Charlottesville, VA Startup Is Changing The Vegetable-Growing Game
August 29, 2018
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR)
A Charlottesville startup with big plans to change the way people get their vegetables is blossoming within the community.
By creating a system that allows the user to grow all their own produce quickly and efficiently, Babylon Microfarms is making it so people and restaurants are now enjoying fresher vegetables at lower costs.
Babylon Microfarms installed one of its hydroponic systems at Charlottesville's Three Notch'd Brewery two weeks ago and has a couple of other big projects in the works as well.
“It uses water and nutrients and plants are able to grow twice as quickly using up to 95 percent less water than conventional agriculture so we can grow a really high amount of produce in a small area,” said founder and CEO of Babylon Microfarms Alexander Olesen.
According to Olesen, they send everything pre-seeded to the user, so a restaurant’s chef wouldn’t have to worry about any farming or gardening. The only thing the user is responsible for his planting and harvesting the crops.
“It’s great to be out seeing these out with customers, seeing them enjoying the produce,” Olesen said.
The product is easy to use and provides places like Three Notch'd with Monticello bib lettuce for salads and many more leafy greens. The executive chef at Tree Notch’d Patrick Carroll said the system allows them to grow a lot of different microgreens, which are “great for flavors and garnishing.”
“It just really pulls a great ‘wow’ factor to the guests coming in,” Carroll said. “It’s a focal point of the restaurant. It’s just a wonderful product.”
This week, six of the restaurant’s menu items incorporate the produce grown in-house, and that number is expected to increase in the coming weeks.
Babylon Microfarms also has deals in place to install similar systems at UVA’s O-Hill Dining Hall as well as the Boar’s Head Resort. Olesen said he’s excited because Boar’s Head Resort’s recent renovation project allows them to make a larger commercial installation that will make their restaurant completely self sufficient in salad. According to Olesen, Boar’s Head would be the first in North American to have their own private hydroponic farm.
“It definitely sets you apart from everybody else,” Carroll said. “People come in and the first thing they see is that you’re really doing local seasonal even though you define the season with this because you can grow anything year-round.”
Babylon Microfarms is also working on a smaller-scale hydroponic unit that can be used in any home. The goal is for that unit to debut within the next year.
French Homeless Shelter Plans To Build Rooftop Greenhouse
An urban farm could be installed on the roof of a French shelter, in order to develop agriculture in the city and to supply the social restaurant of the shelter in particular. It’s located on the Island of Nantes. The association Les Eaux Vives will open this project in 2019, which will be called "5 Ponts (5 Bridges)".
Homeless people will be offered hour-based work contracts. Missions will be proposed within the urban farm, the Emmaus boutique, the restaurant, or the green spaces of the site.
Next, to the restaurant, Les Eaux Vives now offers a day stop and a night stop, and an emergency shelter on three different addresses in Nantes.
The 5 Bridges project is organized around a covered street to facilitate the meeting of different audiences. The project is supported by the City of Nantes, and the European Union as part of the UIA (urban innovative action) project.
Publication date: 8/14/2018
Miniature Greenhouse Enters Star Restaurant Kitchens
In 2015, a group of Dutch entrepreneurs started designing a greenhouse. And not just any greenhouse, a greenhouse that would bring the consumer into contact with the cultivation of vegetables and herbs. Meanwhile, there are mini-greenhouses at various locations, including at star restaurants but also with private individuals. It was also recently announced that the greenhouse is going abroad. A pilot has been started in a restaurant in Berlin. Bart van Meurs, Kweecker: "Placing a Kweecker in a city like Berlin is something very different from delivering and installing one myself somewhere in the Netherlands within an hour.
'Kweecker at Bolenius Restaurant* Amsterdam'
What developments has Kweecker experienced in recent years?
"The Kweecker has undergone a major development since the start in 2015. The first version was only suitable for outdoor use, but it was fully equipped with all the techniques that are also applied in larger greenhouses. The mini-greenhouse was equipped with LED lighting as well as irrigation and ventilation. Based on feedback from the first users, a second generation was developed that was even more compact and also suitable for inside use. The greenhouse is now controlled remotely thanks to a climate computer and a smartphone app."
Kweecker explicitly seeks the link with the greenhouse horticulture sector. Has that been successful from the start?
"Yes and no. In the development of the Kweecker we have extensively made use of our position in the middle of the Westland horticulture sector. For example, it may concern companies from the sector that act as suppliers of specific components or knowledge for the development of the software or the running of tests. There are also various 'green' companies that have purchased a Kweecker. Finally, there are the suppliers of plants, cuttings, seeds and all other required cultivation materials to our end users.
Nevertheless, we would like to increase the idea of 'Westland in a box'. After all, Kweecker, as a product-oriented local grower, really comes from the heart of Dutch horticulture. Parties that want to get involved are most welcome. This, of course, can be in the area of hardware and software, know-how or consumables, and certainly in the field of sales and marketing. We are specifically looking for parties with whom we can collaborate in those areas. Commercially it is time for a next step, where we as technicians see that we need strong parties from the sector."
Therefore also the step abroad?
"In order to make Kweecker a success commercially, a next step is needed with a strong partner. But we do not want to limit ourselves to the Netherlands, we are looking where the demand lies. In the case of this pilot, the possibility of co-operating with a strong multinational (Kweecker is part of the NX Food start-up program of the Metro Group) is found in Berlin, a metropolis where there is a lot of attention for green, locally grown and fresh."
What are your expectations for your first international pilot? And what is the purpose of the pilot?
"We want to explore how Kweecker fits Metro Group. As part of the assortment for their high segment cash & carries or more focused on services, but also a more intensive collaboration, such as participation/venture capital, is a possibility. At the same time, it is also an opportunity for us to discover the practical side of doing business abroad. To place a Kweecker in a city like Berlin is a lot different than delivering and installing a unit myself somewhere in the Netherlands in, say, an hour. Packaging, logistics, installation and remote service, issues that we tackle through this pilot."
What are the newest techniques applied in this pilot?
"It concerns mainly a lot of small, practical improvements that we have learned from our first users. The biggest improvement being the climate computer. ‘Under the bonnet’ we have developed a completely new hardware that greatly simplifies production and improves reliability."
Where is your future? In the catering industry or also outside of that?
"We see gastronomy as a sector that presents itself as a forerunner when it comes to experiencing fresh. This certainly will remain our most important target group. Besides, gastronomy is a wonderful shop window for the consumer. Look at a product such as Big Green Egg; known from top chefs, but now also present in the garden of many consumers."
For more information:
Kweecker
www.kweecker.nl
info@kweecker.nl