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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Vertical Farming

Fifth Season Expands the Grocery Footprint for Its Vertically Grown Greens

Fifth Season, a company using vertical farming and robotics to grow greens indoors, just announced a sizable expansion for its leafy green products in Giant Eagle Retail stores. As of today, Fifth Season greens will be available in over 75 Giant Eagle and Market District stores across Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio metro areas. 

The expansion is a significant jump from the company’s previous distribution reach, which was just 10 stores in the Pittsburgh area. The company also launched a direct-to-consumer service for Pittsburgh-area residents in 2020.

Like other controlled ag companies, Fifth Season grows greens vertically indoors, aiding the process with hydroponics and technology (sensors, AI, etc.). Its main differentiator at the moment is the robotics element of its grow process. A proprietary robotics system handles tasks on the farm such as stacking and moving trays of plants, harvesting, and packaging. While the system is overseen by a human, actual bodies are less needed in the grow room of Fifth Season’s farm, which cuts down on labor costs and can execute tasks faster. Human-free grow rooms also mean there is less chance of pathogens getting into the growing space and impacting plants’ health.

The use of robotics isn’t yet widespread in vertical farming, although that is changing quickly, with companies like Nordic Harvest and iFarm introducing a range of robotics and automation technologies to their operations. Kalera, which is expanding rapidly across the U.S., is another notable example.

For Fifth Season, today’s news marks the company’s first expansion outside of its hometown of Pittsburgh. The company will sell four different varieties of its greens as well as ready-to-eat salads at the new retail locations.

The company said in today’s press release that it is the first of many expansions Fifth Season will announce in 2021. 

Vertical Field Signs Agreement to Bring Controlled Ag to the UAE

Israel-based ag tech company Vertical Field announced today that it has signed an agreement with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST), which develops high-tech agricultural projects around the Persian Gulf, to pilot vertical farms in the United Arab Emirates. The first farm will be installed as part of a research, development, and training center in Umm Al Quwain. 

Vertical Field grows leafy greens vertically inside shipping containers that are equipped with technology like sensors that can monitor climate control, lighting, and irrigation levels inside the farm. Data on those elements and others can be fed back to the growers via Vertical Field’s proprietary app, which allows for remote monitoring and management of crops.

Many companies nowadays take a similar approach to controlled-environment agriculture these days, with Freight Farms, Thrive, and Brick Street Farms being a few notable examples. Where Vertical Field differs from these companies is its choice to use geoponics — soil-based growing — rather than the more common hydroponic method. Instead of plants growing in towers through which water is circulated, Vertical Field farms are made up of what the company calls “living walls” (see image above). The company claims this geoponic method means lower initial and operating costs as well as more crop variety.

Whether with geoponics or hydroponics, controlled ag is an obvious concept to try out in the Persian Gulf region, which endures high temperatures, sparse rainfall, high winds, and other extreme weather conditions around the year. These conditions limit the amount of traditional agriculture production that can happen, which makes controlled-environment container farming an attractive alternative. Another notable development in this part of the world is the Abu Dhabi Investment Office’s recent multimillion-dollar investment in a few agtech companies to innovate on the concept farming in this particular climate.

The Vertical Fields pilot project with ESST will be the first step towards full-scale deployment of the farms across the UAE. Through the partnership, the Vertical Field farm will run as a pilot project that will provide produce to both commercial establishments and the private sector. One of the goals of the project is to determine which crops are most suitable for the local market. 

Eventually, the partnership is expected to expand and include farm deployments around the rest of the Gulf states. 

Abandoned Spaces and Automation: What to Expect for Indoor Farming in 2021

Controlled-environment agriculture — also simply known as indoor farming — had a big year both in terms of activity and investment dollars. While once we might have questioned the sector’s economic viability and ability to actually feed a growing global population, a lot of those doubts have diminished and indoor ag in its many forms now has an important role in our future food system.

What that role is, however, will continue to evolve over time. Here are a few thoughts on how that will happen over the next 12 months. 

More automation.

