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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Meet Farmlab.One, The Latest Indoor Farming Experiment From Germany’s Largest Retailer

While we haven’t arrived at a future where every corner grocery has an in-store farming system with rows and rows of produce, it isn’t for lack of trying.

This is especially true for METRO Group, Germany’s largest retailer, who has been experimenting with in-store farming since early 2016.

That’s when the retailer launched Kräuter Garten (herb garden), the first retail in-store farming installation in Europe. The technology for METRO’s first foray into vertical farming was provided by INFARM, a vertical farming startup based in Germany. Since the launch of  Kräuter Garten in Berlin, other retailers such as EDEKA (Germany’s largest grocery store chain) have since taken an interest in in-store growing.

Now METRO is at it again, launching another vertical farming experiment with Farmlab.one, a joint project between the retail giant and Schmiede.ONE, a German innovation lab focused on future business models that intermingle agriculture and cutting edge technologies such as artificial intelligence.

The project will be managed by James Lindsay of Schmiede.ONE in an indoor lab in Düsseldorf. METRO has provided resources in the form of indoor farming racks from TowerGarden, the indoor farming division of Juice+. The project is starting with three crops to start, which you can watch here via Periscope.

While the project is a modest one, it’s a sign of continued interest in vertical, in-building farming by a large food retailer. In the US, we’ve seen growing interest in solutions from companies like Farmshelf, and just last month we saw one of the biggest investments ever in a vertical farming startup when Jeff Bezos, among others, invested $200 million in stealthy startup Plenty.

A comparison of yields and resource consumption of indoor vs. soil-based farming. Source: Schmiede One

While it’s unlikely that in-store vertical farms could produce at the scale to meet the total demand for fresh produce purchased at a high-volume urban retail storefront, it’s clear that soilless vertical farms produce at a much high rate of productivity compared to soil based farming, which means much less overall space is needed to produce the same amount of produce. With such high yields, one can envision a future where a mix of in-store grown produce combined with other warehouse grown urban farmed food could be enough to meet a large percentage of overall demand for fresh produce.

With Big Names Behind It, Plenty Aims To Rule the Vertical Farming Market

A $200 million investment in indoor farming startup Plenty has caught the attention of venture capitalists and those who follow the emerging world of tech-driven, commercial indoor farming. What separates the San Francisco-based agtech company from other indoor farming manufacturers is its claim to be able to grow everything except for tree fruit (lemons, oranges, etc…) and root vegetables. The vast majority of competitors focus solely on greens, herbs, strawberries and the occasional tomato.

Perhaps of even greater significant than its crop yield are the profiles of Plenty’s new investors. The high profile roster for this latest round include Softbank CEO, Masayoshi Son, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Attached to each new investor comes an opportunity. For example, Son could bring Plenty to Japan and the rest of Asia. Schmidt’s VC firm Innovation Endeavors has CropX in its portfolio which boasts an adjacent technology that offers adaptive crop irrigation.

Bezos, on the other hand, stands out because of Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole Foods. The intersection of Plenty with bricks and mortar stores, home delivery of groceries, restaurant delivery and meal kits is a near harmonic convergence. Controlling a prime part of the value chain that goes from farm to table or farm to home puts Amazon in a prime position to level its competitors in a number of markets.

The implementations of Plenty with Whole Foods run from the obvious to the imaginative. It’s easy to see Amazon being able to offer premium produce directly to customers via home delivery, but it also could use Plenty to draw more people into its retail stores. Taking a page from Infarm, which has its indoor farm in a Berlin supermarket, Whole Foods adding sleek vertical farms to its stores would be a lure to its clientele—a predominately upscale  group prone to loving shiny, new objects. Not only would shoppers take notice of this high-touch addition, the farms would have the practical objective of selling fresh goods to fussy shoppers.

Whole Foods’ profile perfectly fits this scenario. In past years, innovation was the company’s strong suit. The Austin-based chain was among the first premium supermarkets to feature in-store, full-service restaurants as well as bars featuring local brews on tap. Noted for working closely with local farmers, it would make sense for Whole Foods to select local organic growers to take ownership of and maintain the Plenty-built vertical farms.

Whole Foods and Amazon could make for an exciting team in advancing the commercial aspects of Plenty. With Softbank’s Son in the mix, Japan and Asia are a solid target for expansion, but Europe is a far larger and more immediate major opportunity. One sign of that Europe is a hot agtech market is seen via Germany’s darling, Infarm. Infarm’s successful implementation in Berlin also has caught the attention of investors and partners. Now working with German grocery chain, EDEKA, Infarm has recently closed a four million Euro round led by Berlin’s Cherry Ventures.

