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USA - GEORGIA - Giant Photovoltaic Canopy Tops Net-Positive Kendeda Building In Atlanta
US firms Miller Hull Partnership and Lord Aeck Sargent have designed a highly sustainable building at Georgia Tech university that generates more electricity and recycles more water than it uses.
US firms Miller Hull Partnership and Lord Aeck Sargent have designed a highly sustainable building at Georgia Tech university that generates more electricity and recycles more water than it uses.
The project – officially called The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design – is located at the Georgia Institute of Technology, a public research university in central Atlanta.
The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design is in Georgia
The educational building was designed by Seattle's Miller Hull Partnership in collaboration with local firm Lord Aeck Sargent, which was purchased by tech startup Katerra in 2018.
The project was backed by the Kendeda Fund, a private family foundation that supports a range of social and environmental initiatives. Skanska served as the general contractor.
The project is a highly sustainable building
The facility recently earned certification from the Seattle-based International Living Future Institute under its Living Building Challenge – one of the most rigorous green-building certification programmes in the world. The facility is considered to be a "regenerative building."
"Regenerative buildings create more resources than they use, including energy and water," the team said.
Classrooms and a design studio are included in the design
"The project's goal is to support the educational mission of Georgia Tech while transforming the architecture, engineering and construction industry in the Southeast US by advancing regenerative building and innovation."
The facility – which totals 47,000 square feet (4,366 square metres) – holds a range of spaces for students and faculty.
These include a design studio, two large classrooms, several laboratories, a seminar room, an auditorium and office space. There also is a rooftop garden with an apiary and pollinator garden.
The building's rooftop garden
Certain areas of the building are open to the public for special events.
While designing the facility, the team took inspiration from vernacular architecture – in particular, large porches that are commonly found on Southern homes.
"The project reimagines this regionally ubiquitous architectural device for the civic scale of the campus," said Miller Hull.
Rectangular in plan, the building is topped with a giant white canopy supported by steel columns. On the west elevation, the roof extends 40 feet (12 metres) to form a large, shaded area below with steps and seating.
A white canopy tops the building
In addition to providing shade, the canopy generates electricity. Its 900-plus solar panels form a 330-kilowatt array that produces enough power to exceed the building's energy needs.
For the exterior cladding, the team incorporated a mix of accoya wood, metal, glass and recycled masonry. The foundation walls are made of concrete.
Materials such as metal form the exterior cladding
Mass timber was used for the structural system due to it having a smaller embodied carbon footprint compared to concrete and steel, the team said.
In large-span areas of the building, the team used glue-laminated trusses with steel bottom chords.
Details on the building's exterior
"This hybrid approach reduces the quantity of wood required while making routing of building services more efficient," the team said.
For the structural decking, nail-laminated timber panels were made off-site and craned into place. A local nonprofit organisation, Lifecycle Building Center, sourced the lumber from discarded movie sets in Georgia.
Large windows flood spaces with natural light
Structural elements, along with mechanical systems, were left exposed so they could serve as a teaching tool.
Salvaged and recycled materials are found throughout the facility. For instance, stairs in the building's atrium are made of lumber off-cuts, and countertops and benches are made of storm-felled trees.
Mechanical systems were left exposed
Water recycling is also part of the building's sustainable design. Rainwater is captured, treated and used in sinks, showers and drinking fountains. In turn, that greywater is channelled to a constructed wetland, where it is treated and used to support vegetation.
The facility is also fitted with composting toilets, which nearly eliminate the use of potable water. The human waste is turned into fertilizer that is used off-site.
The rooftop has a pollinator garden
The building recently earned its Living Building Challenge (LBC) certification following a year-long assessment, in which it needed to prove it is net-positive for energy and water usage.
"It generates more energy from onsite renewable sources than it uses," the team said. "The building also collects and treats more rainwater onsite than it uses for all purposes, including for drinking."
The LBC programme evaluates buildings in seven categories – place, water, energy, health and happiness, materials, equity and beauty.
The Kendeda Building is the 28th building in the world to achieve LBC certification and the first in Georgia. The state's warm and humid climate poses a particular challenge when it comes to energy efficiency, the team said.
A large classroom
A communal workspace
"In spite of this, over the performance period the building generated 225 per cent of the energy needed to power all of its electrical systems from solar panels on its roof," the team said.
"It also collected, treated, and infiltrated 15 times the amount of water needed for building functions."
Students gather under the canopy outside
Other American projects that are designed to meet the LBC standards include the wood-clad Frick Environmental Center in Pittsburgh, designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson. It achieved certification in 2018.
Photography is by Jonathan Hillyer and Gregg Willett.
Project credits:
Design architect: The Miller Hull Partnership, LLP
Collaborating and prime architect: Lord Aeck Sargent, a Katerra Company
Contractor: Skanska USA
Landscape architect: Andropogon
Civil engineer: Long Engineering
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineer: PAE and Newcomb & Boyd
Structural engineer: Uzun & Case
Greywater systems: Biohabitatssolar panels
INDIA: Gourmet Garden Raises Over USD 3 Million Funding
Gourmet Garden, the first full-range zero-contamination F&V brand in the country, has announced its latest round of funding of Rs 25 Crores led by Beyond Next Ventures, M Venture Partners, and existing investors Incubate India & Whiteboard Capital among others
Gourmet Garden aims to expand their zero-contamination farming operations, broaden their portfolio with additional fresh categories, boost customer experience by deploying India’s first end-to-end B2C tech-enabled cold-chain, and improve ease of ordering with a mobile app and refreshed website.
01 July, 2021
Arjun Balaji Co-founder and Director Gourmet Garden and Vishal Narayanaswamy Co-founder Gourmet Garden.png
Gourmet Garden, the first full-range zero-contamination F&V brand in the country, has announced its latest round of funding of Rs 25 Crores led by Beyond Next Ventures, M Venture Partners, and existing investors Incubate India & Whiteboard Capital among others.
Established in early 2019, Gourmet Garden is known for offering the widest range of zero-contamination vegetables and fruits and other curated essential offerings. They stand out on quality and safety owing to their patented naturoponic farming operations, certified organic farming extensions, and a lean 1-day & 2-touch supply chain. Already a leading brand in Bengaluru and Chennai, the start-up is founded by Arjun Balaji, erstwhile a Partner at McKinsey and Company, and Vishal Narayanaswamy who launched among the first hydroponic farms in India.
With this funding, Gourmet Garden aims to expand their zero-contamination farming operations, broaden their portfolio with additional fresh categories, boost customer experience by deploying India’s first end-to-end B2C tech-enabled cold-chain, and improve ease of ordering with a mobile app and refreshed website.
Arjun Balaji, Co-founder, and Director, Gourmet Garden said, "We are fulfilling the consumer need-gap for a brand offering wholesome, distinctly fresh and safe food essentials for everyday consumption. Most other offerings are aggregating commodity supply, however, our focus has been to operate end-to-end and focus disproportionately on source quality and safety, which is at the core of overall customer experience and differentiation.”
"We wish to be the favoured brand destination for all things wholesome, fresh and curated. Our patented Naturoponic farming yields the highest quality vegetables and is our customers’ most loved offering. Essentials grown in certified organic farms along with an assortment of imported fruits make up our extended safe F&V range. In addition, we also offer a selection of authentic spices and dry fruits, and will soon be launching wholesome breads and organic sauces & dips for a wider range in fresh” said Vishal Narayanaswamy, Co-founder, Gourmet Garden.
The company now spans 60,000 customers in Bengaluru and Chennai alone. Over 75% orders, every month come from repeat customers, a testimony to their loyalty-building quality.
Tsuyoshi Ito, CEO, and Akito Arima, Agri/FoodTech Lead Capitalist, Beyond Next Ventures said, “We are delighted to see that their sustainable cultivation techniques and quality of succulent vegetables are comparable to those in Japan. The focus on affordable, high-quality and safe fruits and vegetables is rising in urban India. Gourmet Garden possesses a full basket of high-quality produce, delivered in shortest time keeping their loyal customers happy.”
“Simply put, we partner with great founder entrepreneurs,” commented Mayank Parekh, Founder - M Venture Partners, a Singapore-based venture capitalist. “The distinctive talent combination of Arjun and Vishal is the perfect formula to scale this incredible offering for consumers”
The existing investors are very excited by the progress thus far and have extended their commitments further. Nao Murakami, Founder - Incubate Fund India, said, “Since our initial investment in the start-up a few months ago, the founders and the team have shown a very strong execution capability. Even under COVID-19 pandemic and the series of lockdowns, the team managed to operate with full intensity despite a leaner covid-impacted team, showing agility to solve challenges. This is clearly backed by their passion and conviction”
"We continue to be very excited by the organic growth and customer love that has become the cornerstone of Gourmet Garden's promise. The offering has scaled well and is all set to become the largest clean and contamination-free fresh essentials D2C brand in India and we are looking forward to the journey ahead with Arjun, Vishal, and our co-investors" said Anshu Prasher, General Partner at Whiteboard Capital.
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Q&A, Expert Source: Viraj Puri, Co-Founder And CEO of Gotham Greens, An Indoor Farming Company With Hydroponic Greenhouses Located In Cities Across America
Gotham Greens is focused on building a more sustainable food system and we are drawn to adaptive reuse projects in cities across America
A Q&A with Viraj Puri, Co-Founder, and CEO of Gotham Greens
For those that do not know Gotham Greens, please tell us a little bit about the company and when the company was formed?
Viraj Puri, Co-Founder, and CEO of Gotham Greens
Viraj: We are on a mission to transform how and where fresh food is grown. Gotham Greens is a pioneer in indoor greenhouse agriculture and a leading producer of fresh and sustainably- grown salad greens, herbs, dressings, dips, and cooking sauces. By using hydroponic systems in 100% renewable energy-powered greenhouses, our farms use 95% less water and 97% less land than conventional farming. Since our launch in 2011, Gotham Greens has grown from a single urban rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., to a multi-state greenhouse operator and one of the largest hydroponic leafy green producers in North America.
How many farms do you operate? And where are those farms located? What do you grow?
Viraj: Gotham Greens currently operates 500,000 square feet of greenhouses across five U.S. states (and growing), including locations in New York City, Chicago, Providence, R.I., Baltimore, and Denver. Through our national network of high-tech, hydroponic greenhouses, Gotham Greens produces fresh, long-lasting, and tasty leafy greens and herbs along with a line of plant-based salad dressings, dips, and sauces, available in more than 2,000 retailers in 40 states, restaurants in select cities, and foodservice customers all year-round.
Why did you choose a greenhouse over a vertical farm?
Viraj: Gotham Greens is focused on building a more sustainable food system and we are drawn to adaptive reuse projects in cities across America. Gotham Greens has a track record of established, robust and proven operations and technology compared to vertical farming, which is still a relatively young industry. Our hydroponic greenhouse technology uses less energy than vertical farming. While vertical farming is an innovative extension of modern greenhouse farming with overlapping principles that has garnered quite a bit of interest, there are still questions surrounding the technology and financial viability of this farming method. In theory, fully indoor environments that rely on artificial light and HVAC systems can offer very high yields and levels of climate control, pest management, and food safety, but these benefits can be outweighed by significantly higher capital and operating costs than our hydroponic greenhouses.
What are your predictions for the future of controlled environment agriculture?
Viraj: For many parts of the country, it’s difficult to get fresh, locally-grown produce all year round. Since more than 95% of lettuce grown in the United States comes from California and Arizona, by the time it reaches other markets, it loses its quality, taste, and nutritional value – and has a much shorter shelf life. Gotham Greens, and controlled environment agriculture at large, provide an opportunity to transform our food system for the better by growing more fresh foods closer to where consumers live — all while using fewer natural resources.
Consumers, retailers and foodservice operators are increasingly recognizing the reliability, consistency and high quality of greenhouse-grown produce that’s grown in close proximity to large portions of the population and we only expect this model to continue to grow as consumers pay greater attention to the food they eat and its impact on the planet. While indoor farming may not represent the future of all fresh produce production, for certain types of crops, it will become much more prevalent in the coming years.
You can hear Viraj Puri speak at the virtual Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit June 24-25, 2021.
Register Now!
