"Before we buy any product, we always pose the question, 'Can we manufacture this cheaper ourselves?' By now, we have such a robust system that we believe we have cracked the code for cost-effective farming in a vertical farm," says Laura van de Kreeke, Farmer at Growy, a vertical farm based in the Netherlands. Formerly somewhat press-shy, Growy is now determined to make more noise about the effort that has taken them to build a 'robust business model' to date.
Click here for the photo report of our visit
'Keeping farming top of mind'
Growy has been quite firm about its cost-efficiency approach over the years. Recently, Founder Ard van de Kreeke mentioned that they've reached an efficiency of €1000 per m². Currently, the former open-field grower and his team have reached 55kg of lettuce per m² and are set to up that number to 100kg per m². "Given our farming background, we think like farmers, meaning that we're always looking at how to improve costs at the plant, OpEx, and end-product level," Laura explains. As we're walking through the farm, Laura keeps pointing out that almost every piece of machinery has been developed in-house, as Growy has always had the "how can we make this at a more affordable price" mindset. Laura proudly states that, apart from the packaging and crane picker, almost everything has been self-developed.
The farm itself comprises 1000m² of floor space, while the cultivation space totals 7500m², split into 12 columns with 4 cells each, with four columns currently up and running. "Automation is key." With only two to three farm operators on the operation floor to run checks and potentially replace resources, everything is automated from seed to harvest.
Through cameras, all badges are monitored and send to their designated location in the farm
Tackling retail in Belgium and the Netherlands
"We have our Chef's Farm brand for the HoReCa sector, and our products will soon be sold in retail." In the past five years, Growy has been developing a large number of products comprising microgreens and edible flowers for HoReCa and salads and herbs for retail, reaching a range of 50 in total.
Ready to take on the retail market, they are collaborating with well-known Dutch supermarkets. The farming business is set to supply beyond B2B and target the Dutch, and potentially German and Belgian, consumer markets.
Based in Amsterdam's docking area, just west of the vibrant city center, Growy positioned itself in a well-connected logistics area, allowing them to deliver produce through locked-in contracts with retailers. Teaming up with a distributor in the area, the Chef's Farm brand is now available across the Netherlands and Belgium. "Working with a distributor with such a vast network allows us to deliver to a bigger area and increase the number of orders. This is the most efficient way to get your product from A to B."
"It has been quite the journey to find the right packaging, as Dutch supermarkets don't always want paper packaging. Depending on the retailer, we are able to supply under our Growy brand, whereas with others it's trickier, as white-label is the only option." In Dutch supermarkets there are almost no brands in the fresh food section, while this is common in other countries. "Though, we have proven to deliver a consistent product thus far, and we are now running tests with a retailer to analyze growth potential." On the pricing end, Laura mentions that Growy's price point will be the same as all the imported herbs and salads currently in supermarkets.
Automation is key
With its five-layered cells, robots make the Growy team's lives much easier. Moving gutters around the back end of the farm, no human intervention is needed in the cultivation cells. With one robot at each layer checking the plants hourly, ensuring they're well cared for—such as irrigation, weighing, and photo capturing to monitor plant health—automation plays a crucial role.
With a stacker crane moving gutters around the farm, the team can direct crops (per batch) to their allocated positions in the farm. Laura explains that cells can also contain gutters with crops in completely different growth cycles, but "it's all about matching the plant's needs. If that happens to be a climate in a specific cell that meets those requirements, the stacker crane will do so." In order to improve farming processes, Growy is now working on deploying cameras on each robot per layer.
Each gutter has its own label, which allows the team to closely monitor crop health and backtrack or improve, if necessary, for future processes.
All machines and processes are tailored to Growy's self-made systems, and as Laura explains, through that, Growy is able to achieve full automation. On the substrate end, Growy is testing with a supplier on biopolymer in the form of recyclable flakes. "If it's not 100% biodegradable, we won't use it. We're all about sustainable farming, meaning in every aspect of our production."
'A pre-harvest lighting boost to enhance flavors'
Entering one of the cells, it's noticeable that the presence of red and blue light recipes. "We only give the plants what they truly require, not what the workers need," Laura explains. The LEDs were developed in collaboration with Dimlux, as both parties found a win-win element to develop light recipes suiting their needs. Working together with the University of Wageningen, Growy has been exploring how to further boost and optimize growth cycles through lighting. "There's so much you can do with a lighting recipe. For instance, blue light helps us boost the vitamin C content, whereas with the WUR, we have developed a pre-harvest lighting recipe that boosts the plant's taste and there's so much more to explore!"
Efficiency through software
"At this moment, we are teaching our software to validate what a healthy plant looks like. Yet, this is easier said than done as we have to thoroughly train the model. However, through that thorough training and self-improving algorithms, we are very close to optimizing our farming processes even more. On top of our operators, we want our software to point out potential diseases prior to anything visible to the naked eye. Then, the system can toss out any batch harmful to our operations and prevent downtime."
Growy is able to keep its energy consumption to a minimum. On top of that, the farm runs on 100% renewable energy from the current landlord, In the future, An anaerobic digester will be deployed to make use of waste streams and create the ultimate synergy for people, profit, and planet. "Again, this is why we only give the plants the light intensity and spectrum they need, allowing us to be really energy efficient."
Click here for the photo report of our visit
For more information:
Growy
Laura van de Kreeke, Farmer
[email protected]
www.growy.nl