Automation isn’t new to controlled-environment agriculture, but its presence as a part of indoor farming operations has increased over the last several months and will continue to in the next year.

In the context of controlled-environment farming, automation can refer to any kind of technology that removes manual human labor from the growing process. In some cases that includes robots that plant and harvest greens or move trays of produce around the farm. More often, though, automation refers to software that can calculate the optimal environmental temperature for each plant, know when plants need to be fed and harvested, and handle many other calculations that would otherwise require a person to have horticultural and technological (hardware and software) expertise.

Moving into 2021, we’ll definitely see a few more robots buzzing around the indoor farm. But the bulk of automation will be about software. 

More grocery store partnerships. 

Many large-scale indoor farms started out selling their leafy green wares to restaurants and hotels. The pandemic, of course, put a hold on that in 2020, and controlled-environment agriculture operations had to look elsewhere for customers. 

Enter the grocery store. From container farms at local markets to Kalera’s partnership with Publix stores across the U.S., more indoor farming companies are growing their greens either onsite at grocery stores or within throwing distance of them. 

This could in turn help bring the cost of greens grown on high-tech farms down, since the shipping and distribution steps will be less resource intensive in many cases and nonexistent in others. 

More underutilized space.

One of my favorite stories from 2020 was this one, about a company called Wilder Fields that turned an abandoned Target store in south Chicago into a massive indoor farm.

Many companies are constructing their own facilities from the ground up, while others stick to smaller scale container farms that are a bit more mobile. Finding existing space, such as an abandoned big box retailer, seems a logical middle ground, and one we’ll likely see more of as companies work to lower costs and keep their environmental footprint down.

Predictions pieces, of course, are always a bit of a crapshoot, and even if the above forecasts turn out to be true, they’ll be but a smattering of the activity that will happen for controlled-environment ag in 2021.

Indoor Farming Got Big in 2020. Literally

One thing we can say about indoor farming in 2020: it grew, both in market size and investment.

At the start of the year, a big part of our attention focused on the potential of smaller vertical farms in grocery stores and consumer homes. Writing on the topic at the end of Dec. 2019, I figured we would see the most compelling developments in this area over the next 12 months when it came to controlled-environment agriculture.

There certainly were a lot of notable happenings. InFarm further expanded its concept of placing its pod-like mini farms in grocery stores. A number of companies, including Aerogarden, MyFood, Rise Gardens, Aspara, and Farmshelf offered vertical gardens built for the consumer home. And on that note, at CES 2020, both LG and GE unveiled concepts to turn indoor farming into the next big home appliance category. Manufacturers of at-home farms, in particular, reported spikes in demand resulting from the pandemic and our sudden collective interest in at-home food sovereignty.

There’s one drawback to at-home vertical farms and smart gardens: for now, at least, they come with a price tag that’s too high for many households. See Aspara’s $350 countertop farm on the low end and, on the high end, the $13,000 Natufia Kitchen Garden. When it comes to providing fresher, more local, and affordable greens to everyone, it was actually the large-scale commercial farms that made the most news.

A glance at some of the major announcements shows just how big controlled-environment agriculture got in 2020, both in terms of physical space and investment dollars:

There are plenty of differences in the way these companies approach controlled-environment agriculture. Some rely on vertical farming, while others stick to the greenhouse method aided by automation and AI. Many stick to growing leafy greens; others have expanded their wares to include tomatoes, the aforementioned strawberries, and other types of produce.

What all of these have in common is that they are trying to bring the concept of healthier, fresher food to more people at a price point the majority of households can manage. Many of them also provide much-needed jobs for local communities.

The world’s population is expected to hit nearly 10 billion people by 2050. At the same time, the limitations — and environmental dangers — of relying solely on traditional agriculture get more apparent each year. The past 12 months have shown us that these controlled-environment farms, which occupy millions of square feet and are now producing just as much produce, will be a major part of agricultural innovation going forward.

Stay tuned for more developments in 2021.