Learn more: @gothamgreens or gothamgreens.com
Hydroponics Giant Hydrofarm Plans New Northern California HQ After IPO, 3 Acquisitions
Becoming a publicly-traded company, moving its headquarters from Petaluma temporarily to the East Coast, spending $343 million to acquire three more companies, prepping to return to a larger North Bay hub. It’s been a busy seven months for indoor farming equipment maker and distributor Hydrofarm
THE NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL
June 25, 2021
Becoming a publicly-traded company, moving its headquarters from Petaluma temporarily to the East Coast, spending $343 million to acquire three more companies, prepping to return to a larger North Bay hub. It’s been a busy seven months for indoor farming equipment maker and distributor Hydrofarm.
On Dec. 14, nearly 10 million shares of Hydrofarm Holding Group stock started trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “HYFM,” harvesting proceeds of $182.3 million, according to the March 31 annual report. The company did a follow-on offering of 5.5 million shares ended May 3, netting $309.8 million more.
After peaking at $92 in mid-February, the share price was $56.96 at the close of trading Friday.
Then early this year, Hydrofarm shifted its headquarters to its Philadelphia-area distribution center. It’s one of nine totaling 900,000 square feet that the 4-decade-old company operates in the U.S., Canada, and Spain. Hydrofarm also has offices in China.
That happened because Hydrofarm was lining up a larger location elsewhere in the North Bay, something it has been looking for over the past few years.
Hydrofarm had planned to relocate its headquarters from Petaluma to the 250,000-square-foot Victory Station warehouse south of Sonoma, but that deal didn’t materialize amid the rapid cooling of demand for real estate from the newly legal cannabis industry, according to real estate sources.
Hydrofarm couldn’t be reached for comment on its North Bay plans.
While cannabis has become a key driver of demand for controlled environment agriculture products, Hydrofarm got its start in Marin County during the disastrous drought of 1977-1978, the Business Journal reported in 2010. Founder Stuart Dvorin developed water-saving hydroponics that gained traction among gardeners.
The product line expanded to energy-efficient grow lights and germination kits. Then Hydrofarm moved into manufacturing and distributing indoor gardening equipment for both professional growers and hobbyists.
Today, key markets are growers of cannabis, flowers, fruits, plants, vegetables, grains and herbs. The portfolio now includes 26 internally developed, proprietary brands with about 900 product variations under 24 patents and 60 registered trademarks. The company also has over 40 exclusive and preferred brands totaling another 900 stock-keeping units.
Company brands account for about 60% of sales. The total catalog, which carries products from over 400 suppliers, includes over 6,000 SKUs.
“Our revenue mix continues to shift towards proprietary brands as we continue to innovate, improving overall margins,” the annual report said. “Further, our revenue stream is highly consistent as, in our estimation, we believe that approximately two-thirds of our net sales are generated from the sale of recurring consumable products including growing media, nutrients and supplies.”
Net sales last year were $342.2 million, up 45.6% from 2019. The company speculated in its annual report that the coronavirus pandemic shelter-at-home public health orders contributed to this jump in sales. Net revenue the previous year grew only 11.0% from 2018.
First-quarter net sales were $111.4 million, up 66.5% from a year before. The company attributed that to a 59.6% increase in the volume of products sold plus a 6.9% increase in price and mix of those products.
A sign of its commitment to remain in the North Bay, Hydrofarm earlier this year secured a lease for a 175,000-square-foot new distribution warehouse at 2225 Huntington Drive in Fairfield. Meanwhile, Hydrofarm founder Stuart Dvorin was preparing to sell the 110,000-square-foot main Petaluma facility at 2249 S. McDowell Blvd. Extension, a $17.5 million deal that closed June 7.
“We also intend to relocate our existing distribution operations in Northern California from the existing Petaluma building to a larger distribution center in the surrounding area,“ the company wrote in its annual report.
Started in Marin County in 1977 as Applied Hydroponics, Hydrofarm moved the headquarters to Petaluma in 1994, employing 65 at the time. It gradually expanded to 150,000 square feet there with a staff of more than 150 employees by 2010 and then to 195,000 square feet in the city in 2017. The company employed 327 full-time in all locations as of the end of February, it reported.
2017 is when Hydrofarm made a big expansion into Canada with the acquisition of Eddi’s Wholesale and Greenstar Plant Products. That deal helped Hydrofarm become a top supplier of hydroponics gear in Canada, the company said.
This year, Hydrofarm has acquired three more companies. Los Angeles-area premium nutrient maker Heavy 16 was picked up for $78.1 million, and Humboldt County’s House & Garden portfolio of brands for $125 million. A $161 million deal was announced this month for Aurora International Inc. and Gotham Properties LLC, Oregon-based manufacturers and suppliers of organic hydroponic products.
“We view M&A as a significant driver of potential growth as the hydroponics industry is fragmented and primed for consolidation,“ Hydrofarm wrote in its annual report.
Hydrofarm also has been fertilizing its C-suite with acumen in the past couple of years. At the beginning of 2019, Bill Toler came in as CEO, bringing with him over 3 decades of senior executive experience at major consumer packaged goods companies, including most recently seven years as CEO and president of Hostess Brands. B. John Lindeman came in as chief financial officer in March 2020 with 25 years of agriculture and finance executive experience.
Inside The Deals
Lease: Fairfield Commerce Center, 2225 Huntington Drive, Fairfield
Property type: Industrial
Size: 175,404 square feet
Tenant: Hydrofarm
Owner: TreaJP Venture Fairfield LLC
Date: Early 2021
Sale: 2249 S. McDowell Blvd. Extension, Petaluma
Property Type: Industrial
Size: 110,000 square feet
Buyer: Scannell Properties 531 LLC
Seller: Stuart Robert and Emily Alice Dvorin LDGT Grantor Trust
Agents: Cushman & Wakefield represented the buyer, and Meridian Commercial the seller.
Date: June 7, 2021
Price: $17.5 million
Sources: Cushman & Wakefield and Business Journal research
Lead photo: Hydrofarm's former headquarters on South McDowell Boulevard Extension in Petaluma (Facebook.com/Hydrofarm)
Jeff Quackenbush covers wine, construction, and real estate. Before the Business Journal, he wrote for Bay City News Service in San Francisco. He has a degree from Walla Walla University. Reach him at jquackenbush@busjrnl.com or 707-521-4256.
FRANCE: In The Jungle Vertical Farm, The Aromatic Herbs See Life In Pink
Founded in 2016 by former financier Gilles Dreyfuss and a founder Nicholas Segui, this young growth launched the first site in chateau-theory. It plans to open two more by the end of 2022 and become the number one vertical vegetable farm in the country
June 26, 2021
Pascal Mollard-Chenebenoit
France Media Agency
Founded in 2016 by former financier Gilles Dreyfuss and a founder Nicholas Segui, this young growth launched the first site in chateau-theory. It plans to open two more by the end of 2022 and become the number one vertical vegetable farm in the country.
This agriculture works on hydroponics, i.e. without soil, the plants grow on a surface and receive water rich in nutrients. In all warm and humid weather, the garden is lit by LEDs.
Two production “towers” operate with platforms ten meters high. “By the end of this year, we will have nineteen,” Jungle president Gilles Dreyfus told AFP.
A tower can produce 400,000 plants a year. When all is said and done, the 38-year-old former financier explained that the annual production would be 8 million plants.
Taste
Jungle grows aromatic herbs (basil, parsley, cilantro, chives), microgreens (mustard, ple da radish, red shiso, wasabi) and salads (lettuce, arugula).
Playing in Ultra-Fresh its products are intended for mass distribution and its herbs are already available in some Parisian stores.
“Keeping the power of industrial innovation in the service of plant life”: this is the motto of the Jungle. “With pesticide-free plants we meet consumer uses and new needs, they taste, they are alive, they are recognizable and most of all they are produced very close to where they are sold and eaten,” says Gilles Dreyfus.
In the warehouse, the seed course, mounted on a tray, begins on an automated belt. Sow them accurately in a small container filled with surface.
Then to the germination rooms, with tropical climates, the plants stay for a few days. Before joining cultivation tours to thrive and reach maturity.
In the tower, a computer controls all the parameters (water, nutrients, lighting, temperature, humidity, CO2, Ventilation) and constantly adjusts them according to the desired target.
“By playing with the light spectrum and different color ratios, we can make a plant flower faster, more compact, have larger leaves, and change its morphology,” explained Michael Mittrand, agronomist and research and culture administrator.
Robot
A robot has the maneuver to manipulate the trays set up at fifteen levels and control their health condition.
“We have a lot more productivity because we optimize all the parameters,” Gilles Dreyfus stressed. “On earth, you will have a maximum of 3 to 5 crops of basil a year. We have 14 ”.
It aims for profitability by the end of 2022, with the second site at half its capacity.
Jungle also relies on plant production for perfume manufacturers and cosmetic brands. This activity already represents 30% of its turnover, but the company is silent on the flowers produced.
Product area is hidden from visitors. It grows there “rare flower”, which enters into the recipe for perfume, Gilles Dreyfus has the content to say.
After ten years in finance, he decided to change his life in 2015 after reading an article about vertical farming and went to New York to meet the “Father of Concept”, Professor Emeritus Dixon Despomier at Columbia University. He goes to a world conference on vertical agriculture in California.
“When I got back to Paris, I quit my job. I went all over the world to see what was already there ”. On the way, he meets Nicholas Dupuy, who has become his partner.
The Jungle raised just 42 million euros for takeoff.
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CEA Producers Join To Support Data-Driven USDA Project
AppHarvest (Ky.) and Revol Greens (Texas) are vanguards of modern greenhouse cultivation, while Elevate Farms (N.J.) and Fifth Season (Penn.) are pioneers in vertical farming
Four agricultural producers have joined with nonprofit Resource Innovation Institute (RII) under the banner of its USDA Conservation Innovation Grant-funded project: Data-Driven Market Transformation for Efficient, Sustainable Controlled Environment Agriculture.
AppHarvest (Ky.) and Revol Greens (Texas) are vanguards of modern greenhouse cultivation, while Elevate Farms (N.J.) and Fifth Season (Penn.) are pioneers in vertical farming. The producers will serve as initial pilot partners in support of the USDA-funded project that aims to transform the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) market sector toward more efficient production through coordinated research on energy and water practices spearheaded by RII and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
“We are thrilled to unite with these categories in the name of innovation and agricultural resilience,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of RII. “Working together with these initial pilot partners and others to follow, we can unlock basic knowledge about performance metrics that will serve as beacons of efficiency and productivity for CEA producers globally.” In addition to geographic diversity, the producers represent an expanding global market growing a range of crops in indoor environments, from microgreens to tomatoes to berries.
Resource Innovation Institute’s PowerScore resource benchmarking platform enables CEA producers to confidentially validate their innovative practices. Using standardized key performance indicators, PowerScore helps producers gain powerful insights into their operational performance while protecting strategic business interests.
“RII is trusted throughout the supply chain to provide data analysis and peer-reviewed guidance to producers, vendors, governments and utilities. Our consortium of members and partners are committed to collaboratively study the most sustainable horticultural practices across climate zones, building types, technologies and techniques to guide decision-makers on how to advance agricultural resilience,” said RII’s Smith.
To ensure the highest level of PowerScore data protection, RII has engaged Management Science Associates (MSA), global companies in data security and analytics, with expertise in HIPAA compliance and benchmarking for associations across industries. Together with producers, investors, and supply chain partners, RII continues to develop protocols that clearly define access, use, and ownership of data.
“We believe that the only way to fundamentally build an industry starts with data capture and accountability,” said Travis Kanellos, Chief Strategy Officer, Elevate Farms. “Our approach from day one has been to drive yields and profitability through metrics and KPIs. We believe RII will validate our approach."
For more information:
Resource Innovation Center
www.resourceinnovation.org
23 June 2021
USA - WISCONSIN: Kenosha Plan Commission Backs Plans For Indoor Garden Facility Near City Airport
The Plan Commission on Thursday reviewed and advanced a proposed year-round standalone indoor garden facility adjacent to the existing Gordon Food Service distribution plant at 10901 38th St. GFS plans to partner with Square Roots, an organization specializing in urban farming, in the development. A new 8,715-square-foot facility will be used to grow fresh produce, greens, and herbs
DAVE FIDLIN
Kenosha News correspondent
June 27, 2021
A food distributor’s plans for a year-round indoor garden facility on Kenosha’s northwest side moved one step closer to reality, following a city panel’s favorable recommendation.
