Interview: Infarm’s UK boss on how vertical farms could save the planet

It is difficult to ascertain the mood of an office space via video call, but with the background hum of ringing telephones and doors being opened and closed, Infarm’s London HQ clearly remains a hive of activity even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Since first launching a vertical farming partnership with Marks & Spencer at the end of 2019, Infarm has joined forces with two other bricks-and-mortar retailers in the UK – upmarket department store Selfridges and, starting this week, Amazon-owned grocery chain Whole Foods. It has also partnered with pureplay food delivery service Farmdrop. 

Infarm’s UK operations manager Jeremy Byfleet believes such coups are just the beginning.

“Even through the pandemic we’ve been able to launch with new clients and demonstrate that we can serve an online business, physical retailers and, with our ability to scale, we could serve wholesale and manufacturers as well,” he says. “We’re looking for new clients and to grow as quickly as possible.”

Since being founded in 2013 in Berlin, Infarm has done deals with clients in 10 countries including the US, Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands and its native Germany, as well as the UK. The company currently operates around 500,000 sq ft of vertical farming space internationally, but has much bolder expansion ambitions for the next five years. 

“Our aim is to get to 5 million sq ft in the next five years,” says Byfleet. “That shows the ability that we can scale to. That’s not just a round number, it’s something we’re planning to do.”

Less waste, more opportunities

Over the past few years, the opportunities that vertical farming can offer retailers – providing a way to reduce food waste and increase freshness – has led to an uptick in interest in the burgeoning technology. 

UK pureplay grocer Ocado – and its Solutions technology arm in particular – have been movers in this space. In June 2019, it joined forces with 80 Acres Farms and Priva to create the Infinite Acres joint venture, and also snapped up a 58% stake in Jones Food Company, Europe’s largest operating vertical farm, in Scunthorpe.  

At the time, Ocado chief executive Tim Steiner said the technology would “allow us to address fundamental consumer concerns on freshness and sustainability, and build on new technologies that will revolutionise the way customers access fresh produce”.

Separately, former Tesco boss Dave Lewis told Retail Week earlier this year that one of the supermarket giant’s largest suppliers has created a vertical farm for strawberries, which is now operational. 

“It’s not about being in competition with other suppliers and growers. The share of the pie will continue to grow and we can all grow with it”

Jeremy Byfleet, Infarm

Lewis feels passionately that the government should offer capital grants to allow businesses to build such capability in vertical agriculture, and in turn create a more sustainable and environmentally friendly food supply chain.

It is that potential impact on the planet – improving sustainability and reducing carbon footprints – that Byfleet believes is the single most exciting thing about vertical farming’s emergence.  

With the population of the Earth forecast to climb as high as 10 billion by 2050, and with industrial farming techniques and global warming already wiping out vast tracts of arable land, food retailers and suppliers need to find a different way. 

“In order to feed that amount of people we’re going to need twice the amount of arable land that we currently have. So, either we destroy our world doing that, or we find new ways of growing,” Byfleet warns. 

“It’s not about being in competition with other suppliers and growers. The share of the pie will continue to grow and we can all grow with it.”

Modular approach

While other vertical farms like Jones Food operate across enormous, warehouse-sized units, Infarm has taken a modular approach.

Infarm says its in-store vertical farms use 95% less water and 75% less fertiliser than traditional agricultural methods, while some 90% of the LED lights it uses are powered with renewable energy. 

The farms it has installed at Whole Foods stores in Kensington and Fulham, for example, take up just 21 sq ft, but can produce around 650 plants per month. Byfleet says producing the same crop yield using traditional agricultural techniques would require more than 1,200 sq ft of land. 

The modular approach also cuts down on supply chain and shipping costs, he adds, since the produce can be “grown and harvested within 50cm of where the retailer will be selling the product”. 

In theory, at least, modular farm technology like Infarm’s could be scaled almost infinitely into fruit and vegetables to “grow a produce basket for the customer”. However, while Infarm is working on new seeding technologies it can only currently produce lettuce, herbs and leafy greens at scale.

Data compiled by Dutch vertical farming company OneFarm in 2018 showed that, per ton of harvested lettuce, vertical farms like Infarm, which are run on renewable energy sources, produced 98% less carbon emissions than standard farming practices. 

Byfleet believes prices will naturally come down in time, but he insists that customers of M&S, Selfridges and Whole Foods are already saving money when they purchase from one of its modular farms

The produce it grows, therefore, comes with a price premium. Given the expense of the technology, price points at the shelf edge are higher than for cut plants harvested using traditional methods. 

Byfleet believes prices will naturally come down in time, as greater take-up of the technology creates economies of scale, but he insists that customers of M&S, Selfridges and Whole Foods are already saving money when they purchase from one of its modular farms.  

“Take typical herb pricing with Whole Foods – it’d start at about £1.20. Is it more expensive than a cut herb? Yes, it would be,” Byfleet explains.

“But with our products, it’s like picking it from your garden. You can put the roots in the water and they will stay alive. You also use less, because it’s fresher and has a stronger taste.” 

Infarm hopes its UK partnerships will flourish in a similar way to yield a bountiful harvest in the longer term – both for it and humanity.