 

 

UbiQD’s Quantum Dot Tech Is an Electricity Free Lighting Option for Greenhouses

While costs are coming down for controlled environment agriculture, electricity remains one of the highest because it has to power the LEDs that provide the lighting formula for plant growth. But a materials science company called UbiQD wants to change that by replacing electricity with a more efficient means of lighting: quantum dots.

Quantum dots are semiconductor nanoparticles that can transport electrons. When exposed to UV lighting, these particles emit lights of various colors, and can be adjusted in size to emit a specific color. For example, larger particles emit redder wavelengths, while smaller ones shift to blue.

Via its UbiGro product, UbiQD uses a patented quantum dot technology to create a layer of lighting in greenhouses. Quantum dots are embedded into a film that is installed beneath a greenhouse cover. When illuminated by sunlight, the film converts shorter wavelengths (UV and blue) to longer ones (red/orange), the latter being the most photosynthetically efficient wavelengths.

Controlled environment farms require both red and blue lighting to enable plant growth, and standard LEDs installed in these farms emit one or the other in terms of color. Because UbiQD’s quantum dots can harness various wavelengths, growers can take better advantage of the full light spectrum, which recent studies suggest is advantageous for higher crop productivity and yield. For example, green light may also be necessary for better plant growth in the greenhouse, since it penetrates deeper into the plant canopy to promote photosynthesis.

In a recent interview with the company, AgFunder News noted that UbiQD’s tech “can achieve 10% to 20% higher yields than equivalent electrically powered systems with faster cycle times, reduced waste, and improved crop quality.”

Another big advantage to UbiQD’s product: it doesn’t require an external electricity source, which cuts down on the overall costs of running a controlled-environment greenhouse.

The company closed a $7 million Series A round earlier this month co-led by Scout Ventures and Keiretsu Forum. At the time of that announcement, UbiQD said it would use the new capital to continue scaling distribution of UbiGro, which is already used by “major international greenhouse operations” (company names were not disclosed). The funding will also go towards developing new products, including light recipes that could increase crop yield and productivity.

Since this technology requires actual sunlight, there are areas of controlled-environment agriculture, such as container farms, where it won’t be applicable. But for the greenhouse market, which is becoming increasingly essential to the indoor farming sector, the need for more energy efficient lighting sources offers a major opportunity for both UbiQD and quantum dot tech in the future of farming.

Bowery Announces Its ‘Most Technologically Advanced’ Indoor Farm

Controlled-environment agriculture company Bowery is set to open its largest indoor farm to date. The new facility will be located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, turning a non-arable industrial site into a farm that will grow leafy greens throughout the year.

A spokesperson for Bowery said that the company does not disclose actual square footage of its farms, but that it would be able to serve nearly 50 million people within a 200-mile radius. 

The Bethlehem facility joins Bowery’s roster of farms located in Kearny New Jersey and Nottingham, Maryland. All farms use the hydroponic method for growing. Plants are set in vertically stacked trays and fed a nutrient-enriched water solution that gets recirculated continuously. On the software side, Bowery has a proprietary system, BoweryOS, that monitors plant growth from seed.

Bowery says its Bethlehem facility will be its “most technologically advanced commercial farm yet.” Importantly, it will leverage billions of data points collected from Bowery farms over the last five years to boost this new farms “intelligence” when monitoring plant growth and health.

Other advances include energy-saving LED lighting, more automation of the growing process through BoweryOS, and some innovations in water circulation. The latter will come in the form of what Bowery calls “a comprehensive water transpiration system.” Transpiration is the release of water from plant leaves; Bowery’s system will capture and re-use this water, with the goal of reclaiming “nearly all” of the water used in the growing process.

For the new facility, Bowery is working with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and the Governor’s Action Team, both through a Pennsylvania First grant. The farm is expected to create year-round jobs for the area’s farming community.

The news caps off what’s been a big year for Bowery in terms of company growth. Since January 2020, the company expanded its retail presence from 100 brick-and-mortar stores to 680, and said it has seen more than 600 percent growth in stores and doubled its e-commerce presence.

