✴︎
Supermarket chain Coop Denmark announced plans this week to bring vertical farming its Irma stores via a partnership with Germany’s InFarm. The retailer says it plans to introduce InFarm’s technology to 35 stores over the next few months, following a successful pilot in 2019. Berlin-based InFarm is one of the many agtech startups out there…
✴︎
Freight Farms announced today it has raised a $15 million series B round led by Ospraie Ag Science, according to a press release emailed to The Spoon. The round also saw participation from existing investor Spark Capital and brings Boston-based Freight Farms’ total funding thus far to $28 million. When we checked in with Freight…
✴︎
Freight Farms, a major player in the world of containerized vertical farms, announced today a partnership with foodservice and facilities management company Sodexo. Together, the two aim to bring Freight Farms’ hydroponic vertical farms into school campuses across the U.S., according to a press release sent by Freight Farms. In North America alone, Sodexo serves…
After spending almost an entire week in Las Vegas earlier this month for CES, I reluctantly returned to the desert on Monday for the Kitchen and Bath Show. And just like I did at the big consumer tech show, I found an oasis inside the convention center in the form of an indoor gardening system.…
✴︎
This is the web version of our weekly newsletter. Sign up for it and get all the best food tech news delivered directly to your inbox each week! If 2019 was the year restaurant food delivery companies went mainstream, 2020 is shaping up to be the year mergers and acquisitions whittle the competition among these…
✴︎
One question we’ve asked for a while here at The Spoon is whether vertical farms will eventually make their way into the average consumer’s home. Versions of these farms self-contained, temperature controlled smart gardens have existed for years now, but they’ve historically gotten the most adoption among startups and independent food producers selling to local…
A little less than a year ago, The Spoon looked at a number of hydroponic farming devices that could fit into the average person’s apartment. These were for the most part table-top models or units that could hang on a wall. At the time, the concept of having a grow system in your own home…
Bristol, UK-based agtech company LettUs Grow announced today it has raised £2.35 million (~$3.1 million USD) for its indoor aeroponic farming system, according to a press release. The round was led by Longwall Venture Partners LLP and brings LettUs Grow’s total funding to roughly $4.1 million. The company, which was founded in 2015, has a…
While many questions remain around exactly what role vertical farming will play in the future of agriculture, there are a few things we can count on with certainty. These indoor farms will become more and more automated over time, as well as modular. They will also be more user-friendly to the average consumer or small…
✴︎
At this point we can expect vertical farming to play an important role in our future food system — one that goes beyond selling greens to upscale markets in gentrified urban neighborhoods. Exactly what that future role looks like is less certain as we move into 2020. Commercial-scale vertical farms, which grow millions of heads…
✴︎
This is the web version of our weekly newsletter. Sign up for it and get all the best food tech news delivered directly to your inbox each week! I’m not gonna lie: putting together our market map on ghost kitchens was hard. The concept as we know it is relatively new, and the lines between…
Miele announced today that it has acquired the assets of the German company, Agrilution, makers of the Plantcube indoor vertical farm. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Agrilution’s Plantcubes look like wine fridges that are meant to be built directly into home kitchens. The automated systems regulate the lighting, climate, and water levels plants…