Innovative vertical farming to foodservice businesses

The new Danish start-up, Nextfood, are creating automated indoor “grow systems”, that enables food professionals to make deliciously fresh, tasty, highly nutritious and pesticide-free vegetables anywhere year-round.

To meet the consumption of the rapidly increasing global population, food industries worldwide must produce the same amount of food in the next 40 years, as they have in the last 10.000 years. This poses enormous challenges, but also great business opportunities, in terms of creating alternative means of production, that are both highly efficient while also building on a climate-friendly, sustainable foundation.

The Danish company Nextfood are now presenting their contribution to these challenges, by creating and selling indoor grow systems, that are scalable from 1 to thousands of square meters grow area.  By using vertical farming, or aeroponics, a soilless growing method in which the plants’ roots are suspended in mid-air and misted by a nutritious water, the systems ensure precise control of nutrients, light and water, while also saving 95% water compared to outdoor farming. All Nextfood´s local farms are controlled by a central cloud intelligence ensuring automation and ease.

Fast-food chain already implementing vertical farming

As the first fast-food chain in Denmark, Sunset Boulevard are already beginning the implementation of Nextfood´s grow systems. Their restaurant in Ballerup, Denmark, is the first to use the growing method to produce fresh lettuce year-round. The goal is to make all restaurants completely self-sufficient in terms of vegetable and greens, sometime in the future.

Sources: DI, Sunset Boulevard, Nextfood