According to Bowery’s spokesperson, Covid was definitely “an accelerator” for some of this growth, though some of that growth is also due to demand for more local, traceable food grown without pesticides — a trend that predates the pandemic. The new farm will help the company further meet this demand, along with advancing the technology component of the vertical farming sector. 

Freight Farms Partners With Arcadia to Provide Growers With Clean Energy Options

Freight Farms announced today it has partnered with clean energy service Arcadia to offer growers a way to connect their farms to cleaner sources of energy. The new program, available to all Freight Farms customers in the U.S., will let growers synch their utility to one of Arcadia’s wind or solar farms, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Arcadia will then match 100 percent of the farm’s electrical consumption with solar and wind energy.

Freight Farms helped to popularize the concept of turning old shipping containers into vertical farms that grow produce like leafy greens, herbs, and tomatoes. The farms, of course, require electricity to function, since most controlled-environment farms rely on LEDs as their plants’ light source and need additional energy for temperature control and dehumidifying. There isn’t a lot of public data yet on how much power these farms use, which in turn has led to a lot of questions in the last couple years around how energy efficient they actually are. 

While they’re not giving away any hard numbers on energy consumption, Freight Farms and Arcadia claim their new partnership can connect growers to cleaner forms of energy, including wind and solar, and potentially reduce their energy costs. The program builds on Arcadia’s existing subscription model, where users pay a flat monthly fee to connect their utility to Arcadia’s clean energy sources.  

Once a Freight Farm is connected, Arcadia will match 100 percent of its electricity generated by purchasing the equivalent amount of wind and solar energy in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates. Growers may, based on their location in the U.S., also be able to cut down on energy costs.

There are two options for membership, based on a farm’s location. Growers located in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Illinois, Colorado, Maryland, and Maine can sign up and access the community solar power market. Those in other states sign up for $5/month to access cleaner energy, according to today’s press release. 

Arcadia’s systems automate everything, so signing up for the program doesn’t require any extra steps on the part of the grower. 

Since the program is brand new, it’s difficult to say exactly how much energy is saved through it or what the actual cost savings for individual farmers are. Freight Farms said today only that the program “reduces Freight Farmers’ carbon footprint to one-quarter of industrial farming operations.”

   

‘Great Challenge Can Expose Great Opportunity’: AppHarvest’s Jonathan Webb on the Role of Indoor Ag

For AppHarvest founder and CEO Jonathan Webb, the role of the high-tech greenhouse goes far beyond providing produce to surrounding locales. Over the phone recently, he went into great detail about his company’s role in not just growing plants but also in providing jobs and morale for the community and playing a part in the solution to some of the agricultural industry’s most pressing global issues.

As a company, AppHarvest, based in Morehead, Kentucky, is only a few years old. But since its inception in 2017, it has moved quickly to make good on its mission of build a network of high-tech, controlled-environment farms that can grow non-GMO, chemical-free produce and at the same time help create a more resilient economy for Appalachia.

The year 2020 has been especially eventful for the company, which raised $28 million in August and finished building out its 2.76 million-square foot flagship facility a few months ago. When we spoke on the phone, AppHarvest had just completed planting of its first crop of tomatoes. It has also broken ground on two additional farms in Kentucky, a 60-acre one in Madison for fruits and vegetables and a 15-acre facility for leafy greens in Berea. Earlier in 2020, it also announced a partnership with the Dutch government as well as multiple universities to bring more research and education on controlled ag into the area and effectively turn Appalachia into an agtech powerhouse. 

Technology is an important part of the plan, and AppHarvest employs it in its greenhouses to grow crops all year and use substantially fewer resources in the process. The company doesn’t build its own technology. Rather, it uses existing technologies on the market that, when put together, amount to a more efficient grow system in terms of both crop yield and cost. Webb cites AppHarvest’s use of Philips GreenPower LEDs, which improve climate and crop control in greenhouses, as one example. 

“There [are] a lot of great technologies that are cutting edge and available and we can use them to be better aligned with nature,” he says, adding that AppHarvest is “trying to use proven technologies that are at the cutting edge without jumping over the edge.”