Showing his astute understanding of the market for its vertical farming technology, Infarm co-founder Osnat Michaeli outlines how her company’s growth has defined the future of indoor farming in Europe and beyond.

“When we started out, we were looked at as ‘idealistic dreamers’. In part, this might have been because we were self-taught and not many believed that we had the necessary expertise needed to invent a new agricultural solution,” Michaeli told TechCrunch in a recent interview.

“The challenge [now] is in finding the right partners. Our initial focus is on supermarket chains, online food retailers, wholesalers, hotels, and other food-related businesses, for whom the superior quality and range of produce — with no fluctuation in costs — makes Infarm an attractive partner. In return, we can reintroduce the joy of growing to the urban population”.

Image credit: Flickr user Euro Slice under creative commons license

Innovative Approaches Bringing Urban Farming To Cities Across The Globe

Across the globe, innovators are working to make fresh, locally grown food more accessible to city dwellers via urban farming.

In Paris, where consumers pay a premium for fresh everything, the concept of urban farming might lead locals to turn up their nose. Agricool, a French startup, is hoping to dot the country’s landscape with shipping containers that are retrofitted to grow plump, juicy strawberries. What separates this startup from others in the urban farming space is the care it takes in developing custom LED grow lights and precise temperature control. With a new round of startup capital, Agrciool is moving from early stage to production mode.

The short-term plan for Agricool, explains co-founder Guillaume Fourdinier, is to have five custom containers in the Paris area selling strawberries, “Our mission is global and we have to go where fruit and vegetable prices are “an anomaly”.  In [places such as] New York, in the Emirates, and in Asia, you cannot find strawberries of good quality at reasonable prices,” Fourdinier told French magazine Les Echos. Once the Paris rollout is successful, the company plans to outsource manufacturing of its container gardens and sell the units globally.

AGRICOOL et la Révolution Hydroponique - Rencontre #05

(ed note: turn on captions and auto-translate to see comments in English)

The fledging company’s roots began in a small apartment in Paris. As Fourninier wrote in Medium:

We were disgusted with the strawberries we could buy in the city. So (co-founder) Gonzague (Gru) and I (both sons of farmers) decided to build a farming system in our apartment. A few weeks later (and really, against all of our expectations) we had 2 strawberries waiting for us. And even more surprisingly, they tasted delicious and sweet!

We were shocked. How did our little experiment, with no preparation, no science, give us strawberries? Ok, only two, but still, real and delicious strawberries! Why does the rest of the world say it’s impossible to grow fruits and vegetables without pesticide in cities? Fear? Ignorance? Laziness?

Whatever, those two strawberries gave us the magic to keep going. 
We wanted more. Much more.

And so Agricool warn born.

Agricool is but one of several urban farms operating outside the U.S., each deploying a different market approach.

In Berlin, InFarm is working with wholesale grocer Metro on operating a vertical farm in one of its supermarkets. Twice a week is harvest time and customers can buy fresh basil grown in this 10-foot-high tech-driven agricultural marvel.

In China, Alesca Life is developing turkey hydroponic container farms which will aid with the country’s lack of arable land.

A Meal from an Urban Farmer by Alesca Life

In Singapore, Panasonic developed an indoor farm that produced leafy greens which were sold to local grocers and restaurants. From its inception in 2014, the 2,670-square-foot farm yielded 3.6 tons of produce per year. With its success, both the size of the farm and its output have nearly quadrupled.

Clean Air Nurseries in South Africa has patented what it calls a “closed-loop water system” called EGGS to grow greens indoors in a short time frame with less water. EGGS is a computer-driven technology that monitors the recycled water as it flows through a series of glasss tubes, while using a hybrid of hydroponics, aquaponics and aeroponics techniques.

No matter what the approach, it’s clear urban farming is beginning to work its way into dense city landscapes as a way to bring fresher food closer to point of consumption.

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Vine to Cart: Grocery Stores Use New Tech To Create In Store Farms

While the demand for organic and sustainable agriculture is growing across the globe, the future of fresher produce might be picking it right at the supermarket.

A startup out of Berlin called Infarm is currently working on an “indoor vertical farming” system with the capacity to grow any kind of fruit, vegetable or herb.  Multiple sensors monitor the plants’ health and connected data lets the system know when to irrigate and feed the crops, creating individual ecosystems. In addition to creating idyllic growing environments for each plant, the system is smart, providing the opportunity for experts to analyze and collect data to optimize growth and flavor and potentially predict problems in the future.

