Vertical growing systems vary widely—from stacked shelves under LED lights to placing plants on rapidly moving platforms—but innovation is rife across the industry and possibilities are expanding on an almost daily basis.
Young innovators, like MDA students Hiroki Koga and Brendan Somerville, started a vertical farm, Oishii (meaning delicious in Japanese), to grow a luxury strawberry variety for white-tablecloth New York restaurants.
Despite a few hiccups, the team’s Omakase strawberries became a must-have berry for chefs, eateries, and specialty retailers alike, commanding premium prices.
Like Koga and Somerville, Australian brothers Sam and John Bertram are young entrepreneurs and the founders of vertical farm operation OnePointOne.
Based in Avondale, AZ, the brothers moved to the United States in 2010 to play tennis, but a shared interest in engineering and robotics took them down a radically different path.
John went on to the Technical University of Munich, Germany, for a degree in power engineering, while Sam stayed in Santa Clara, CA to study mechanical engineering followed by robotics and animatronics, where OnePointOne was conceived as a master’s thesis.
Sam likens the subsequent journey, which has taken the brothers to sites in San Jose, CA and Arizona, as akin to a three-year-old’s birthday party with a piñata and a blindfold.
Concerned by the statistic that 1.1 billion people began the millennium malnourished—the figure that gave the venture its name—the Bertrams looked at how to make the most impact in the shortest period of time.
The answer was vertical farming, which uses far less land and water than traditional agriculture.
“That statistic was the galvanizing moment,” recalls Sam. “Plants are the basis of human nutrition, whereas meat is very much an affluent source of calories. We read about vertical farming and realized the value propositions are immense.”
As anyone who has come through the tennis world knows, potential is futile until realized, and Sam recognizes that hard work will be key to the continued uptake of vertical farming.
To that end, the business is now divided in two: technology sales and licensing through OnePointOne; and the standalone, direct-to-consumer Willo brand.
Making use of its own proprietary system, OnePointOne initially focused on leafy greens as relatively simple plants to grow, but Sam is keen to stress these are not the be-all, end-all of vertical farms.
Rather, in collaboration with California Giant Berry Farms BB #:121061, OnePointOne has developed vertical farming for strawberries.
“Cal Giant sees a huge opportunity for vertical farming as a way of augmenting traditional production,” says Sam.
“Cal Giant president Joe Barsi knows the market is ready for very high-quality berries, and with the technology we’re developing, over time, consumption will shift towards vertical farms.”
This is an excerpt from the Applied Technology feature in the March/April 2022 issue of Produce Blueprints Magazine. Click here to read the whole issue.