What is unique to AppHarvest’s approach is its rainwater system. Eastern Kentucky gets abundant amounts of rainfall, which AppHarvest captures and uses for its hydroponic system. This has a distinct advantage over using groundwater, since the latter contains sodium, which leads to agricultural runoff and the need for a system to be periodically flushed. AppHarvest’s greenhouse runs entirely off this rainwater. Webb says that to his knowledge, no other controlled ag system of this size in the world does that.

Webb is quick to point out that AppHarvest’s operations are more than a matter of steel and glass structures and hydroponics systems. “We’re trying to build an ecosystem,” he tells me. That’s one reason AppHarvest is locating its facilities near universities, with which the company can have a knowledge-sharing relationship. 

Even more important is the impact AppHarvest’s work has on the surrounding communities. Morehead sits in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and is in an area that has for generations relied on the coal mining industry for jobs. Coal mining has been in decline for years, a situation further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of May 2020, there were more coal industry mine closures and job losses than at any point since the presidency of Dwight Eisenhower 60 years ago.

“Many of us knew what was happening with the decline of the coal industry,” says Webb, a Kentucky native. He adds that the “vacuum that was created because of the rapid decline of the coal industry was a big reason as to why we looked to be located where we are.”

But great challenge, he says, can expose great opportunity, and morale in the community surrounding AppHarvest is “incredibly high” because the company’s efforts are creating jobs and therefore livelihoods for residents. 

That human element of AppHarvest’s story is, he admits, hard to translate into investor-speak. “What we’re able to do here and how quickly we’re able to move and how much communities want us to be here on the ground, you can’t put that in a pitch deck or capture it in financial means,” he says.

Equally important to communicate is why we need the efforts of those in the controlled ag space.

Most indoor ag companies, from Gotham Greens to AeroFarms to Plenty, highlight the more well-known benefits of controlled-environment farming: 90 percent less water usage, 40 percent less energy consumption. Less talked about are the reasons indoor ag is so crucial right now. The UN has already warned that we only have about 60 harvests left in our top soil. Plowing and over-tilling have increased erosion by 10 to 100 times natural rates, and that’s to say nothing of deforestation, overgrazing, and pesticides that add to soil degradation. Throw in a human population predicted to reach nearly 10 billion people by 2050, and traditional agriculture’s toll on both the earth and the food system start to look a little less abstract and far more disconcerting.

“We have to free up land and water to the wild,” says Webb. “This is a topic we’re not talking about nearly enough.” 

Controlled ag, he says, plays a critical role in this process, and is in many ways the third wave of sustainable infrastructure, after alternative energy and electric cars. Like the other two areas on that list, controlled agriculture will continue to evolve over time as one piece of the overall agricultural system. 

What it will look like in even just a few years remains to be seen. The last several months have seen huge investment dollars and a lot of different companies trying different methods around controlled-environment agriculture, from vertical farming in reclaimed shipping containers to high-tech rooftop greenhouses to planting farms in grocery stores. 

For Webb, analyzing whether one method is superior to another shouldn’t be the focus right now. The point is, companies are building solutions in response to a global problem with profound environmental and humanitarian consequences. 

“We can debate all we want but at some point we have to move,” he says. “At some point you have to leave the analysis behind. At some point you have to build something.”

YesHealth Group and Nordic Harvest Are Building ‘Europe’s Largest’ Vertical Farm

Europe will soon have its largest commercial vertical farming facility to date. Taiwan-based vertical farming company the YesHealth Group announced today via email that, in partnership with Nordic Harvest, it is building out a 14-story, 7,000-square-meter facility on the outskirts of Copenhagen, Denmark.

YesHealth Group operates a number of vertical farms in Asia and Europe that are equipped with the company’s in-house proprietary tech and provide produce to local retailers and other food outlets.

The partnership with Nordic Harvest, a vertical farming company based in the Copenhagen area, was first announced back in April, when construction on the new facility began. In today’s press release, YesHealthGroup CCO Jesper Hansen called the partnership “a crucial step” of his company’s expansion into Europe.

