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Sundrop Farms [1] built a 40Ha seawater greenhouse facility in Australia with investment from KKR. They managed to get multi-year fixed pricing due to the under
by davidhunter 6y ago
Sundrop Farms [1] built a 40Ha seawater greenhouse facility in Australia with investment from KKR. They managed to get multi-year fixed pricing due to the undersupply of quality tomatoes in the region. This is pretty much unheard of in the industry. The facility was sold in 2019 [2]. The original inventor is a fellow British fellow, Charlie Paton [3] - he's a great guy and helped us get to know the greenhouse industry when we were starting out.
A lot more high-tech greenhouses need to be built. They are a great solution for supplying high-quality, locally-grown food, with minimal pesticides and resilience to extreme weather caused by climate change. They have the same benefits as vertical farms but with higher efficiency - especially for crops like tomatoes and berries.
Shameless plug: At Optimal, we are solving the barriers to scale for high-tech greenhouses. Our team has deep expertise in greenhouse horticulture and machine-learning/optimisation/control/software.
Find out more about what we're doing here: youtu.be/LDJ_QdUaap4
Team: https://www.linkedin.com/company/optimal-labs/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/optimal-labs/
Contact me (founder) directly if you want to know anything about this fascinating way of growing: david@optimal.ag
[1]: https://www.sundropfarms.com https://www.sundropfarms.com
[2]: https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9104623/new-owners-for-sundrop-farms/ https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9104623/new-owners-for-su...
[3]: https://seawatergreenhouse.com/team https://seawatergreenhouse.com/team
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoHey there, FYI on your careers page the "Overseas applicants" button just opens the same page in a new tab.
- davidhunter 6y agoSorry about that. We're using AngelList as our careers page and it's clunky. We're about to change it. In the meantime please reach out to me directly on david@optimal.ag.
- nicwilson 6y agoVery interesting, I was going to do something very similar, I've sent you an email.