“We are able to develop growing recipes that tailor the light spectrums, temperature, pH, and nutrients to ensure the maximum natural expression of each plant in terms of flavor, colour, and nutritional quality,” Osnat Michaeli, co-founder of Infarm, explained in an interview with TechCrunch.

Although vertical farming is already a familiar concept to agriculture, what makes Infarm so unique is their ability to do small-scale vertical farming in customer-facing situations. The company has already found major success after placing systems in Metro Group locations, one of the biggest wholesalers in Europe, and are now being approached by other grocers that want to do the same. Instead of growing produce outside on traditional farms and dealing with the supply chain to deliver it to each store, grocers could invest in InFarm and allow customers to harvest food right from the vine. In an era where grocery stores are trying to remain more relevant to consumers who often shop online for dry goods, InFarm helps grocers turn into a next gen farmers market with fresh from the plant produce.

Investors have also noticed the potential within Infarm as the company recently closed a €4 million funding round which included Berlin’s Cherry Ventures, Impact investor Quadia, London’s LocalGlobe, Atlantic Food Labs, design consultant Ideo, Demand Analytics and others.

HAMAMA’s Seed Quilts May Be Easiest Way To Become A Home Gardener Yet

There’s no shortage of new approaches to tech-powered home gardening nowadays, but HAMAMA’s Seed Quilts might be the easiest I’ve seen.

I had a chance to talk to HAMAMA CEO Daniel Goodman at the FOOD IT event put on by the Mixing Bowl this past week, who walked me through how the Seed Quilt works.

I’ll be testing out some Seed Quilts myself shortly and have a formal review later (stay tuned), but the initial impression is that Seed Quilts seems remarkably approachable in an almost smart-garden-meets-Chia-Pet kind of way.

When you sign up for a Seed Quilt subscription, you get a Grow Kit to start and three Seed Quilts. You simply put the Seed Quilt in the Microgrow Kit and water it, and in 7 days you should have some greens on their way.

According to Goodman, the Seed Quilts work with ambient light and don’t need any special lighting.

The idea of the Seed Quilt came to Goodman and his partner Camille Richman after they left MIT Media Lab where they had worked on controlled environment agriculture research. While at MIT, the two were excited about the possibilities of combining automation and agriculture but realized much of the fruits (or greens) of their labor would take some time to commercialize given the complexity of the technology. They wanted to make something more consumer accessible, and the Seed Quilt concept was born.

A subscription to Seed Quilts $14 a month all in, which gets you three Seed Quilts per month. You’ll have to buy the Grow Kit to start, which also costs $14 ($12 plus $2 shipping and handling).

You can see Dan talk about the Seed Quilt in the video above.

Seedsheet Takes to QVC to Sell Simple Home-Gardening Kits

As momentum grows among innovators in the home/indoor gardening space, the focus has been on all-in-one home-grow kits. Such companies as NutriTower, Sprouts IO and Aerogarden are taking an approach in which their product’s value proposition is based on simplicity. The common formula of these visionaries includes hydroponic, tech-infused pot, built-in LED lights, seeds, and water. The goal is a home gardening solution without getting and dirt under your fingernails.

Vermont-based Seedsheet seems to believe that gardening, without touching the soil, takes the soul out of the experience. The company’s kit includes a weed-blocking fabric with pockets of non-GMO seeds (from High Mowing Seed Company) embedded in a growing medium, a cloth bag which acts as the planter, and stakes to hold the sheet in place. The process is simple enough to entice even the laziest gardeners, yet just tactile enough to appeal to traditionalists.

Featured on the April 7 episode of Shark Tank, Seedsheet grew out of a successful Kickstarter campaign which led to the product being available at Home Depot. The concept is the brainchild of Vermont’s Cam MacKugler, an architect with a passion for sustainable design. According to a company press release, the idea took root when he was housesitting for a co-worker and was allowed to tinker in the garden.

“I was spending my days in AutoCAD designing buildings, and one evening while harvesting dinner I noticed the spacing of the garden, the relationships between plants, and I saw a blueprint. I wondered why we weren’t approaching agriculture with the same precision as architecture,” MacKluger says.

“Food transparency and availability are critical issues in the country, and the world, right now. People want to know the story behind their food, whether pesticides and herbicides were used on the plants, and want to feel confident that they’re feeding themselves and their family safe and healthy food. Our goal is to make it ridiculously easy to grow your own, so you know exactly where your food comes from.”