The Copenhagen farm is expected to start production in the first quarter of 2021. According to today’s press release, it will use a mixture of YesHealthGroup’s technologies, which include hydroponics, robotics, liquid microbial fertilizer formula for nourishing the plants, more than 20,000 LED lights, and smart software to grow leafy greens. Nordic Harvest will manage operations locally.

The news comes at the end of a major year for commercial vertical farming in terms of funding and development. Recent milestones include Pleny’s massive $140 million fundraise led by Softbank’s Vision Fund 1 and Sweden-based Urban Oasis’ $1.2 million fundraise to increase its production capacity by 15 to 20 times.

YesHealthGroup is projecting profits within the first year of its Nordic Harvest farm. Those projections are, according to the press release, based on a “scale-up model” in which the farm will expand from an initial 200-ton annual capacity to 1,000 tons in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Babylon Microfarms Bets on Automation for the Future of Vertical Farming

What started as a humble tabletop farm at the University of Virginia has since evolved into a major company to watch in the vertical farming space, particularly when it comes to the software piece of the process. Babylon Microfarms has over the last few years garnered quite a bit of attention for its controlled-environment farms the company now licenses to hospitals, cafeterias, and other other foodservice operations.

Based in Charlottesville, Virginia (though soon moving HQ to Richmond, VA) Babylon makes a “plug-and-play” system for hydroponic farming that automates much of the grow process and makes controlled-environment farming more accessible. The company raised a $2.3 million seed round in January of this year and, its current product is a standalone farming unit that grows leafy greens.

Of late, however, the bulk of founders Alexander Olesen and Graham Smith’s focus is on software: namely, using it to automate the growing process, which removes the more complicated aspects of vertical farming that would be off-putting to the average user. 

“Growing is a cumbersome experience for many,” Olesen explained to me over the phone this week. “Removing the friction of the user experience and combining that will some of the remote management [will make] smaller forms of vertical farming possible.”

Were the average person to try and build their own high-tech grow system, it would require significant expertise in horticulture, hardware infrastructure, and software development. To name just a few examples, that would include calculating one’s one LED light recipe (which takes the place of sunlight in controlled-environment ag), controlling the temperature of the farm, and understanding how much nutrient to feed each crop and when to do that. Everyday would require a certain amount of trial and error for every plant variety.

All of this makes for prohibitively high costs when it comes to commercial greenhouse production. Olesen noted that for controlled-environment farming to go mainstream, it has to be less technically complicated for the user.    

Babylon’s software is one solution addressing those complications. The company’s “seed-to-sale” system automatically dispenses the right amount of nutrients, light, and water for each crop, simultaneously collecting data on the plants so that the system can make adjustments as needed. The entire system can be controlled remotely via a mobile app.

Up to now, the company has drawn comparisons to the likes of Farmshelf, Farm.One, and InFarm, all companies that license a hardware-software farming combination out to foodservice and hospitality operations.

But Babylon’s founders told me they aren’t necessarily interested in the hardware aspect going forward. Smith says they would prefer something like teaming up with a hardware manufacturer that wants to make vertical farms but perhaps needs more expertise in software to complement their hardware capabilities. 

Such a scenario is actually on its way to becoming a reality. At CES this past year, hardware giant LG announced plans for a smart-farming appliance for the consumer kitchen. At the same time, GE Appliances showcased its Home Grown concept, which featured grow systems using hydroponics and soil-based methods. Prior to CES, Miele acquired Agrilution in another play for smart farms in the appliance space.

All of these hardware developments suggest great opportunity for the accompanying software. While many companies in the vertical farming space try to do both right now, Babylon’s future focus on being “an enabling company” that offers software and services may prove a wiser bid for the long term. Besides building out distribution of its own farms, Babylon is currently interested in working with other businesses, particularly those making hardware, that want to enter the vertical farming space.

There will be no one product that wins, Olesen said, adding that instead, it will be a combination of tools working together to make vertical farming more accessible to everyone.

