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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Intelligent Growth Solutions

Element Farms Unveils a High-tech Greenhouse Facility to Grow More Spinach Indoors

When it comes to leafy greens, spinach may get the superlative for Most Popular, but it’s also one of the most difficult to grow — especially indoors. So it’s no small accomplishment that indoor farming company Element Farms announced a 70,000 square foot greenhouse facility in New Jersey to grow spinach year-round using a combination of proprietary software and hydroponics.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, Element Farms will begin operations at the new farm “in the coming weeks” and will produce “over half a million pounds each year of pesticide-free baby spinach” as well as a variety of other greens, arugula, beet greens, and pea shoots among them.

As Element cofounder and CEO Serdar Mizrakci explained earlier this year, spinach is tough to grow because it is prone to disease, particularly in high-density indoor environments. Element combats this by adding what Mizrakci calls “another layer of precision control” to the plants’ grow process. The company uses a combination of hydroponics along with a dynamic lighting algorithm that combines natural sunlight with high-capacity LEDs. Meanwhile, customized harvesting equipment automates and speeds up some of the grow process.

The new greenhouse facility will use similar automation for many day-to-day farming tasks. And according to the press release, the facility is the first of multiple greenhouse projects. Though Element hasn’t named specific locations for future, the company is currently looking at two other states as sites for future facilities.

The agricultural industry is grappling with both labor shortages and the fact that our soil is dying, so it’s not surprising that more and more companies are exploring the benefits (and challenges) of automated indoor farming. In August, Kalera broke ground on a massive vertical farm facility outside Orlando, FL that will automate many parts of the grow process. In the UK, Intelligent Growth Solutions recently raised an additional £1.6 million in funding for its “farm in a box” system, while Australian agtech company Vertical Farm Systems says it can take plants from seeding stage to fully grown in just 28 days with its automated system.

Element Farms, meanwhile, also emphasizes the “local” aspect of its business. The new facility will be on direct delivery routes to cities in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. In the coming months, the company plans to expand its PureSpinach products to more ShopRite stores in the Northeastern U.S.

Intelligent Growth Solutions Raises an Additional £1.6M for Its Automated Vertical Farm Solution

Scotland-based agtech and lighting solutions company Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) announced today a further raise of £1.6 million (~$2 million USD) in what’s the second and final close of its Series A round. Agtech investor Ospraie Ag Sciences contributed the bulk of the funding, with participation from Agfunder. This brings IGS’s total Series A funding and total funding overall to £7 million.

In June, IGS raised a £5.4 million Series A round for its “farm in a box” indoor vertical farming system, which uses patented IoT tech to automate many aspects of running a vertical farm, from loading and moving grow trays to adjusting water levels and lighting to monitoring overall crop health.

In particular, the IGS system promises to help vertical farming companies bring down energy costs associated with LED lighting, one of the most expensive parts of running an indoor vertical farm. On its website, IGS says it can increase LED efficiency by up to 50 percent versus other indoor grow environments. The company has two patents in this area, one granted and the other pending.

IGS’s farm, located outside Dundee, is also Scotland’s first commercial vertical farm, and investor Ospraie’s first venture into that country as well as into the indoor farming market.

IGS said in a press release it will use the funds to “expand its market presence” through global sales operations for its lighting system, which the company expects to deploy in early 2020.

IGS will face plenty of competition as it expands in the vertical farming space. In 2019 so far, an Australian company called Vertical Farm Systems raised $1 million for its automated indoor farming technology and Eco Convergence Group rebranded as Kalera and broke ground on a massive vertical farm outside Orlando, FL. As well, there’s been plenty of movement from commercial vertical farm heavyweights like New Jersey-based AeroFarms as well as new entrants like Fifth Season, who just announced a robot-powered farm this week.

IGS’s key differentiator right now is its lighting system. As it deploys its solution in the next year, we’ll see if that’s enough to keep it at the top of the ever-rising competition in the vertical farming market.

Intelligent Growth Solutions Raises £5.4M Series A Round for its Automated Vertical Farm

Dundee, Scotland-based vertical farming system Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) announced today it has raised a £5.4 million Series A funding round led by U.S.-based S2G Ventures, with participation from online venture capital firm AgFunder and the Scottish Investment Bank (SIB). The round accounts for IGS’ total funding to date.

As do an increasing number of vertical farming systems on the market today, IGS’ platform is a so-called plug-and-play system, meaning the user interfaces with software which automates much of the grow process for a variety of crops. (Admittedly, it’s still mostly leafy greens at this point.) IGS’ patented, IoT-enabled system includes dynamic LEDs that can automatically adjust themselves to suit crop needs, trays that are loaded and moved by machines, and the ability to water and monitor crops via software — all with the press of a button.

Here’s the farm in action:

Explore IGS' automated vertical farming system

The farm, which is located just outside the coastal city of Dundee, is Scotland’s first vertical farm in operation. According to the press release, the new funds will go towards creating more jobs at IGS in areas like software development, robotics, engineering, and automation. Some of the funds will also go towards product development and marketing.

Many companies are currently bringing versions of the automated vertical farm to the fold. Earlier this year an Australian agtech company simply called Vertical Farming Systems raised $1 million for its automated indoor farm system. Liberty Produce, based in the U.K., has a “one-stop-shop” vertical farm which anyone can operate, even those without a technical or agricultural background.

And that’s part of what’s at the center of these automated farming systems. By making it easier to plant, monitor, and harvest crops, vertical farming companies around the world are hoping to take some of the guesswork out of the process and in turn deliver more consistent crop yields and higher-quality greens, saving on time and labor costs in the process. Because of current limitations around scalability and the kinds of crops farmers can grow at scale, vertical farming won’t replace traditional agriculture anytime soon, but automated farms like those from IGS will play an important role in the future of farming, and we’ll see a lot more systems like this in the near future.