The Plan Commission on Thursday reviewed and advanced a proposed year-round standalone indoor garden facility adjacent to the existing Gordon Food Service distribution plant at 10901 38th St.
GFS plans to partner with Square Roots, an organization specializing in urban farming, in the development. A new 8,715-square-foot facility will be used to grow fresh produce, greens, and herbs.
Gordon has forged similar partnerships with Square Roots at other distribution centers within the U.S., the first taking place two years ago near the company’s Michigan-based corporate headquarters.
At a Thursday’s meeting, GFS representatives indicated the indoor garden facility would serve a variety of purposes, with about 60 percent of it going toward direct-to-consumer retail sales and the balance toward distribution.
Down the road, company officials have indicated the new operation could have an educational component, such as workshops on how basil is grown. Partnerships with nearby colleges and universities also were discussed as a possibility.
During deliberations, several members of the panel lauded the plans for the site. Commissioner Lydia Spottswood said she viewed Square Roots’ addition as an example of forward-thinking development.
“It seems like a brilliant opportunity for more and more (of this type of development) to happen, given the proximity to Lake Michigan,” Spottswood said. “We’re trying to brand this as a city of innovation, and this is an innovative process.”
Commissioner Charles Bradley said he, too, was pleased with the proposal, though he did weigh in on the proximity of the development, which is near the Kenosha Regional Airport.
“I’m happy, but I am a little surprised by the location,” Bradley said.!
Commissioners also discussed GFS and Square Roots’ planned building materials for the new facility, which include the use of metal shipping containers on a portion of the facility.
According to information commissioners reviewed, the shipping containers will be accessible from inside the building and will include windows cut into the ends of the containers, alongside perforated architectural metal screens along the exposed sidewalls.
The companies’ tentative plans state the shipping containers will be stacked two rows high, 10 containers wide. A portion of the facility also will be constructed with more traditional building materials, including a concrete foundation and exterior walls made of insulated metal.
“This is a really interesting, adaptive reuse,” Spottswood said.
The City Council, which has final say on the proposal, will take up the Plan Commission’s recommendation and could act on it in July.
Meeting in person
Thursday’s Plan Commission meeting was the first time the appointed body gathered in-person, since COVID-19 lockdowns forced an abrupt pivot to virtual meetings in March 2020.
As is the case with all Kenosha municipal meetings, the Plan Commission is reverting back to its pre-pandemic practices.
“I’m very excited about it,” said Ald. David Bogdala, who serves on the Plan Commission. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, and I’m glad to see, for the most part, that we’re back to normal.”
Lead photo: A concept rendering of the southeast view of the proposed Square Roots and Gordon Food Service indoor garden facility adjacent to the existing GFS distribution plant at 10901 38th St.
USA - Pennsylvania: Container Farm To Be Delivered To School In Oakmont
CEA Advisors announced today that they have delivered another custom-built 40’ Growtainer® Vertical Farm to the Riverview School District in Oakmont, PA. Unlike other school’s container farms that can only teach one method of production, this farm is specifically designed to teach the students about multiple growing methods
CEA Advisors announced today that they have delivered another custom-built 40’ Growtainer® Vertical Farm to the Riverview School District in Oakmont, PA. Unlike other school’s container farms that can only teach one method of production, this farm is specifically designed to teach the students about multiple growing methods.
The Oakmont Growtainer has three distinct chambers to provide a real hands-on experience for the students, including a classroom/lab/germination area, an LED-lit multi-level soil chamber, and an LED-lit multi-level hydroponic system.
Glenn Behrman, President, and founder of CEA Advisors, a global controlled environment consulting firm and the manufacturer of Growtainers worked with the school’s staff to design a cost-effective system that could provide various levels of a learning experience as well as providing fresh leafy greens for the cafeteria for their students of all ages.
“Due to Corona virus supply chain issues, the school couldn’t wait for our Growracks to arrive from our manufacturing partner in Holland. So we designed and built a custom multi-level racking system for the ebb and flood hydroponic installation including automatic irrigation and water monitoring and dosing.”
The soil side is also a multi-level design with LED lighting and an irrigation system. The climate is independently controlled in each chamber including de-humidification. In the next month or so the entire campus, including the Growtainer will be powered by solar.
For more information:
CEA Advisors LLC
Glenn Behrman, Founder, and President
gb@cea-advisors.com
www.cea-advisors.com
23 June 2021
Robots Take Vertical Farming To New Heights
Braddock, Pa., is where Andrew Carnegie first mass-produced steel. The city, now one-tenth its former size, is home to a new kind of industry: robotic farms that grow greens inside buildings
Braddock, Pa., Is Where Andrew Carnegie First Mass-Produced Steel. The City, Now One-Tenth Its Former size, Is Home To A New Kind Of Industry: Robotic Farms That Grow Greens Inside Buildings.
June 28, 2021
A decades-long decline of industry in Braddock has left the western Pennsylvania town in ruins. Ten miles upriver from Pittsburgh in the Mon (Monongahela) Valley, most of the city’s factories, businesses and homes were abandoned long ago and leveled. Among the ruins, a sprawling steel mill, built by Andrew Carnegie in 1874, is still producing slabs of steel, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s stained blue walls and maze of giant, rust-colored pipes and vents stand in contrast to the brand-new, block-long, gleaming white structure directly across the street. The mill’s neighbor is Fifth Season, a vertical farm growing greens indoors by stacking racks of plants on top of each other.
Fifth Season is the brainchild of brothers Austin and Brac Webb, and co-founder Austin Lawrence. “We view vertical farming as really a smart manufacturing system,” says Austin Webb. “We just happen to manufacture living organisms.”
The partners consider their fledgling enterprise as more than a means to feed people, but also a chance to work with a community in need. Almost none of the old steel plant’s employees live in Braddock. Conversely, everyone hired to work at Fifth Season lives close by and in the surrounding communities. “We’re creating a workforce of the future,” Webb says. “It’s an entirely new ag-manufacturing job that hasn’t existed before.”
Since the collapse of the steel industry in Braddock, the borough has struggled to attract new business and residents.(David Kidd/Governing)
Automated City Farming
Two shifts of 20 people oversee operations at the vertical farm. And like the steel maker across the road, the work never stops. Dressed in blue scrubs and lab coats, with heads covered and gloves on their hands, workers inside the plant look more like medical research professionals than farmers. The entire process, from seed to harvest, is controlled robotically. “What we have built is the industry first, and industry only, end-to-end automated platform,” says Webb.
Fifth Season’s proprietary software allows efficiencies otherwise not attainable. Spinach, arugula and other greens move around the 60,000-square-foot facility in plastic trays, each with its own unique ID. Sensors are constantly monitoring everything from nutrient mix, carbon dioxide levels and light spectrum, in order to ensure that the greens follow their prescribed grow recipe. Every plant can be traced from any point in the process, at any time.
Webb is quick to tout the advantages of vertical farming. Fifth Season uses up to 95 percent less water and 98 percent less land than conventional farming. Water from the municipal system is filtered and proprietary nutrients added before getting to the plants directly through their roots. “It means you can replicate any form of soil environment,” he says. Whatever water is not used by the plants is retreated and recirculated, with nutrients added as needed. A peat mix is used to support the roots, but all the nutrients are in the water, not the “soil.”
“We use no herbicides and no pesticides,” Webb says. “And that’s because we have hermetically sealed environments.” The possibility of contamination is all but eliminated. Fifth Season recently received a perfect score from the Safe Quality Food (SQF) program, an international, independent body that certifies food safety management. “The second time in 25 years they gave 100 percent,” he says.
With only their faces exposed, employees work among the various conveyor belts that crisscross the high, white-walled rooms of Fifth Season’s production floor. But there are no humans in the adjacent grow room, where tightly spaced racks, supporting trays of plants, are stacked 30 feet high, bathed in an otherworldly purple-magenta glow. The dramatic color comes from the LEDs that replicate the most useful parts of the spectrum of sunlight. “You can’t control the sun,” Says Webb. “But what you can control are LEDs.”
Fifth Season’s proprietary systems allow more plants to be grown in less space. The purple-magenta LED lighting replicates the most useful parts of the spectrum of sunlight, improving growth of the greens.(Fifth Season)
Every few minutes, a robot glides forward and back along a raised guideway that runs down the center of the room, dividing the stacks in half. The machine is not much more than a plain box, just a few feet tall. A metal beam rises from its back, extending to the ceiling. Its task is to place and remove trays of plants, taking its instructions from the all-knowing software. Because they are so tightly spaced, more trays can be stacked on top of each other, resulting in greater production.
“Compared to some other vertical farms out there, we have a lot more density,” says Webb. “We’re able to have more racks that grow inside the same space.” Moving trays is a task well-suited to a machine. Not only does the robot fit into places no human could, it always knows where every tray of greens should be, and for how long.
Vertical Farming Comes to Braddock
After a five-year career in finance, Austin Webb enrolled in an MBA program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “I believe that robotics will possibly disrupt every industry in the world,” he says. “And so I went to C.M.U., specifically because it’s the No. 1 school in computers, science and robotics.”
There he met Austin Lawrence, who shared his interest in controlled environment agriculture. Together they visited a few vertical farms, coming to the conclusion that what was needed was an entire robotic platform, something the two of them could not accomplish on their own. Webb’s brother Brac, a self-described engineer and entrepreneur, was soon recruited to help. Their new business was incorporated in 2016, initially as RoBotany, which later morphed into Fifth Season.
With financial backing in hand, the partners looked for a place to build, quickly settling on nearby Braddock. They broke ground in May of 2019, were installing equipment less than a year later and were at full production before the end of 2020. “I think there’s a lot of opportunity for resurgence in a place like this,” says Webb. “A lot of folks that stayed are passionate around Braddock being able to grow and thrive and we want to be a part of that.”
In the foreground, Fifth Season’s new structure stands in contrast to the steel plant behind it that still dominates the town.(David KIDD/Governing)
Andrew Carnegie’s mill was the first of many that would proliferate in the Mon Valley, making it the nation’s steel capital. The churches, schools, stores and restaurants that served the town’s 20,000 inhabitants are mostly gone now. Shops and services are few and far between for the 2,000 that remain. “The nearest grocery store is up the hill, two towns over,” says Braddock Mayor Chardae Jones. “And most people don’t have cars.” It’s a hot day in June when a few of the locals gather in a brand-new park along Braddock Avenue. Everyone agrees the park is nice, but it’s no consolation for the hospital that used to stand on the site.
Many years ago, steelworkers and their families lived close to the mill.(David Kidd/Governing)
A few blocks away, an ever-present din still emanates from Carnegie’s steel mill, and a parade of trucks continues to roll past the boarded-up stores and empty lots that line the borough’s main thoroughfare. “We have a lot of vacant buildings,” says Mayor Jones. “That’s our biggest issue.” But there are signs of a revival among the ruins.
Present Day Braddock
Against the backdrop of empty and dilapidated storefronts, “The Ohringer,” a former furniture store built in the streamline moderne style of the 1940s, has recently been completely rebuilt and modernized as apartments and studio space for artists. Applicants are expected to present their work for review and answer a few questions, one of which is “why are you interested in becoming part of Braddock’s resurgence?”
Not only does Braddock lay claim to Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill, but also the first Carnegie library, dedicated in 1889. Narrowly escaping demolition in the 1970s, the impressive stone structure is today undergoing a comprehensive restoration and modernization. Bright yellow notices of this year’s street sweeping schedule are affixed to telephone poles near the library and all over town, an indication that the local government is still functioning.
A repurposed furniture store now provides updated living and studio space to area artists.(David Kidd/Governing)
Further up the avenue, more official-looking signs are attached to random telephone poles. “NOTICE, WRITE MORE LOVE LETTERS” says one. “NOTICE, LOVE IS FREE,” says another. The signs were placed there, unofficially, by Gisele Fetterman, wife of former mayor and current Lt. Governor John Fetterman. Among her many initiatives to improve the lives of people in Braddock, she founded the Free Store nine years ago, a place where “surplus and donated goods are received and redistributed to neighbors in need.”
Fifth Season is a regular contributor to the Free Store, having recently given them a new refrigerator and donating 100 pre-packaged salads every Thursday. “We’re treated like we’re a customer,” says Gisele Fetterman. “We’re not getting things that didn’t sell, or surplus. Our families get to come in and choose. They can feel like they are at a grocery store. There is great dignity in the process of being able to choose.”
