This interview details Aquaverti Farms, an indoor farming company based in Canada. The interview is with George Aczam, President of Aquaverti Farms.
It all started in 2017, after signing my biggest client as a financial planner. It got me no satisfaction and this is when I had my quarter life crisis. Money was great, career growth was fast but I had no direct joy from the industry. That is when I stumbled upon the concept of sustainable, urban farming. It was love at first sight.
For almost a year, I was exploring what type of sustainable projects I could embark on. I wanted to look 10 years down the line and be able to tell my future kids or the next generations that I did my best to contribute to a better future for the next generation and the planet.
After exploring and researching the project, I was certain that it was up my alley. I was lucky to come from a family that has been involved in food imports, exports and distribution for over a century now. This has allowed me to gain good knowledge of the general dynamics of the industry.
I called my current partner, Stephen Moss, who was the person with the most green thumbs that I knew back then. When asked if he was interested in exploring the building AquaVerti with me, at 68 years old then, he replied: "you are asking me to build my dream". A year after, we were able to get some funds from an angel investor, Roger, who enabled us to start our first R&D testing farm to prove that we can create sustainably grown, year round, fresh, high quality salads at a stable cost. This is a problem that the food industry suffers from drastically in Montreal. Coupled with low energy cost, it became clear to us that Quebec was the best place to start AquaVerti, thanks to its cold climate, where nothing grows 75% of the year. The province also provides access to clean and renewable energy.
AquaVerti a year later (2018) took possession of its first farm and in 2019, we were the first commercial indoor vertical and urban farm in the province. Today we supply the largest supermarkets in the province, and some restaurants with our more unique products. Stay tuned as we continue to release new products that consumers don't find easily available on the market today.
Indoor agriculture is a new beast. Not a lot of information is available, so we had to learn everything by meeting people, sharing information and creating a worldwide network of like-minded indoor farms that wanted to accelerate the establishment of the industry.
Moreover, as a newly born industry, finding the right business model that makes it profitable and sustainable was not given.
Our biggest challenges have been finding the right information and access to the necessary funds to research products, business models, all while having the pressure of being profitable.
The quality of our products is a unique factor that allowed us to penetrate the market. Indeed, our product's shelf life is about 2x higher than our competitors . As we started hardening our skills, collecting and understanding the data, our products' taste and quality started increasing the gap between our produce versus our competitors.
Today, what differentiates us from the competition is the unique ability to be close to our clients while offering a tasty experience for our customers to try products and flavors that they did not have access to (ex: purslane, turkish arugula, perpetual spinach..)
The current production allocated area in which we grow is 15,000 sqft. We are able to produce about 200kg of leafy greens per sqm per year. Or in other words, we can grow over 12M heads of lettuce and lettuce equivalent products per year in 15,000sqft.
AquaVerti Farms is a small player in the collosal food/Ag industry. We mesure our impact based on our clients feedback, how many clients we are convinced to buy local AquaVerti produce vs. their US imported alternative. This is a good indicator for us as this means clients see the difference in quality, taste and freshness of our products and decide to pay a little bit more for them.
Yes absolutely. CO2 is one of our most efficient and cost effective inputs. Also being triple insulated, we have almost no CO2 leaks to the outside, which means that most of the CO2 we inject in the farm does get used up by the plants and converted to Oxygen during its daylight photosynthesis. This is important, as compared to greenhouses, they will tend to lose over 90% of the CO2 they inject to the outside world as they ventilate the space to let out humidity as well as the fact that it's hard to properly insulate a greenhouse production space.
Despite all the benefits of indoor farming, the energy requirements are the biggest disadvantage compared to other models.
In Quebec, our energy is 100% renewable (except for some very remote areas). All of AquaVerti's energy is generated from hydro-energy.
Being in Quebec we have access to the cheapest energy rates in North America. It is also partially subsidized by the government through the benefits they offer via different programs. A great help from the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture to stimulate food independence and security.
Since the inception of AquaVerti, by rethinking the design of the farm and using data, we have been able to reduce our energy needs by almost 20% all while increasing our farm output. With AI, and as the industry continues to innovate, we expect energy costs to continue going down.
I wish I knew how demanding agriculture is as an industry. I believe few people know how much effort, passion and hardwork goes into feeding the population. Its great work, its motivating work but its demanding work physically and mentally.
We are very accessible at AquaVerti. We invite people to reach out to us via our Instagram account or by writing to us via our website's "contact us" form. If you are in Quebec or visiting Quebec we can show you our operations and how at AquaVerti we aim to have a daily impact on our communities and the environment. Feel free to reach out to us for any questions or requests you might have :) we would be happy to assist you if possible.
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