To fully eliminate the inefficiencies of “outdoor” growing and to eliminate the operational bottlenecks of simpler vertical farms that are reliant on significant amounts of human labour (and with that the risk of pathogens, diseases, human error, and broader), automation is absolutely crucial, especially in larger farms.

Designed in-house, the selection and manipulation of lighting is perhaps the most critical element of a vertical farm; the decision of which could break your farm in a matter of years or make it a continuing success over decades. We are only just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to “growing algorithms” and have already seen material gains in yield, quality, shelf-life, and shape–all of which we can manipulate purely through different LED regimens.

We are the only company to erect a superstructure (or integrate with the building) and hang our growing systems. Combined with the automated growing system and “brother-sister” robots, we can eliminate almost all aisles, making maximum use of any growing space, no matter how big or small.

Integration is an important part of (any) system that is often overlooked. Integration is what truly makes a “system”, can be monitored more closely, and is integral to our offering. We also consider any farm we build and the team that sits behind it integrated with our business.

Our entire approach or design of the system without “something” running the show. That “something” is DIANA, our SaaS solution that, amongst core operational features, not only provides growing data (that is regularly updated by our in-house plant science team), but also collects, analyses and then develops new algorithms. This is only possible at present with the support of our “human” operators and plant scientists, but the more data that is gathered over time, the smarter DIANA becomes–with an autonomous system as the most logical step

Material selection in growing environments is critical. The food sector has to date been built on the use of cheap plastic and other materials that require regular maintenance and are difficult to clean, leading to more downtime than should be expected. We, on the other hand, use high-grade stainless steel across our system which not only tackles those issues, but also has a useful life of up to 50 years with an 80% recyclability rate.

In addition to DIANA’s constant monitoring and customer support, we look for and train local partners in case a new part is needed or a similar maintenance issue occurs.

Looking beyond what’s growing in your farm and how, the operational oversight tool increases the productivity and operational efficiency of your business overall. Understanding important aspects such as staffing, key tasks (at a system and staff level), and being able to communicate these across the team lead to better overall performance. 

Leverage VF’s growing recipes and know-how across a wide range of product types and growing parameters, as well as building your own product profiles. Our team has spent years developing ‘baseline’ recipes and these data (which improve over time) are provided to you. 

Develop, input, and monitor your own unique growing algorithms, leveraging the unmatched level of flexibility across VF’s growing systems. Lighting recipes, airflow speed, nutrient composition, irrigation frequency, and photoperiods can all be applied at a very granular level – constantly tailoring the system to the needs of each crop you grow. 

Bringing it all together, is the farm system dashboard, which provides consistent (remote and on-site) understanding of what’s happening across your farm, 365 days per year. This includes power consumption, space allocation, seeding frequency, environmental metrics, robotic movements, and other metrics relating to predictive maintenance and output.