Offering “produce grown in soil by humans in Braddock,” workers at Braddock Farms do it the old-fashioned way.(David Kidd/Governing)
There are more signs along Braddock Avenue. “BE ALERT: VEGETABLES AHEAD.” Another simply says “TURNIPS.” Back in 2007, when John Fetterman was the mayor, he encouraged a nonprofit group of community gardeners to establish a farm in Braddock. Bisected by a side street, the organic farm has expanded to a little less than an acre in size, growing greens, tomatoes, onions, peppers and eggplant. This is Nick Lubecki’s fourth year as manager of the farm. “We’re here in Braddock, so the people in Braddock are our main focus,” he says. “We want to be useful.”
At best, the little farm on Braddock Avenue can produce 13 plantings of greens in a year. It is entirely different from the computer-controlled, machine-driven, non-stop production that takes place a few blocks away at Fifth Season, where a half-acre indoors can produce the equivalent of nearly 100 acres of farmland. But higher yields don’t matter as much if a significant portion is ultimately lost in transit to the table.
Serving a Market
Localized food production means less spoilage and waste. “If it takes anywhere from five to eight days to go from California to Pittsburgh, you’ve just lost five to eight days of shelf life,” says Austin Webb. Most of what Fifth Season produces is consumed in the Pittsburgh area. “The day after it was cut, not 10 days later.” Their ready-to-eat salads can be purchased at a local supermarket chain, or delivered directly to the consumer at home, a direct response to the pandemic. Local restaurants, hospitals and universities are also customers.
Convinced they have successfully demonstrated the viability of their proprietary technology, the three partners are looking to expand beyond western Pennsylvania. “We can build these anywhere… even larger than what we have here today,” says Austin Webb. “And we don’t have to re-create the wheel. It’s not like it would take us another five years.”
Conversations are already taking place about licensing the technology, proceeding in partnership with someone else, or going it alone. “That will allow us to build a facility just like we built in Braddock, in other parts of the U.S., and other parts of the world, even faster.”
A Job You Can Walk to
Andrew Carnegie built his steel mill in the Mon Valley because he needed the river, the raw materials, and access to labor. His plant was expressly designed to use the Bessemer Process, the first method to inexpensively mass-produce steel. Nearly 150 years later, the Webb brothers and their partner Austin Lawrence chose the exact same location to showcase their own new manufacturing technology and to fill a need in the community. “Knowing that we could build these anywhere, we wanted to build in Braddock because we knew that we could create jobs,” says Austin Webb. “That we could create this new workforce of the future.”
Employed since January, John Davis lives less than a block away from Fifth Season. “I have family in Braddock. They’re very happy I’ve got a job.”(David Kidd/Governing)
Braddock resident John Davis may or may not think of himself as part of the workforce of the future. But he’s happy to have a good job. Covered head to toe in his surgical outfit, he works in the seeding department at Fifth Season, a job he’s held since January. He’s lived here for 20 years, and this is the first job he’s had that didn’t involve a commute. He walks to work from his house, half a block away.
Davis is 32 years old and anxious to put the past behind him. “To have a job that you like, where you live, it’s comfortable,” he says. “And you can see that this is going to change Braddock for the better because it gives the residents jobs and new innovations. It’s going to bring life.”
While awaiting their fate, many of Braddock’s empty buildings provide space for murals and artwork.(David Kidd/Governing)
Lead photo: Greens leave the grow room at robot farm Fifth Season, ready for harvest. (Fifth Season)
Tags: Economic DevelopmentFood AssistanceTechnology
David Kidd is a photojournalist and storyteller for Governing. He can be reached at dkidd@governing.com.
Indoor Farming And The Prospects For Profitability
Concerns over climate change and food security have fuelled optimism over controlled-environment farming but operators face questions over their forecasts for profitability
29 Jun 2021
Concerns over climate change and food security have fuelled optimism over controlled-environment farming but operators face questions over their forecasts for profitability.
Growing fresh produce in a controlled indoor environment using technology inputs has, in some cases, been around for almost two decades. But it has only recently started to gain traction linked to climate change and sustainability concerns. However, what is the path to profitability for indoor farming? And can it be competitive?
Indoor or controlled-environment farming is a niche yet expanding sector, but questions have been raised over whether these operations are profitable, and are able to compete with traditional field-grown crops, given the capital-intensive nature of the industry.
Much, however, depends on individual operations, and the objectives in terms of scale – whether it be targeting mass-market consumers or local buyers, the geographical location, etc – whether the farm is in a hot or cold climate, along with the types of crops grown and, most importantly, the technologies employed to replicate the natural environment at the lowest cost possible.
Vertical farming, per se, is the most popular system where crops are grown on stacked units in a warehouse, underground tunnel, or even in shipping containers, requiring artificial lighting, usually through expensive LEDs to mimic sunlight. But some operators, particularly in hot countries such as the Middle East and Asia, are growing crops in high-tech greenhouses using mostly natural light.
Nonetheless, even the companies in those hot climates need LED lighting to supplement the daylight hours, and, generally speaking, all operators within controlled-environment farming are similar in terms of the inputs such as labour, ventilation, irrigation, and cooling. And all require huge capital investment to purchase land, build the farm, put in the appropriate technology, and run it.
Despite the costs, indoor farming is viewed through a longer-term lens to address environmental concerns like the decreasing availability of land, unpredictable weather patterns and climate change, and the limited resources on hand to feed the world’s growing population.
Securing future harvests
Fraser Black, the CEO of UK-based Crop Health and Protection (CHAP), one of the country’s agri-tech centres and funded by Innovate UK, a government-backed agency, gives his interpretation of the current landscape.
“I think it is going to be a while before you see millionaires in vertical farming,” Black says. “It’s still at that point where you are justifying the costs and developing the market.
“I think there are enough people around now that are breaking even and starting to become profitable, but we are not there yet. Look at electric cars, we are sort of following that same trajectory.”
Controlled-environment farming comes with advantages: less water than regular agriculture and without the need for pesticides, and higher yields linked to year-round production. And, from the consumer perspective, better-quality produce because the nutrient inputs can be controlled, and freshness, because the crops tend to be grown close to the source.
For food importers like those in the Middle East and some parts of Asia, the technology offers food security, too.
All those benefits stack up through the eyes of private equity and venture-capital funds, which are ploughing vast sums of money into the sector.
This is no doubt in the hope of reaping profits when indoor farming has reached scale and matured beyond the current leafy greens and herbs – although soft fruits such as strawberries and blueberries, and tomatoes, cucumbers, and mushrooms, are starting to emerge.
Black also addresses the consumer angle and how controlled-environment farming is likely to develop over the coming years.
“The first decades are going to see people getting involved, learning how to do it, and leading the charge, and it will be niche. But, as they learn and as they build, and they learn how to get the costs down, and control the costs, the more mainstream it will become, and then more people pile in and the bigger the scale.
“There are other points of differentiation people are picking up on, which I think will project it forward until such time that the volume is big enough and people recognise all of the benefits that it will become profitable like other systems.
“Trying to compete with the major growers and put it all in the major supermarkets right now is more difficult because they don’t have the volume. But I think those sort of trends are starting to shift.’”
Sky Greens in Singapore is one of the oldest vertical-farming businesses in Asia, founded in 2012 by Jack Ng to grow leafy greens under glasshouses using hydroponic systems and natural light. While Ng points out that labour is the biggest operational cost, he also says that Sky Greens saves money by not employing LEDs, enabling the business to focus on yield and productivity.
“Our energy use is similar to traditional farming, so we can save about 75% on labour,” Ng says. “Our running costs are cheaper than traditional farming, the only thing is the investment cost. Because our output is ten times higher than traditional farming, the investment costs average out.”
He adds: “We have proven in Singapore that we can grow and sell mass-market vegetables. The reason many vertical farms aren’t competitive is because they are using artificial lighting, which is a high energy cost, so your payback is high and your overheads are high, plus you have the replacement costs because LED lights only have a two to three-year lifespan.”
Ng says that the price of locally-grown crops is important given that Singapore is an import-dependent economy when it comes to food, having to contend with cheap products coming in from Malaysia, Indonesia, and China, but its optimum yield gives Sky Greens the ability to compete.
“Our farm operation is profitable. Using our system, based on studies, the payback is about five years but your crop price has to be at a certain level. Therefore, what we produce is usually the higher-end vegetables like pak choi, which is, in a sense, a smaller market.”
Indicative of the costs, Plenty Unlimited in California, a vertical-farming business set up in 2014, has raised $500m to date from investors as it seeks to scale up production of leafy greens such as lettuce, kale, and rocket, along with tomatoes and strawberries.
Others, like AeroFarms, established in 2004 in New Jersey, and Infarm in Berlin founded in 2013, are turning to special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, to raise funds and gain public listings.
AeroFarms, which grows leafy greens, herbs, blueberries, and raspberries using aeroponic systems, recently entered a SPAC deal with Spring Valley Acquisition Company valued at $1.2bn, which will give the business access to more than $300m in cash to invest.
Infarm is also proposing a SPAC, said to be valued at $1bn, to expand from herbs and greens into chillies, mushrooms, and tomatoes, all grown using hydroponic technology. The company has so far raised around $400m.
Expensive seeds to sow
Nonetheless, the chief executive of Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) in Scotland, a tech firm that designs and patents controlled-environment platforms using artificial intelligence and robotics, with a particular focus on productivity and efficiencies, is critical of the sums being raised relative to the individual revenues generated, and the technologies employed.
IGS CEO David Farquhar says many of the vertical-farm operators “are still a long way from being profitable”.
“The first important thing is to get our positioning in the market right. There are a lot of very big and noisy companies that have had to raise a huge amount of money because they are trying to reinvent the wheel,” he explains.
“There is no one magic bullet that makes these things economically competitive. It is a combination of about six subsystems. There are two major costs in commercial agriculture in an enclosed environment.
“One is energy and the other one is labour. If you can take the labour out, and we’ve managed to reduce it by about 80%, that is a major cost-saving and will make you much more economically efficient.”
Farquhar argues that there is no need to have numerous people tending to these farms, as is depicted on many a website, if AI technology and robotics are employed, which reduce costs and ultimately helps with the profitability of indoor farming.
He continues: “We give recipes of weather to the AI and the computer does all that work and the mechanical handling system does all that work. Once you have put the seed into the substrate, in the inserts that go into the growth trays, there is really no need for human intervention at all.
“And if you don’t put humans in, you are not going to introduce bugs and disease and things, and therefore you don’t need to use fungicides and herbicides, whatever. That means you don’t need to wash the crop, which means that you are saving more money but also you are going to increase the shelf life by about 50%-100% and you are also going to reduce waste.”
Dr. Nate Storey, a co-founder of Plenty, says it’s surprising how quickly a vertical-farm operator can become profitable, compared to those in field crops, but it’s more difficult for a “company that’s raised a couple of hundred million dollars – it takes time for them to grow into that investment than it does for a farm that you just stood up”.
“Agriculture has historically been a low-margin industry, especially field production. And one thing we want to correct as we move into a new era of agriculture is to make it much more profitable. Having a better margin also makes you more investable.
“If we can get the flywheel spinning, we can drive costs out of the business faster and pull capital into the business in a way that allows us to expand much more quickly than you could probably imagine today,” Storey suggests.
“We are on a cost curve, more so than some of the other folks in the space, because we have invested very heavily in R&D. That builds our own internal cost curve, which allows us to drive yield up by seven times and costs out by 50% over the course of two years. So we have this kind of crazy economic curve that we get to ride towards higher profitability.”
Storey says that Plenty is competitive with field crops: “I know that’s not true for everyone but again, people have some catch up to play. People are just waiting for these external cost curves to drive their costs down.”
Jonathan Webb, the CEO who founded US vertical-farming business AppHarvest in 2017, says that scale is key to profitability.
The company, based in Kentucky, grows a wide range of tomatoes in glass houses and has recently invested $60m to buy artificial intelligence and robotics firm Root AI, which has the technology to predict yields and evaluate crop health.
While Webb admits that one of its farms in the city of Morehead is a user of LED lighting, it mainly uses natural sunlight, and it also recycles rainwater to save on costs.
“If you are just in a warehouse then you can’t use sunlight. So, for us, the two free inputs would be sunlight and rainwater. We are only adding in technology when we need it,” Webb says.