With the able assistance of $500,000 from the “Queen of QVC,” Lori Greiner, MacKugler’s idea grew in new directions. As demonstrated in his first appearance on QVC, not only did Seedsheet provide its original sheet, it branched out to offer a fully equipped kit that included a seedsheet and cloth growing bag. Going beyond herbs and veggies, the company now has packages for those wanting to add flowers to their home or garden. Just add soil, and you are good to go.

Grow Your Own Garden Kit Seed Sheet by Lori Greiner on QVC

Seedsheet’s marketing approach differs from competitors in the home-grow space as the product is sold based on the vision of what consumers can do with the end results of their labor. Kits are cleverly designed with eye-catching packaging for creating herbs, salads, and Caprese (although cheese is not included). Each kit sold for $24.96 on QVC in early April.

The indoor gardening/desk gardening/home grow space is simultaneously moving in many directions. While Seedsheet’s concept is novel, the idea is more about packaging than a market disruptor. The internet is loaded with companies such as Bloomin’ who make “seed sheets” that can be put in a planter or a readily available cloth bag similar to the one with Seedsheet. In fact, inexperienced home gardeners can plant herbs or microgreens in a folded-over paper towel and achieve the same results as Seedsheet.

The vast range of startups hoping to dominate this interesting opportunity hopes to take advantage of millennials who want a food experience that focuses on healthy eating and convenience. The million-dollar (or more) question is whether the young post-digital, short-attention-span literati want to make the effort—as slight as it is—to tend to their techy gardens on a regular basis. What we will learn over the next year or so is whether this is a breakthrough idea or a solution in search of a market.

Technology Brings Farm Fresh Goodness to Home Gardens

While “windowsill to table” hasn’t exactly caught on with the vast realm of food bloggers and foodies, one of the newest parts of the tech-inspired food revolution involves regular, everyday city folk becoming farmers. Elements of this movement include indoor gardening, vertical gardening and turning your small deck or rooftop into a lush patch of fertile land that yields everything from arugula to Green Zebra Tomatoes.

Urban farming has a place for everyone. Social entrepreneurs like Kimbal Musk, with urban farm-accelerator Square Roots, and Irving Fain, with his IoT-driven Bowery Farming, are jumping into this space. They are focused on testing aquaponics ecosystems which use LED grow lights and less water by using smaller spaces than conventional methods. These efforts produce top-quality veggies sold to restaurants and directly to consumers. For the home gardener, choices include all-in-one IoT-based indoor growing kits from companies such as Aerogarden and tower-garden setups from startup NutriTower.

On the more DIY side of things, consumers that want fresh herbs and greens can dust off an old aquarium. You can start with the purchase of an aquaponics kit like those from Aquasprouts or Grove, or by simply mail ordering some non-GMO seeds and taking an old cottage cheese container from the trash. From there you add dirt and water to your seeds and soon you can watch your microgreens take bloom. If you encounter a stumble along the way, there are countless YouTube videos to help you along. More sophisticated help is available with some smart gardening assistants such as Growerbot to keep track of your watering and soil conditions.

As the space matures, urban and indoor farming are likely to have different trajectories. It is unlikely consumers will move from growing herbs and microgreens indoors to buying a 100-acre farm in Iowa. It also is a longshot that hipster gardeners will buy vacant buildings and convert them the huge vertical farms with robotic water and harvesting devices. For this crowd, it’s more about crowing over those fresh sorrel greens placed on a salad for the next dinner party.

For social entrepreneurs, the endgame is different. Most visionaries in this space come from other areas (primarily technology) and bring science, fresh ideas and a sense of community to their projects. But these techfarmers also bring a keen sense of business and realize their sustainability will need to include some revenue-generating ideas. Some, such as the Square Roots collective, offer home or office delivery of greens, while Smallhold builds indoor farms onsite for restaurants to provide chefs with ultra-fresh mushrooms.

While some supermarkets may be content to hope IoT-indoor farming fizzles out, the German chain Metro refuses to bury its head in the sand. In Berlin, the company houses an Infarm installation at the end of one of its grocery aisles. And it’s not just for show; fresh greens and herbs from Infarm are for sale in the store.

The biggest threat urban and indoor farming poses is to the national meal kit business. One of the mantras for this new breed of growers is to focus on consumers and restaurant in a 10-mile radius. Serving a local community is part of the marketing message from entrepreneurs in urban farming. The vertical move, adding other local food artisans to their retail packages, could result in the sort of immediacy which the Blue Aprons and Hello Fresh cannot match—at least for now.