This month Kate Hofman, founder of Growup, a new breed of ‘vertical’ farm
A VERTICAL FARM? SOUNDS HIGH TECH!
It is! We grow a range of salad leaves indoors, stacked on top of each other in a nutrient solution without soil (a system called hydroponics). Growup is the UK’S first commercialscale vertical farm growing plants this way. We started in 2013, on the back of a Kickstarter campaign, growing salad in a converted shipping container. Our new farm, near Sandwich in Kent, has several growing chambers, each one triple the size of a London bus. In growing terms, it’s the size of 500 football pitches.
NOT REALLY AMBRIDGE…
We’re certainly different from conventional farms, but we see ourselves as part of Britain’s farming tradition, helping to create a more resilient and sustainable food system.
WHAT’S YOUR ENERGY BILL LIKE?
Energy is our biggest challenge: growing salad 24 hours a day, 365 days a year requires a lot of it. But our new farm, with its LED lights, is completely powered by renewable energy that is produced by a biomass plant on-site. We’re saving carbon and money, which should make our salad and herbs more affordable.
SO HOW SUSTAINABLE IS YOUR SALAD?
The UK imports 70 per cent of its salad. By growing leaves here year-round, we can hugely reduce transport emissions. Our Kent farm will save 2.8 million lorry miles a year. We also use 95 per cent less water than conventional methods and don’t need pesticides as we’re a bug-free zone. To top it off, we can grow more food on less land. It would take 10,000 acres of farmland to produce the amount we do.
DOES IT COME IN GREEN PACKAGING?
We currently use plastic bags, which can be recycled at the supermarket. It’s the best way to keep salad fresh.
HOW FRESH ARE WE TALKING?
Bagged salads grown overseas are usually kept in warehouses for days and washed in chlorine to remove chemicals. This degrades the quality, meaning they go off quickly – and often end up being binned. As our leaves are grown in the UK, they can be on shelves within hours of picking. Plus, our farm is so clean, there’s no need for us – or you – to wash them. As a result, our salad stays fresher longer, retaining more of its nutritional goodness.
DOES IT TASTE ANY DIFFERENT?
Many people have said they didn’t realise lettuce had a taste until they tried ours. It’s so crunchy and delicious that I often eat it out of the bag like crisps. Even my five-year-old likes to eat it! It doesn’t need dressing, although I’m partial to a drizzle of olive oil and a spritz of lemon.
WHERE CAN WE FIND YOUR LETTUCES?
This spring, our salads will hit supermarket shelves, which is a big deal for us and should help food supply chains. Once fully operational, our farm will employ 60 people and contribute £10m to the local economy each year. We’re keen to build more farms across the country and expand into growing other products, like fruit. Our hope is that we will become an important and sustainable part of the UK food system, supporting rather than replacing the farms we know and love.