“If you package all that and go at scale, which ends up getting our construction costs down and our operating costs down, we can compete with conventional pricing today. If you are not using sunlight and you are not using rainwater how are you possibly going to compete with conventional crops and keep your costs low? It doesn’t make sense.”
Webb adds AppHarvest’s new Morehead facility is going through the ramp-up stage and costs usually level out in year two. “Year three on is where you really start to drive profitability,” he concedes.
“As the industry matures and scales, we are going to see our costs for lighting come down, you’ll see costs for steel and glass come down, and then it becomes that self-fulfilling prophecy because, as the industry scales, your material costs are going to be lower and the business models themselves will be fine-tuned to better perform.”
Smart applications of technology
In the Middle East, Pure Harvest is growing tomatoes and strawberries in high-tech glasshouses using natural sunlight and only uses LEDs to a small degree because they have more daylight hours and more intense sunlight than other parts of the world.
The business, founded in 2016 in Abu Dhabi, is about to move into leafy greens, with capsicums, cucumbers, and other berry fruits in the pipeline.
Majed Halawi, the vice president for growth at Pure Harvest, says that “it’s completely uneconomical” to use artificial lighting, although LEDs are used for “control and steering… but only to supplement the natural light”.
However, Pure Harvest doesn’t use stacked units like vertical-farm operators, and the company is very different in its objective, which is mainly to address food security and reduce the Emirates’ reliance on food imports.
“Where we compete and where we position ourselves is that we are this local, very high-quality product that is at a discounted price to what comes from Europe and outside of the market,” Halawi explains.
“We have a lot of similarities to a vertical farm in terms of climate management, however, our operating strategy and our set up of the greenhouses and the facilities is different. We find we have a more efficient set-up.
“Vertical farms bank on selling their produce at a very high cost, assuming the customers would pay them a premium for the fact they are grown on a vertical farm.
“However, what we find in this market in the Middle East is it doesn’t make any sense to be growing using vertical farms because firstly, the consumer is very price-conscious, so you need to be able to compete with your traditional farms and imports, and, secondly, we have such an abundance of natural light.”
AppHarvest’s Webb believes that controlled-environment farming has a bright future, given the unpredictability of the weather and climate change, and will eventually become a necessity to ensure the long-term supply of fresh produce. As the sector expands and scales, the cost of borrowing is likely to come down too, he says.
“We feel we are really at that tipping point. Over the next ten years, our estimation is you will see tens of billions of dollars flood into controlled-environment agriculture globally, and it’s because of the need. You will see scale and you will see profitability immediately because the industry can be profitable if you design the right facility in the right region.”
This feature was initially published in the June 2021 issue of Just Food magazine.
VIDEO: France’s First ‘Vertical Farm’ Sets Its Sights On Sustainability
There’s no soil and no sunshine, just stacks of boxes of microgreens and herbs, robot sprinklers and LED lights at France’s first ‘vertical farm’
There’s no soil and no sunshine, just stacks of boxes of microgreens and herbs, robot sprinklers and LED lights at France’s first ‘vertical farm’. The aromatic plants grown by Jungle company in a hangar in the northern French town Château-Thierry will soon supply the national supermarket chain Monoprix. Eventually, it is expected to produce eight million plants a year without any of them ever seeing the light of day.
Click here to watch the short video of the news.
Source: Yahoo News
Photo: Screenshot from the video on Yahoo news
Can Vertical Farms Be Profitable?
Basically, we’re skeptical of both the economics and the save-the-world ethos that many companies preach. We enlisted an industry insider to help us separate the wheat from the chaff
Earlier this year, we covered a couple of indoor farming companies going public through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Neither seemed very appetizing for retail investors, with negligible revenues to date. As we predicted, more indoor farming startups (referring to both large-scale greenhouses and vertical farming operations) are jumping on the SPAC crazy train. The latest is a Montana company called Local Bounti that had generated little buzz until this month’s announcement, which included news that Cargill is providing $200 million in debt financing in the deal.
In this article, we want to take a step back and look a little more closely at the indoor farming industry, sometimes referred to as controlled environment agriculture (CEA), particularly on the vertical farming side of things. Basically, we’re skeptical of both the economics and the save-the-world ethos that many companies preach. We enlisted an industry insider to help us separate the wheat from the chaff.
Saving the World from BS
Mark Korzilius
Mark Korzilius is the founder and chief strategy officer of &ever, a vertical farming startup based in Germany, with its first mega-farm located in the desert of Kuwait. Korzilius was also the co-founder in 2002 of a chain of fast-casual Italian restaurants, Vapiano, with more than 200 locations in about 30 countries. He reached out to us, as founders sometimes do after reading a story that didn’t include them, to tell us about all of the cool things their company is doing. In the case of Korzilius, he also wanted to set the record straight on all of the things that competitors like AeroFarms and other indoor vertical farming companies aren’t doing despite claims to the contrary.
Obviously, Mr. Korzilius is biased, but he also confirmed one of our chief suspicions: Many indoor farming companies claim they are on a mission to help feed the world, which seems incongruous with the fact that most are growing leafy greens, herbs, berries, and maybe tomatoes. Hardly the sorts of staples that are going to keep the estimated 800 million people in the world from going hungry at the end of the day. He also argues that claims of automation using artificial intelligence and sensor-rich environments are also overblown.
“We truly believe to become farmers and to be successful farmers for some crops, we can prove that [vertical farming] is, in the end, a way forward,” he says. “Hopefully, we can find some technologies to really overcome some issues that have been created by others … that will help solve problems that have been the result of technologies that have been created 50 years ago.”
In the second half of that comment, Korzilius is obviously referring to the modern industrial farming system, with its reliance on pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that deplete and poison soils and water supplies. That’s why you see so many companies developing natural fertilizers using microbes or biomanufacturing solutions for non-chemical pesticides. Outdoor agriculture is also water intensive, especially for products like almonds, which require one gallon of water per nut. Various technologies are in development to use water more efficiently, from soil sensors to aerial imagery from drones and satellites. Vertical farming gets at the root of the problem by moving the growing operation indoors, employing LED lights and hydroponics to deliver nutrients using only water rather than soil. That eliminates both pesticides and many traditional fertilizers, and reportedly cuts down on water usage by as much as 95%. Let’s take a look at the specific technology behind Korzilius’ company.
Creating the Right Climate for Vertical Farms
Founded in 2015, &ever (formerly known as Farmers Cut) has raised an undisclosed amount of money, originally through bootstrapping and Seed funding, before raising a Series A from partners in Kuwait for its mega-farm, a joint venture with a local investment company called NOX Management. Korzilius said &ever is currently raising a Series B but declined to offer any details.
There are two key parts to the company’s technology, as we understand it: Dryponics and climate cells.
Dryponics is a new riff on hydroponics, which involves growing plants without soil. The company uses a proprietary growth substrate to keep the roots dry. In effect, the root system stays on top of the substrate, while absorbing the nutrients in the water. This setup reportedly has several advantages, including using 68% less water than common hydroponic systems and 37% less water than aeroponic systems, which grow plants in the air using a mist environment or similar system. Less water means the basins underneath the substrates are flatter, allowing more compact layering of crops.
Each crop requires different growing conditions, Korzilius explains, so his team developed climate cells – microenvironments optimized for temperature, light, humidity, and CO2, among other factors. Controlling the environment also helps control energy costs, especially in the large structures that house many of today’s vertical farms, including the company’s flagship facility in Kuwait.
Credit: &ever
“Within the same premises, we can create different climates. In our Kuwait farm, we have four climate cells next to each other. So, we could potentially create California climate next to Denmark climate next to Singapore climate,” he explains. “By creating climate cells within one premise, we save energy [and] only climatize what needs to be climatized.”
Take spinach, a notoriously difficult plant to grow indoors that took the company two years to figure out the right combination of substrate and climate. But that work has paid off by reducing the amount of growth time by 15%, which translates into 18 grow cycles a year, which is good enough for Popeye to be an investor (if only he hadn’t blown his retirement on canned spinach).
Betting the Farm on Indoor Farming
The value proposition is that products from &ever leave the farm as living plants with the roots intact, continuing to grow while staying fresh and retaining maximum freshness, according to Korzilius. The Kuwait farm is the first large-scale effort to prove the business model, though the company also has smaller grow towers for on-site retail locations like grocery stores, including one in Munich. A second mega-farm is in development in Singapore.
A &ever grow tower. Credit: &ever
The Kuwait farm, which went live shortly before the Rona hit, is designed to grow up to 250 varieties of greens and herbs. The 30,000-square-foot facility can reportedly produce up to 1,200 pounds of green stuff. Korzilius says the pandemic continues to hinder full-scale operations of the farm, which is overseen by just six employees. However, he claims the vertical farm is profitable from an operations standpoint (in other words, without accounting for the original capital expenditure). “So, we are not selling below cost. Yes, it’s a prototype, but it’s working nicely.”
Tasty greens from a vertical farm in Kuwait. Credit: &ever
However, there is a reason why the mega-farm is located in Kuwait and not in Munich or elsewhere in Europe. Energy is simply cheaper in the Middle East, so it was a no-brainer to plug into the grid there. In Singapore, where electricity doesn’t come as cheaply, the local government has stepped in with grant money to subsidize the project. Currently, Singapore imports more than 90% of its food, so the government is motivated to find ways to be more self-sufficient, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
The bigger implication is that vertical farms will require cheap sources of energy to be economically viable. That goes against the current narrative of locating large-scale operations in the middle of big urban centers where electricity is usually pretty expensive. Of course, there are other economics to consider: Centrally located growing facilities will incur lower shipping costs and can theoretically deliver fresher, tastier products to consumers, who may be willing to pay the premium for what Korzilius calls harvest on demand.
“I strongly believe in consumers being at the center of all activities,” he says. “The consumer, in the end, has to pay for this. And, if he doesn’t, then all of this is just a stupid bubble.”
Conclusion
The bubble is certainly ballooning. The three indoor farming companies that are going (or have gone) public that we are aware of are valued at nearly $4 billion. Last year, the top three indoor farming startups in 2020 funding brought in more than $400 million between them, according to AgFunder News. These companies claim to be building a sustainable food system, but it seems unlikely that a business built on microgreens can be sustainable at that scale and cost. As always, the market will decide which model will succeed.
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Building A Vertical Farm With Partners — An Ongoing Case In Switzerland
iFarm has recently announced a partnership with YASAI and Logiqs to create a new vertical farm in Switzerland. Working together, we aim to expand into new locations, highlight the growth potential of vertical farming in Europe and showcase the benefits of working with industry partners
iFarm has recently announced a partnership with YASAI and Logiqs to create a new vertical farm in Switzerland. Working together, we aim to expand into new locations, highlight the growth potential of vertical farming in Europe and showcase the benefits of working with industry partners.
On 5 February 2021, iFarm (The Netherlands), YASAI AG (Switzerland) and Logiqs B.V. (The Netherlands) announced a strategic partnership with plans to launch Zurich’s first vertical farm. iFarm will supply the nutrient solution management system, specialist sensors, control systems and Growtune software platform and Logiqs will be supplying automated shelving systems at Yasai’s 673 sq. m plantation.
Now, we’re giving you behind-the-scenes access to the data and decisions that were the driving force behind the venture.
With contributions from Mark E. Zahran, Co-Founder, and CEO of YASAI, Gert-Jan van Staalduinen, CEO and Owner of Logiqs, and Kirill Zelenski, Managing Director of iFarm Europe, we’ll look at how and why this strategic partnership came about and what the future holds.
Read on to find out more about what goes into launching a successful vertical farm and how you can achieve the same goals.
Why Switzerland? Why Europe?
As you may already know, location is a critical factor when assessing the feasibility of a vertical farm. Locating a vertical farm in a densely populated urban area, with limited access to traditional farming facilities and rural land, ensures there is untapped demand for locally grown produce.
For Mark, being based in Switzerland made Zurich a natural choice for the first YASAI vertical farm. However, selecting the right location wasn’t merely a matter of convenience, as he emphasised:
The market is here. The market demands local produce, grown in a responsible and sustainable way, and, with the right technology, you can meet the demand and create a successful business.
Although the concept of vertical farming is becoming increasingly popular in Europe, there’s no doubt that the regional market lags behind its U.S. and Asian counterparts, but this needn’t be a deterrent for potential investors or farmers. In fact, the growth potential makes vertical farming in Europe a viable form of investment:
Vertical farming has grown more quickly in America and Asia but, I think, in the end, we will have a more sustainable model and acceleration is already taking place.
