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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

iFarm

iFarm and Al Sadarah Group to Boost Food Security in Qatar Through Vertical Farming

Finland’s iFarm announced a multi-year partnership today with Sadarah Partners to build out a commercial-scale indoor vertical farm in the State of Qatar, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. The goal of the partnership is to bring more local food production inside Qatar’s own borders and at the same time produce greens, flowers, and berries year-round.

The Al Sadarah Group owns Qatar-based indoor farming company Agrico Organic Farm, with whom iFarm will work directly on the project. The two entities will build out an indoor vertical farm based on iFarm’s technology, which includes a number of different tools that help automate the maintenance and management of the indoor grow process. This time around, that includes drones, which will be equipped with computer vision and used to monitor crop health and yields. Computer vision can track the size, weight, and health of each crop, and also spot potential diseases and other problems. 

The forthcoming farm will be the first farm in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries that uses AI and drone technology to grow food.

The bigger-picture goal here is to make Qatar more self sufficient when it comes to food production. Food security issues in Qatar pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic, as the 2017 Gulf rift halted food supply lines into the country and brought the issue of food security into the forefront. Since then, Qatar has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into food self sufficiency.

However, cultivating crops in the country is difficult because of Qatar’s hot temperatures, lack of rainwater, and desert climate. Fertile soil is also limited. Those factors make the country and prime candidate for more indoor, controlled-environment farming. The iFarm-Agrico partnership is also part of the hugely ambitious goal to reach 70 percent self-sufficiency in food production by 2023. 

iFarm and Agrico will start with strawberries and leafy greens on their farm, as well as some edible flowers. For iFarm, the partnership is one of many it has around Europe and the Middle East. 

Kalera Picks Denver for Its Next Commercial-Scale Vertical Farming Facility

Kalera continues its westward expansion. This week, the Orlando, Fla.-based indoor vertical farming company announced it will open its newest commercial-scale facility in Denver, Colo. in 2021. 

This will be Kalera’s fifth facility for commercial-scale vertical farms growing leafy greens. The company already operates two facilities in Orlando and is in the midst of constructing farms in Atlanta and Houston, both slated to open in early 2021. 

When we caught up with Kalera in 2019, the company had just broken ground on its second Orlando facility and was best known for serving hydroponically grown greens to the hospitality industry, including the Orlando World Center Marriott resort. One pandemic and countless restaurant shutdowns later, and Kalera had to pivot to keep business going. Earlier in 2020, the company struck a deal with Publix to sell its greens in the grocery mega-retailer’s supermarkets. The company now provides greens to both the food retail and hospitality sectors, a strategy it will take to Denver once its facility opens there.

Kalera’s farms use IoT, process automation, and cleanroom technology to grow leafy greens in a completely controlled environment without the use of pesticides. For now, the company is focused on leafy greens, which require less space to grow than other types of produce, making them ideal for the vertical farming format.

Kalera said in today’s press release it plans to open additional facilities around the U.S. as well as expand internationally.

Its rapid expansion comes at a time when indoor farming, whether vertical or another method, is attracting significant investment dollars. InFarm, which puts its small-scale farms inside the grocery store, raised $170 million in September, and Finnish startup iFarm raised $4 million in August. Also in August, a new company, called Unfold, raised $30 million to build out operations in the U.S.

Kalera’s Denver facility will open later in 2021 and, according to the company, create 60 new jobs in the area.

iFarm Raises $4M for Its Automated Vertical Farming System

Finnish vertical farming company iFarm announced today it has raised $4 million for its automated indoor farming operation, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. The round was led by existing investor Gagarin Capital with participation from Matrix Capital, Impulse VC, IMI.VC, and several angel investors.

iFarm makes a turnkey vertical farming solution that can be deployed in a number of different-sized settings, from large warehouse farms to shelf-like grow modules in supermarkets. The company offers four different automated technologies: one for growing a variety of crops on a vertical farm; one for growing strawberries on a vertical farm; iFarm Cropper, a standalone module for growing greens; and iFarm Growtune, a SaaS platform for managing the vertical farms.

Using machine learning and computer vision, the iFarm Growtune tool, which powers the other technologies mentioned above, can detect a plant’s weight as well as any growth deviations or pathologies. It also prompts farm staff when it is time to adjust the “climate” settings inside the vertical farm.

According to today’s press release, iFarm has over 50 ongoing projects with clients in both Europe and the Middle East, including an industrial vertical farm in its homeland of Finland that’s due to launch sometime in 2020.

Vertical farming has seen a steady stream of developments over the last six months, from Farmshelf releasing its first consumer-facing grow system to SinGrow’s proprietary strawberries to Wilder Fields building an industrial vertical farm inside an abandoned Target shop. All of which is to say, vertical farming is no longer just a large-scale endeavor done by a few companies, but rather, a grow method appearing in many shapes and sizes, whether in the warehouse or the grocery store.

Because of the variety iFarm offers in terms of automated grow technologies, the company seems poised to serve multiple markets as it further develops its system. The company says it will use the new funds to further develop iFarm Growtune and quadruple the number of plants available to grow via the system. It will also further build out the automation aspect of its system and experiment with growing strawberries, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, radishes, and other crops.