Vertical Future’s new vertical farm launches with a giant leap in efficiency for global food production.
With a completely fresh approach to vertical farming, Vertical Future’s new 1,500m3 Southeast London farm provides a yield increase of 172% per m3 and approximately 60% less energy consumption compared to other vertical farms. The site is focused on leading research and development as well as serving for the B2B food and beverage industry with sustainable, beyond-organic produce.
An emerging market leader in the controlled-environment-agriculture (CEA) space, Vertical Future has brought together both automated technological hardware advances and smart-learning systems – all designed in-house and manufactured in the UK.
Vertical Future’s software system (Diana) works in tandem with thousands of sensors to monitor individual crop growth and optimise production at a granular level, including the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID). The system automatically adjusts lighting wavelength and intensity, nutrient concentration and distribution, and water flow rate, in addition to many other variables. If a crop needs a change in light, Diana liaises with 5 different forms of LED lights to automatically adjust the combinations and intensity.
With no need for pesticides, herbicides or fungicides, and minimal human interaction, Vertical Future offers a product that goes beyond organic. Vertical farming – when implemented correctly – uses far less of the planet’s resources and significantly less water, while producing much closer to the point of consumption. Founder and CEO Jamie Burrows says:
‘Hundreds of seeds of micro broccoli have the same footprint as one seed for a full head of broccoli but if you harvest broccoli at 10 to 15 days maturity, it has 40 times more vitamin K and far higher levels of sulforaphane.’.
Vertical farming operations use derelict urban and rural spaces, distributing food on a hyper-local basis, lowering transportation times and reducing emissions to solve many of the problems associated with food miles.
In Jamie’s words:
Exploitation of land, loss of biodiversity, and overuse of the earth’s natural resources are damaging to our environment and vertical farming offers one long-term solution. We take vertical farming a giant leap further, adopting a holistic approach by offering fully automated and intelligent systems that offer endless possibilities.”
Vertical Future’s production system is one of the most advanced in the world – and with over 100 pipeline projects across four continents currently under discussion, several already underway in various geographies, and an exciting research and development programme, this is the next exciting step in Vertical Future’s journey to improve the long-term health of the planet and its inhabitants – one leaf at a time.
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