Gert, Logiqs
With demand for fresh, locally sourced produce creating a market for vertical farms and investors actively seeking out new ventures, it’s clear that Switzerland, and Europe as a whole, is a prime location for the partnership. By taking a strategic approach, other farmers, entrepreneurs and start-ups can use the same parameters to identify key locations for future vertical farms.
Do Local Trends Matter?
Local trends and current market conditions certainly play a role in identifying viable locations, and opportunities, for vertical farming. Whether you’re forming a partnership or starting your own venture, you’ll want to ensure that your vertical farm is situated in an area that prioritises what you can offer.
In Europe, for example, the current range of fresh produce available in the supermarkets is somewhat limited, despite the growing popularity of pesticide-free produce and plant-based foods. As awareness of environmental issues and climate change becomes more important to consumers, this is already being reflected in their decision-making and purchase behaviour.
The European Statistics Handbook reports that Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland and Denmark) are responsible for just 1.5% of Europe’s fresh produce, with the local climate being cited as the main obstacle to production. With climate-controlled production facilities, however, the potential of vertical farming in this region is clear and presents a worthwhile investment for entrepreneurs, farmers and investors.
Furthermore, the CBI estimates that Europe is responsible for 44% of worldwide fresh fruit and vegetable trade. Exporters to the region are encouraged to capitalise on the continent’s ‘off season' in order to maximise their profits. While traditional farming methods do, of course, result in off seasons, this no longer needs to be the case. The ability of vertical farmers to grow high-quality produce year-round using climate-controlled environments effectively eradicates off seasons and facilitates domestic fruit and vegetable production.
Based on these trends, it’s possible to predict that European consumers will respond positively to the presence of pesticide-free, locally grown, produce in shops and restaurants. For retailers and food or vegetables distributors, this makes partnering with vertical farmers a viable and exciting venture.
In relation to our current partnership, the fact that Switzerland imports 48% of its vegetables, reflects the Europe-wide food production trends and indicates that there is a growing market for fresh, local produce:
When fresh produce is imported, companies are more focused on transportability than flavour or quality. By shortening the supply chain and growing produce locally, we can deliver better tasting vegetables and higher quality produce.
Mark, YASAI
At the same time, a more health-conscious society is placing greater emphasis on food quality and diversity. The emerging, ‘pay the farmer, not the doctor' movement, is reframing the way we think about food as the foundation of our health, which will no doubt impact future consumer behaviour.
If you look at the last 200 years, the amount that people spend on medical care was increasing all the time and the amount they paid for food was decreasing, so now we are at a sweet spot where it could change again and people would eat more consciously and also get less sick, which leads to a healthier society.
Mark, YASAI
It’s evident, therefore, that local trends have been a key factor in identifying the right location for YASAI’s new vertical farm. By assessing potential locations from an economic perspective, analysing the domestic market and identifying current and emerging trends, it’s possible to determine where vertical farms can have the greatest success.
Finding the Right Partners
When you’re embarking on any venture, it’s important to work with the right partners. So, how did the alliance between YASAI, Logiqs and iFarm come about?
Already operational in Europe, Russia and the MENA, iFarm was approached by YASAI on the basis of our leading vertical farm solutions, collaborative approach to farming and reputation within the industry. Indeed, the success of the solutions was a factor in why YASAI were so keen to work with iFarm:
What we saw, in terms of hardware, is that there are very good logistics partners out there, such as Logiqs, and, in terms of software, iFarm’s solutions were already proven. Also, the range of plant growth recipes available via iFarm’s Growtune software was critical to our goal of increasing crop and food diversity.
Mark, YASAI
From our perspective, we were excited to work with both YASAI and Logiqs to create Zurich’s first vertical farm. Both the passion and expertise of the partners were clear from the outset with the potential for a long-lasting and successful relationship. Furthermore, our economic analysis of the region confirmed what a lucrative market Europe is for vertical farming and further cemented our commitment to expanding in the region.
Kirill, iFarm
However, identifying the right partners isn’t solely about finding organisations who can meet your needs or deliver the solutions you need to begin operating.
We’ve been delivering horticultural solutions for 45 years, so we have a lot of experience we can bring to a partnership, but, when it comes to complex innovation, it’s very important to have partners that are open and all focused on the same objective, instead of their own, individual success.
Gert, Logiqs
Creating the vertical farm in Niederhasli, Zurich, is a joint collaboration, with YASAI taking on the management, operations and branding, Logiqs providing automated hardware and iFarm delivering the nutrient solution management system, climate control equipment and the Growtune software platform. While each partner is bringing distinct, critical components to the table, it’s the values and objectives that form the union and facilitate a constructive and collaborative working partnership.
What we really liked about iFarm is its collaborative mindset. That’s how we want to accelerate, vertical farming — with collaboration.
Mark, YASAI
Whether you’re a farmer, retailer, food distributor, investor or entrepreneur, there are partnership opportunities available right now. However, it’s important to think about long-term goals and what success looks like when you’re deciding who to work with. By partnering with people and companies that share your values and ambitions, you can work together cohesively and increase your success.
Why is Vertical Farming Important?
Vertical farms may be a profitable investment, but they offer much more besides revenue and profit. In addition to being a prime investment in Europe, vertical farming can change the way we approach food production and provide better access to food, as well as reducing the environmental impact current production methods have.
At iFarm, the potential to spark worldwide change and benefit society has always been the driving force behind the operations, and we’re pleased to partner with organisations who share these values.
We have the ambition to accelerate access to ‘honest food'. People will learn about this partnership and will start to think about the way we produce foods and the potential vertical farming has to solve some of the acute global issues.
Gert, Logiqs
As we move towards a more circular economy, there’s a greater emphasis on the need to minimise waste and make better use of our resources. In comparison to traditional farming or greenhouses, vertical farming is more closely aligned to these objectives and will, therefore, be critical in shaping the future of food production.
If we want to create real circular food systems, we must think about how to integrate technology and not just build more efficient food factories.
Mark, YASAI
The trend towards sustainable, pesticide-free food production has gained traction in recent years, but it’s accelerated in recent months. As we continue to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the industry and society as a whole, it’s clear that the way we think about food, health and even retail is changing:
People started to rethink their diet habits, their way of life, and consider alternatives to the status quo.
Mark, YASAI
From a commercial perspective, the relative instability of large supply chains has been highlighted by COVID-19, which means businesses are now more wary of relying on complex chains and reluctant to put unnecessary distance between their own operations and their suppliers. As a result, the ability to grow produce in close proximity to retailers and distributors means vertical farms will play a key role in the evolution of the food production industry, in both the short and long-term.
With the potential to improve access to high quality produce, drastically reduce the environmental impact of food production, shorten supply chains and deliver better food diversity, vertical farming can provide solutions to so many of the issues we’re currently facing. From food scarcity in developing countries to volatility within the distribution industry, vertical farms can play a key role in transforming the way we grow, access and think about food.
What’s Next for iFarm, YASAI and Logiqs?
As YASAI’s Zurich vertical farm prepares to open in Niederhasli in autumn 2021, we’re already looking towards the future. We’ll be testing and perfecting our growing methods in Niederhasli, with a view to working together on an ambitious project to create another vertical farm that’s 10 times bigger. With plans already underway, the creation of Zurich’s first vertical farm could be the first step in our shared journey.
Is a Partnership Right for You?
Now you’ve got an insight into the rationale, decision-making and objectives behind our strategic alliance with YASAI and Logiqs, you may be wondering whether a partnership could offer the same growth potential to you.
By working with iFarm and other industry leaders, you can access the resources, services and expertise you need to create your own successful vertical farm. Whether you’re a traditional farmer who wants to incorporate new technology into your operations, a retailer that wants to access locally sourced produce or an investor looking for your next venture, a vertical farm partnership can deliver the practical, financial and sustainable rewards you’re looking for.
To learn more, take a look at how you can benefit from vertical farming:
1. Food, Fruit and Vegetable Distributors
For existing food, fruit and vegetable distributors, partnering with vertical farms and logistics companies offers clear benefits. With an abundance of crops being produced all year-round, distributors can expand their network and substantially increase their profitability.
As traditional farming delivers seasonal growth, distributors may be forced to work with numerous clients in order to trade throughout the year. Inevitably, this means changing distribution routes, switching equipment and altering the network to accommodate different types of produce.
In contrast, the year-round production at vertical farms enables distributors to minimise resource consumption, safeguard demand and use existing routes. As a result, food, fruit and vegetable distributors can maximise their own profitability by partnering with vertical farmers, investors, logistics providers, food retailers and entrepreneurs.
2. Food Retailers
Food retailers can benefit from vertical farm partnerships in a number of ways. For example, a food retailer can source fresh produce from their partners and increase the diversity of their stock. This enables retailers to enhance the quality and the flavour of their fresh produce, as well as meeting consumer demand for pesticide-free, locally-sourced food.
Critically, partnering with other organisations or investors to create a vertical farm also gives retailers the chance to shorten their supply chains. As we’ve seen over the past year, complex or lengthy supply chains are precarious, particularly when stock has a short lifespan, as is the case with fruits and vegetables. Supply chain delays and disruptions are now common, which leads to increased waste, additional expenditure and fewer products on the shelves.
As part of a vertical farm partnership, however, food retailers can produce their own stock, avoid the risk associated with lengthy supply chains and cater to a growing market. By doing so, retailers can reduce their expenditure, safeguard their supply chains and increase their profitability.
3. Investors
Investors, financial partners and private equity funds can capitalise on the evolving agro-tech industry by partnering with expanding vertical farms. As we can see with the YASAI vertical farm in Niederhasli, the initial production site is only a glimpse of what’s to come. With proven success at smaller sites, investors can get in at the ground level to fund expansion and reap the rewards.
The EU has already confirmed its plans to drastically reduce the use of pesticides in food production, with a 50% reduction estimated by 2030. This, combined with consumer demand for pesticide-free food, highlights a growing market. Furthermore, it’s a market that vertical farms can and will satisfy.
While the increasing market for pesticide-free produce is one reason why vertical farms present such a lucrative investment, there are many others. The relatively low start-up costs, in conjunction with low running costs, makes vertical farms a viable option for all types of investors.
Furthermore, many investors are actively seeking out ‘green investments'. From hedge funds to pension funds, an increasing number of people and companies are moving away from investing in products, firms or industries which are known to have a negative impact on the environment and searching for an alternative. Not only does a vertical farm partnership meet the criteria of a green investment and enhance the ‘green credentials' for all parties, it can also generate significant and sizable returns.
4. Distributors and Resellers of Agro-Technologies
For existing distributors and resellers of agro-technologies, the chance to form a partnership with vertical farmers, investors, retailers and entrepreneurs is undoubtedly compelling.
Instead of simply selling your tech innovations to farmers and companies, you’ll have the chance to create long-term professional relationships with people and organisations from your target audience. By doing so, you can increase customer lifecycle value and optimise your profitability.
However, the increased revenue isn’t the only benefit associated with a partnership. As we have seen with Logiqs' role within the iFarm and YASAI partnership, the chance to increase brand awareness within the industry and establish your firm as a market leader is valuable in itself.
As your role in ground-breaking partnerships becomes more widely-known, demand for your brand and your technologies is increased and further growth potential develops. From ad hoc sales to additional partnerships, distributors and resellers of agro-technologies can significantly increase their reach when they form partnerships with other people and organisations in the industry.
Additionally, being part of a partnership enables you to work closely with farmers and to gain an in-depth insight into the type of technology they require. In doing so, you will consistently enhance and evolve your technologies to deliver more efficient and more effective solutions. For agro-tech developers, the chance to shape the future of the industry makes a vertical farm partnership an opportunity that simply shouldn’t be missed.
To learn more or to explore upcoming partnership opportunities, contact iFarm today at +358 504 801 487 or email us at sales@ifarm.fi
Novel Practices of Indoor, Urban And Vertical Farming Set To Grow
The Association for Vertical Farming (AVF) and the German Agricultural Society (DLG) are hoping to promote the ‘fields’ of urban, vertical, and indoor framing in Germany, and worldwide, both companies announced recently
June 29, 2021
‘Urban’, ‘vertical’, and ‘indoor’ are not words usually associated with farming but that looks set to change as two farming-related organisations plan to promote these novel practices.