Rise Gardens Launches a Countertop Version of Its At-Home Smart Growing System

Rise Gardens is best known for its indoor smart farms that are geared towards the average consumer and roughly the size of your average bookshelf. But those living in small spaces may not be able to easily accommodate another piece of furniture, and with that in mind, Rise released a countertop version of its farm this week. According to a LinkedIn post from the company, the device, dubbed The Personal Rise Garden, can grow “8+ plants at any given time” that can be harvested in “as little as 25 days.”

The Personal device is essentially a smaller version of Rise’s flagship product, a multi-shelf smart garden that uses nutrient-enriched water and a “recipe” of LED lighting to hydroponically grow leafy greens and herbs. An accompanying smartphone app does the bulk of the work in terms of calculating the temperature of the garden, determining nutrition and pH levels, and telling the user when it’s time to water the plants. Users can purchase a subscription service that automatically mails growing supplies on a regular basis. They can also use their own plant seeds if they prefer not to be locked into a subscription. 

Speaking to The Spoon earlier this year, Rise Gardens’ Head of Product and Strategy, Diego Blondet, said he believed automated indoor farming would make its way into most kitchen designs in the future. But we’re still years away from having a smart farm built into the cabinetry like a microwave, and in the meantime, many would-be users live in small apartments that can’t accommodate farms the size of furniture.

Hence Rise’s move to release a countertop version of its smart garden. The new device clocks in at 18 x 11 x 16 inches and weights 20 pounds. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, it can grow four large plants (tomatoes, peppers, kale, etc.), eight medium-sized plants (herbs), or 12 small plants (chives, lavender). Cost-wise, the farm will run you $279, which is on par with other countertop growing devices, including those from Aspara ($259) and AVA’s Byte Smart Garden ($349).

Notably, Rise received an investment from the Amazon Alexa Fund last month to “fuel new products, accessories, and further R+D.” At the time of the announcement, Rise CEO and founder Hank Adams hinted at an Alexa integration for his company’s devices, which means voice tech might be coming to smart farms soon, with Rise leading the way. The company also recently expanded distribution to Canada, according to a Rise spokesperson.

Offering a smaller version of its standard product could also connect Rise Gardens to a potentially different audience, which is those who are new to the at-home smart farming concept and may not want to commit $500 or more to learning about it. From the looks of it, the Personal device won’t feed an entire family, but could be sufficient for one- and two-person households. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve purchased mine.

Swedish Vertical Farming Company Urban Oasis Raises $1.2 Million

Urban Oasis, an indoor vertical farming company based in Sweden, announced today that it has raised 10.5 million Swedish Krona (~$1.22M USD). Investors include Family Offices Pelarhuset, Anteeo, and Yobi Partners Ltd.

Founded in 2017, Urban Oasis built its first indoor vertical farm underneath an apartment complex in Stockholm. The company produces a variety of leafy greens, including kale, bok choi, and lettuce, which are sold at Swedish retailers including ICA, COOP, and online grocer MatHem.

With its new funding, Urban Oasis aims to build its first MegaFarm, which will expand its production capacity by 15 to 20 times, according to today’s press announcement. The new facility is controlled by Urban Oasis’ GreenOS automation software and will be operational by the end of this year for growing a variety of crops.

Funding for the controlled-environment agriculture, and vertical farming in particular, has been downright frothy this fall. Other players in the space getting investment include Plenty, Kalera, InFarm and Unfold. As my colleague, Jenn Marston explained last month:

Less than one year ago, the vertical farming sector was expanding, but a lot of questions remained around the scalability of the concept and how appealing it could be to investors. The nearly constant stream of funding and product announcements in 2020 has sped up that expansion. Part of this is due to, yep, you guessed it, the pandemic. Disruptions in the food supply chain due to COVID-19 have consumers more interested than ever in where their food comes from, and having it grown closer to home is an increasingly attractive option.

With the pandemic still going strong and a month in a half left in the year, Urban Oasis’ fundraise may not be the last of its kind in 2020.