According to Reuters, US indoor agricultural startup Plenty Inc is looking for land for its new farm in Chinese cities as part of the company's global high-tech facilities that use LED lighting to grow organic in warehouses. vegetables.
Plenty CEO Matt Barnard told Reuters on Wednesday that China may have at least 300 such large farms. Behind the company are Amazon and the Japanese technology investment company Softbank Group.
Barnard said in an interview in Beijing that the company is currently recruiting employees in China and looking for suitable locations and distributors in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. According to Barnard, the company has hired a team in Japan and “locked†some farm sites there.
He did not disclose the financial or investment objectives of the company's expansion. Plenty currently only runs one farm in San Francisco, and the other will open in Seattle in the first half of 2018.
Barnard said: "We have seen a huge opportunity for people to taste more delicious products, and far more health and safety than anything on the market today."
Plenty's agricultural model means that vegetables and herbs are planted on indoor vertical towers, and nutrients are transported to plants through the water circulation system, while LED lighting stimulates plants to grow rapidly throughout the year. In addition, closed farms reduce pests and enable companies to optimize growth conditions.
This may be a big attraction for China. China's per capita arable land is less than one-third of the United States, and in many places, domestic soil is contaminated with heavy metals and pesticides.
Barnard said that many farms are designed to be 3 to 10 acres (1.2 to 4 hectares) and can produce 150 to 350 times the equivalent of farmland.
Chinese consumers' concerns about food safety are also a major opportunity. These farms in China will have an “experience center†where people can taste the products and see how it is produced.
Barnard said: "People can trust it, this is very important." He expects the Chinese market to contribute 25% to 50% of the business in the future.
The company is communicating with restaurants, online retailers and some supermarkets to distribute the product. The price of this product will be higher than most products in the Chinese market.
The location of these indoor farms can be close to the city, thus reducing the transportation from the field to the supermarket and avoiding the freshness of the agricultural products (7.73 - 0.51%, diagnostic stocks). This allows Plenty to have a variety of choices, rather than considering the ability of specific vegetable varieties to withstand transportation.
Of course, Plenty also has their concerns, that is, the cost of operating the lighting system.
He said: "China's electricity prices are higher than California's." He added that as long as the farm is located in the best place with electricity prices, the farm can still succeed.
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