The Association for Vertical Farming (AVF) and the German Agricultural Society (DLG) are hoping to promote the ‘fields’ of urban, vertical, and indoor framing in Germany, and worldwide, both companies announced recently.
The terms urban farming, vertical farming, indoor farming or ‘plant factories’ may differ in the detail, but the focus remains the same: production of plant-based food in urban spaces with limited spaces that are partially closed.
Both companies explain that production in these conditions is more intensive, as, with less space, environmental influences need to be precisely controlled.
At the same time, the use of water, nutrients, and plant protection is reduced or sometimes – as in the case of plant protection – completely eliminated.
This is only possible if the plants are isolated from pathogens and pests.
For example, some systems are ‘hermetically sealed‘ to prevent the entry of undesirable substances. This also means that air supply, water circulation, and even control of illumination must be technically regulated and managed.
In welcoming the organisations’ cooperation, Christine Zimmermann-Lossl, chairwoman of the AVF said:
“AVF’s goal is to promote sustainable growth and development within the international vertical farming industry and community.
“The AVF promotes this through research projects, cooperation, events and the establishment of a network of companies, experts and research institutions that is actively involved in the vertical farming industry.”
Tobias Eichberg, managing director (MD) of DLG’s exhibitions department added:
“The production of plant-based foods in urban areas represents a global growth market.
“In Asia, in particular, where urbanization is progressing faster and more intensively than in Europe, such farms are already economically viable.”
Vertical farming practices are still in their infancy in Europe, and Germany, he added. However, Germany is at the forefront of research and is accompanying the trend toward indoor production of specialty crops away from agricultural land, the MD said.
What Is Driving The UK’s CEA boom?
The main findings of the panel were that the UK has been lucky with its well-established greenhouse industry which offers a great foundation for vertical farmers to understand the CEA space
“In the UK, fruits and vegetables are quite cheap in comparison to other European countries and other parts of the world. In the UK, the market has been squeezed by supermarkets that squeeze out the margins of the supply chain,” said Andrew Lloud, COO at Intelligent Growth Solutions, during a panel at the Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit.
During the session, three UK-supplier panelists elaborated on the topic. Joining were, Andrew Lloud, COO at IGS, Ben Crowther, Co-founder and CTO at LettUs Grow, Jen Bromley, Head of Plant R&D at Vertical Future, and Oscar Brennecke with Rethink Events who led the conversation.
The main findings of the panel were that the UK has been lucky with its well-established greenhouse industry which offers a great foundation for vertical farmers to understand the CEA space.
However, at the same time, it's quite costly to produce indoors given the high electricity and transport costs. This might change over time, due to several renewable energies coming into the market that will allow for cheaper production. Later on, the panelists will elaborate on the differences between the US and Europe, being monocropping whereas EU farmers grow more different varieties at the same time.
What makes the UK CEA space unique?
Andrew noted that UK consumers are willing to pay a certain price for fruits and vegetables. However, indoor ag bring along high electricity costs, whereas UK transport costs are high as well. Next to that, the economic and political dynamic being post-Brexit and currently battling the pandemic has highlighted its challenges. “Technology can economically viable grow a wide variety of crops, forming part of the food mix in the UK and in other parts of the world.”
73% of the surface area available for farming, said Ben Crowther, Co-Founder and CTO at LettUs Grow, a UK-vertical farming supplier, however, the UK still imports half of the produce.” He claimed that there’s an opportunity to make things more sustainable and efficient. Jen Bromley, Head of Plant R&D at Vertical Future, said that it’s not always about growing at a large scale, but that it differs per crop. “It’s always about pushing boundaries to see where the economics can work for the crop.”
Opportunities
More renewables and power generation are coming in, so there’s the opportunity to drop in things like vertical farms according to Andrew. “The real trick is to see if you can get a tariff from the energy provider so that the price per kw/h consumed is optimized to grow plants in the cheapest way.
Jen added that there are some obvious low-hanging fruits that can be taken within the market. Such as leafy greens, herbs, and fruits, given they work really well with the infrastructure. “However, there are also markets we can go deeper into, such as proteins, high-care products that can all be managed very well in the vertical farming space.”
Andrew added that a wide variety of crops will eventually be important, depending on your location. The difference in the US is that it’s a lot about monocropping, but they don’t tend to have the same diversity as seen in the UK or other European countries. I’ve seen it here, but I expect it to come to America as well.”
UK greenhouse- vs vertical farming market
Ben notes that “because of the well-established UK greenhouse industry, we can better understand the vertical farming market.” Berries are a great example, in the UK there has been a 10% market growth. It drives how people are looking for rootstock in these markets, specifically in greenhouses. As well as looking into year-round growing to complement their off-season. The idea translates into more traditional farmers, looking for a more consistent, lower-risk way to make their business more resilient.
Jen said that a traditional farm is a long-term play as they’re handed down by generations. In a vertical farming system, it’s an infrastructure that has to last. Whereas, Andrew claimed that the seasonal variation will be smoothed out by multi-tenant farmers using the same facility for different crops for different points in the year.
Consumer perception
“On the whole, there’s a growing understanding I think,” says Ben. He explains that there are some products available at various retailers already. Jen noted that branding is far more developed in the US, given the produce brands they have. Whereas Andrew affirmed that the elephant in the room in the UK and Europe is the use of the word organic. In the US, vertically farmed produce can be labeled as organic, however, in Europe, we’re still looking at what post-organic looks like. It’s confusing for the consumers, however, we’re at the beginning of educating people, starting with kids.
Other topics discussed were subsidies and barriers in vertical farming in the UK.
For more information:
Intelligent Growth Solutions
www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com
For more information:
Vertical Future
info@verticalfuture.co.uk
www.verticalfuture.co.uk
For more information:
LettUs Grow
info@lettusgrow.com
lettusgrow.com
For more information:
Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit
www.indooragtechnyc.com
29 Jun 2021
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© HortiDaily.com
"New Tabletop Growing System Requires Much Lower Capital Investment"
Plantlogic is focused on developing and producing containers and growing systems for substrate agriculture
Introducing "Plantlogic’s hi-grow system"
Plantlogic is focused on developing and producing containers and growing systems for substrate agriculture.
"The benefits of tabletop strawberry production are well known – boosting yields using substrate techniques and reducing labor costs. However, the capital investment needed for the most common system, metal gutters, can be a major barrier to the expansion of this growing system," they have seen.
"Furthermore, the substrate in slabs compromises many of the benefits of substrate production. Still, other tabletop systems compromise plant health by creating continuous troughs of the substrate with uneven drainage or sealing roots into a closed space."
For the past four years, Plantlogic has been developing a totally new tabletop growing system that seeks to reduce the capital investment while continuing to create optional conditions for roots to thrive. The result of these years of testing, design failures, and successes is the “Hi-Grow System”.
"Available in a variety of configurations including for troughs/pots, for slabs, with and without drainage collection. Now growers can enjoy the benefits of substrate tabletop production without compromising benefits with a much lower capital investment," they say.
Specific advantages of using Plantlogic’s Hi-Grow system are first, that it benefits from tabletop production at a lower cost. "Secondly, it supports troughs/pots, as the pots provide the best conditions for root development with a fixed volume, carefully controlled drainage, and oxygen uptake holes, making irrigation easier."
"Besides, it enables growers to do develop plants in the same container in a high-density nursery environment then move tabletops for fruit production. Growers can save money by using bulk substrate or enable the use of the blended substrate. Finally, growers can avoid labor for removal or pollution from the plastic film around slabs, and the truss support is included in the pots," they continue.
This solution supports the use of traditional substrate slabs. Also, drainage is collected into a narrow gutter. Growers can reduce risks by separating plants from drainage and other containers, as the trough is not continuous.
For more information:
Plantlogic
sales@getplantlogic.com
www.getplantlogic.com
17 Jun 2021
Pure Harvest Smart Farms Adopts Honeywell’s Sustainable Technology
Pioneering controlled environment agriculture (CEA) in the Middle East, Pure Harvest’s mission is to tackle some of the region’s biggest problems using technology to provide agriculture solutions that address food security, water conservation, economic diversification, and sustainability needs
Al Ain farm uses the Solstice zd for climate-controlled system – an ultra-low-global-warming-potential solution – for growth of its produce
By ITP.net Staff Writer
28 Jun 2021
The Al Ain-based Pure Harvest Smart Farms is using Honeywell’s Solstice zd (R-1233zd) ultra-low-global-warming-potential (LGWP) refrigerant to cool its new indoor farm, while reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions.
The UAE-based company has implemented several high-tech, controlled-environment hybrid growing systems across the Middle East to meet the regional need for fresh fruits and vegetables. However, the Al Ain farm will be the first sustainable initiative to use Honeywell’s solution, which effectively increases energy efficiency when used in chillers, and will assist the farm in reducing its carbon footprint.
Based on hydrofluoro-olefin technology, Solstice zd is non-flammable with a GWP of 1, and offers better capacity and similar efficiency to HCFC R-123 in low-pressure centrifugal chillers to cool large buildings and infrastructure.
“We’ve developed a successful controlled agriculture business that converts natural sunlight to grow fresh produce in abundance, helping us to address regional challenges such as food insecurity and water scarcity, and offer consumers fresher and more sustainable choices,” said Sky Kurtz, CEO and co-founder of Pure Harvest Smart Farms.
“Solstice zd is integral to the continued growth of our sustainable operations and is a practical and economical solution that enables us to meet our long-term goals, and comply with existing and proposed regulations for lower-GWP solutions.”
Amir Naqvi, regional business leader, Middle East, Turkey, and Africa for Honeywell Fluorine Products, added: “Solstice zd is a long-term, environmentally preferable solution for farming in the region, which typically has high energy demands as a result of the hot climate.
“Converting to Solstice zd will not only help Pure Harvest Smart Farms with sustainable practices, but will also help to accelerate the industry’s conversion to alternatives that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”
Founded in Abu Dhabi, Pure Harvest Smart Farms is a technology-enabled agribusiness focused on year-round, sustainable production of premium quality fresh fruits and vegetables. As makers of the Middle East’s first commercial-scale, semi-automated high-tech hybrid greenhouse food production system, Pure Harvest leverages innovative growing technologies and horticultural best practices to enable local-for-local production of affordable, sustainably-grown, cleaner than organic and protected by nature, fresh produce anywhere.
Pioneering controlled environment agriculture (CEA) in the Middle East, Pure Harvest’s mission is to tackle some of the region’s biggest problems using technology to provide agriculture solutions that address food security, water conservation, economic diversification, and sustainability needs.
The company’s products are found in some of the most respected and far-reaching retailers in the Middle East, such as Spinneys, Waitrose, and Carrefour, as well as numerous reputable hotels and restaurants in the UAE. The company currently grows 26 commercial varieties of tomatoes, including six that have never before been seen, and six varieties of strawberries.
By early next year, upon completion of the company’s Kuwaiti facility and its expansion into KSA, the product portfolio will broaden even further, to include raspberries, blackberries, additional vine crops and lettuces.
Solstice zd has been adopted by Trane, a leading air-conditioner manufacturer, in its new Series E CenTraVac large capacity centrifugal chillers in the Middle East as well as in Europe’s Channel Tunnel, which has demonstrated annual energy savings of 33% (4.8 GWh).
Honeywell refrigerants are sold worldwide under the Solstice and Genetron brand names for a range of applications, including refrigeration, building and automobile air-conditioning. The company and its suppliers have completed a billion-dollar investment program in research and development, and new capacity based on Honeywell’s hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) technology. Worldwide adoption of Solstice products has resulted in the reduction of more than 200 million metric tons of CO2 to date, equal to eliminating the emissions from more than 42 million cars from the road for a year.
Honeywell recently committed to achieve carbon neutrality in its operations and facilities by 2035. This commitment builds on the company’s track record of sharply reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of its operations and facilities as well as its decades-long history of innovation to help its customers meet their environmental and social goals.
