An article written by Djavid Amidi-Abraham for the Agritecture blog guides growers through a guide on how to invest in new technology with confidence. It explores using modern technology in a vertical farm when you know it will benefit your facility in the long term.
Using the Agritecture guide, Robert Woods and Nathanael Dannenberg have decided to list a few reasons why adopting one of our ActivatedAir™ machines will benefit your facility in the long run.
Economic Feasibility
The restructuring of the vertical farming industry over the last few years highlights the importance of economic feasibility. Growers are looking at their return on investment closer than ever.
Zayndu’s advantage is that our unique technology allows us to work with growers on a range of factors that deliver a return for them. This could be (seed-borne) pathogen control, improving germination time, more yield in the same growing period, or more crop throughput annually.
Fundamentally, ActivatedAir™ offers the opportunity to increase yields using the same resources (labour, production infrastructure, growing medium, light, nutrition, etc)… The improvement in production is additional profit.
We can help growers calculate the impact of our technology on their operations so that they have an accurate view of how we can increase profitability.
ActivatedAir™ can be used across all growing methods, be it field, polytunnel, glasshouse, or vertical farm. All growers can benefit from improved germination, reduced cycle times, and stronger plant growth. These characteristics feed into the viability of a growing enterprise.
This will give growers an accurate view of how we can increase profitability. So, rather than selling an idea of false expectations, we explore, with complete transparency, the type of results you will be getting based on your current operations and objectives.
Competitive Advantage
Growers across the world are facing strong headwinds in the form of higher labour costs, labour availability, and rising energy and input costs. All against a backdrop of price pressure from retailers.
By reducing the cost of a growth cycle, growers can gain an advantage in the marketplace to thrive.
Reducing cycle time means less time under artificial lights, which is relevant to vertical farms or glasshouses. For a glasshouse herb grower, I’ve calculated savings of nearly £2,000 per day. For a vertical farm, I calculate savings of £13,760 per day across their whole 30,000m2 site.
In addition, capacity is typically one of the biggest factors holding some growers back. Increasing the overall production yield expands their annualised growing capacity by up to 10%. This gives the opportunity to secure additional offtakes for their product and utilise their existing assets and capital expenditures.
Breaking down fresh produce markets globally, they all have very different needs. For example, in the Middle East, some growers complain of poor germination with seed imported from breeders located in Europe and North America because of delays in getting it through customs. This is a regionally specific situation where ActivatedAir™ can add huge value and drive a competitive advantage for early adopters of the technology.
We go further, working with growers to deliver them a competitive advantage that is unique to their situation. The growing conditions, agronomic challenges, customer requirements, and ambitions for the future are all individual to each grower.
Our service model also means we have an ongoing partnership with growers. Whereas companies selling technology for production facilities as a one-off capital expenditure may immediately look to the next opportunity once it has been purchased and installed, Zayndu is constantly working alongside its customers, providing an ActivatedAir™ seed priming service.
A large expert team backs up Zayndu’s technology to deliver a competitive advantage to the growers partnering with us. The plant science team, headed up by Dr. Alberto Campanaro, can optimise the protocols to deliver the best treatment, matched to the growing environment.
Our machines are serviced and maintained by our expert team of mechanical and software engineers. We also have a customer success manager to be a contact for any feedback.
Find out More
If you’re interested in finding about our ActivatedAir™ technology and would like to speak to one of our specialists, send us an email at info@zayndu.com, or visit our website.
Grow faster, grow stronger.