Food TechSustainabilityFarmingPure Harvest Smart Farms (Pureharvest.Ae/)Honeywell
Kalera – Curtis McWilliams Proposed As A New Member of The Board of Directors
McWilliams, the former President and CEO of the nation’s largest restaurant REIT and a seasoned independent director of a number of publicly-traded corporate boards, brings a wealth of experience as Kalera prepares for rapid domestic and international expansion
June 28, 2021
McWilliams, the former President and CEO of the nation’s largest restaurant REIT and a seasoned independent director of a number of publicly-traded corporate boards, brings a wealth of experience as Kalera prepares for rapid domestic and international expansion
ORLANDO, Fla., June 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kalera (Euronext Growth Oslo ticker KAL, Bloomberg: KSLLF), one of the fastest-growing and largest vertical farming companies in the world and a leader in plant science for producing high-quality produce in controlled environments, today announced the proposed appointment of Curtis McWilliams to its Board of Directors. In addition, it is expected that McWilliams will chair Kalera’s Audit Committee responsible for oversight of the financial reporting and disclosure process. An executive with deep experience in mergers & acquisitions, real estate, corporate governance as well as financial accounting and analysis, McWilliams brings nearly 40 years of executive leadership and experience to the Kalera board. After an extended career in investment banking with Merrill Lynch, McWilliams transitioned to the CEO of Trustreet Properties where over the course of the following 10 years, he oversaw the growth of the company from under $100 million to over $3 billion when it was sold to GE Capital in 2007. He presently is the non-executive chair of Ardmore Shipping Corporation (NYSE: ASC), an independent director for Braemar Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: BHR), and lead independent director for Modiv Inc. McWilliams has previously chaired the audit committee for CNL Bank and presently serves as chair of the audit committee for Braemar Hotels as well as serving on the audit committee for Ardmore Shipping.
The addition of McWilliams to the board coincides with Kalera’s rapid expansion into several new markets and its acquisition of Vindara Inc., the first company to develop seeds specifically designed for use in vertical indoor farm environments as well as other controlled environment agriculture (CEA) farming methods.
“We are thrilled and honored to have Curtis McWilliams join Kalera’s Board,” said Bjørge Gretland, Chairman. “Curtis has been tremendously successful as a CEO and has extensive experience chairing Audit Committees. He also brings valuable expertise doing M&A deals. I am confident he will be a strong contributor to Kalera’s success.”
In addition to his aforementioned business experience, McWilliams also has served on numerous civic and non-profit boards including the Orlando Museum of Art and Young Life. McWilliams received his BSE in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and his MBA from the University of Chicago with a concentration in finance.
“There has never been a more pressing need for vertical farming than there is today. I’m honored and excited to have the opportunity to join the Board at Kalera, the leader in this innovative and disruptive industry,” said Curtis McWilliams. “I look forward to working with Kalera as they continue to grow and expand domestically and abroad.”
Kalera currently operates two growing facilities in Orlando and a newly opened facility in Atlanta and is building facilities in Houston, Denver, Columbus, Seattle, Minnesota, and Hawaii. Kalera is the only controlled environment agriculture company with coast-to-coast facilities being constructed, offering grocers, restaurants, theme parks, airports, and other businesses nationwide reliable access to locally grown clean, safe, nutritious, price-stable, long-lasting greens. Kalera uses a closed-loop irrigation system which enables its plants to grow while consuming 95% less water compared to field farming.
The appointment of Curtis McWilliams as a member of the Board of Directors will be presented for approval by Kalera’s shareholders at a general meeting and is expected to take effect upon completion of the contemplated merger between Kalera AS and the new Luxembourg parent for the group, which was announced previously.
For further information:
Bjørge Gretland, Chairman
Email: bgretland@kalera.com
About Kalera
Kalera is a technology-driven vertical farming company with unique growing methods combining optimized nutrients and light recipes, precise environmental controls, and cleanroom standards to produce safe, highly nutritious, pesticide-free, non-GMO vegetables with consistent high quality and longer shelf life year-round. The company’s high-yield, automated, data-driven hydroponic production facilities have been designed for rapid rollout with industry-leading payback times to grow vegetables faster, cleaner, at a lower cost, and with less environmental impact. To learn more visit www.Kalera.com.
This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
"For Fruit To Be On The Water For 51 Days And Still Be Sold As A Premium Product Is Unheard Of"
United Exports recently announced that a container of fresh OZblu® blueberries transited the Pacific ocean – from the port of Manzanillo in Mexico to the port of Hong Kong – spending 51 days at sea and arriving fresh and ready for sale in Hong Kong, on 20 May 2021.
Roger Horak - OZblu®
United Exports recently announced that a container of fresh OZblu® blueberries transited the Pacific ocean – from the port of Manzanillo in Mexico to the port of Hong Kong – spending 51 days at sea and arriving fresh and ready for sale in Hong Kong, on 20 May 2021. This was one of several containers sent to Asia from OZblu-Sun Farms’ first harvest in Mexico.
2013 saw the first commercial harvest of OZblu blueberries, the main production area back then was in South Africa with limited production in Australia. These days the blueberries are grown in Peru, Mexico, Chile, US, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Morocco, Australia, Portugal and Spain.
The biggest production area is in South Africa followed by Peru then Mexico.
“We have used various productions models comprising both contracted growers and our own production with the expansion very much focused on our own production,” explains Roger Horak, Co-founder of OZblu.
“OZblu varieties are unusual in that they are very adaptable and produce the same fruit in different locations around the world, same yield, crunchiness and taste. South America, especially Mexico fits in well to supply the US and compliments our production there. Peru and Chile have access to China, which South Africa does not have, so it is a case of lining up production with markets to supply the markets 365 days a year. It also spreads risk, for example frost in northern South Africa last year caused a delay of 6-8 weeks in production which needed to be supplied from our other production sites.”
The blueberry category has seen a massive growth in recent years but now according to Roger, it is individual varieties, all markets are differentiating by variety.
“Initially a blueberry was just a blueberry but now there is a huge demand for varietals that deliver flavour and crunch, anyone that thinks growing old open varieties is still an option is dreaming. China is a premium and very discerning market, the EU, UK and US are now all the same. We have not even scratched the surface of what is achievable with proprietary varieties.”
“When we started on this journey, we had our varieties independently tested by Experico which showed that they all could handle 40 days sea freight in normal refrigerated containers, now 96.5% of OZBLU production from South African goes by sea in standard refrigerated containers, versus the rest of the industry only achieving around 60% for sea freight exports. We normally only use refrigerated containers, occasionally CA but nothing else, no modified atmosphere bags or other technology. For fruit to be on the water for 51 days and still be sold as a premium product is unheard of. In this Covid world the importance of being able to ship by sea is essential, as air freight space and rates are very challenging.”
Roger said they are planning a massive ramping up of acreage in the coming years, and intend to double production every two years.
“It is demand driven, the increase will be in the production areas which are stable and attractive for investors and where breeders IP is respected and protected.”
For more information:
Chole Middleton
United Exports
Tel: +27 21 879 2306
chloe@unitedexports.com.au
www.united-exports.com
Publication date: Wed 9 Jun 2021
Author: Nichola McGregor
© FreshPlaza.com
Women Dominating In Agriculture: Meet Grow Hope Farms Mother-Daughter Duo
For most families, going into business together with your own parent or child may seem like a disaster, but for this mom and daughter duo, Aundria and Makenna Kirchhoff of Grow Hope Farms, that’s never been the case.
For most families, going into business together with your own parent or child may seem like a disaster, but for this mom and daughter duo, Aundria and Makenna Kirchhoff of Grow Hope Farms, that’s never been the case. Grow Hope Farms is an urban farm with a mission to help others learn how to feed the world through nutritional produce, as well as educate them on the importance of fresh food and the agriculture industry as a whole.
Since the beginning, Aundria and Makenna have shared a mutual respect and understanding for one another’s strengths and weaknesses, ultimately making them better business partners. Aundria’s agricultural heritage runs strong. Growing up on a farm, agriculture has always been a major part of her life. She’s since passed that passion down to Makenna, who’s currently studying agriculture at University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
Learn more below about how they take on being female - and family - farmers:
Q. What is it like working together and being a mother-daughter business duo?
Makenna: I think that the dynamic has changed so rapidly between us that keeping up with that is really difficult. I was in high school and would help with little stuff, and then I got to college and took on more responsibilities and then the pandemic happened. Then people started ordering seedlings and the focus shifted. We are now getting the opportunity to dive into our roles and what that looks like, and how we can use that on our farm. We have a lot of strengths that will benefit us in this. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Aundria: Working together has obviously presented its own set of challenges. Not only mother-daughter, but high school student/college student trying to get into things. Makenna has really developed herself as a person. There are a lot of changes beyond just the pandemic and our business plan. Digging into how we are alike and how we are different has allowed us to grow closer and accept each other for our strengths and weaknesses.
Q. We are starting to see more women claim space within the industry and run their own farms. What advice would you give to women in the industry trying to breakthrough? Is it hard to be a woman in agriculture?
Makenna: I have so many friends who are women within this industry, and it has been awesome to see us step into the role. We were always there, but just taking ownership has been great to see. My advice would be to always appreciate what your strengths are and lean into those because women are very different from men. Men do great in this industry, but so do women. I think we work really well together. Sometimes you can do a lot of comparisons within this industry, but everyone does it differently and has different strengths.
Q. Makenna, when did you first realize that you were interested in studying agriculture at University of Nebraska at Lincoln?
Makenna: My mom's whole life has been agriculture, so my whole life has been agriculture. I didn’t really know how much I loved it until I got to college. Getting to college, I finally got to lay my eyes on the people who are big proponents of traditional agriculture, so a lot of my classmates are farmer’s kids who have worked on ranches, and that is their whole life. I got to see that firsthand in a way that I haven’t before. It was cool to see that and get a greater appreciation for what other people did.
Right now I’m studying integrated sciences, which allows me to create my own program. So nutrition, horticulture, and entrepreneurship are my three core areas. I love using college as a tool to help me learn about everything that I want to.
Q. On that note, we’re starting to see the next generation take more of an interest in farming. What advice would you give to those about what it takes to run your own farm and operate within the space?
Makenna: Stay strong, keep working, and keep your head down. Keep doing what you want to do, and if it isn’t for you, that’s OK - just understand that this is hard work. Sometimes I think that Tower Farms look easy, and the technology is easy, but you are still dealing with living things. And dealing with living things is hard.
Aundria: At the end of the day, you’re still dealing with all of the parts of the traditional business: production or manufacturing. We’ve got to understand the growing process, and there’s also packaging and delivery. There are a lot of pieces and parts. Being an entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart. But being able to step out of your comfort zone is really rewarding.
Q. If you were talking to someone who has no gardening experience but is interested in growing their own fresh food, what would you want them to know about Tower Garden?
Aundria: Growing does not have to be complicated. That’s it. Tower Gardens really level the playing field for someone who knows how to garden and someone who doesn’t. It’s really simple, even if you’re in an urban area with zero exposure to the outdoors. We can help people grow food as simple as someone with years of gardening experience.
Makenna: If I were talking to someone with no experience, I would encourage them to dive into their curiosity. You can’t go wrong. I think people can be too gentle with plants, and it’s OK to get dirty and learn for yourself.
Q. What made Grow Hope Farms decide to start growing with Tower Garden vs another gardening product?
Aundira: I know the integrity with which the company does business. For me, that was an easy answer. I also taught collegiate level horticulture for several years and was really impressed looking at the Tower Garden technology, with the quality of their mineral nutrition, as well as their attention to detail to help everyone be an exceptional gardener. They made it really simple.
Q. What is the mission of your farm and how has it impacted the surrounding community?
Makenna: Our mission is really to bring people together through the food that we grow: whether that looks like families nourishing their bodies through our food, or getting to see young entrepreneurs brainstorm together and feed them through the food we grow.
Q. With your roots in agriculture, what was the most compelling aspect to you about getting into Tower Farms?
Aundria: Living in the heart of an agricultural county, we see firsthand how much the farmers love their land and livestock. It’s important to me to keep our agriculture heritage strong and retain those quality young people to carry on the traditions of agriculture. Tower Garden technology allows us to expand agriculture, really develop those rural areas, and keep our economic dollars very local. Tower Garden technology allows us to keep quality people closer to family.
Q. Do you sell to restaurants or to people in the community? What does that process look like?
Makenna: Mainly the people in the community. We do have a restaurant that we work with. Most of our produce is going to go to the farmers market so that we can form those relationships.
Aundria: When we started, it was more about restaurants, larger amounts to fewer people. Now the people that we know and love really want our produce, and so we’ve shifted our business model a bit in that direction.
We want to thank Aundria and Makenna Kirchhoff for sharing their story and advice for others within the industry with us! Keep up with Grow Hope Farms on social media by following their Instagram and Facebook pages.
