greenhub

This interview details greenhub, an indoor farming technology company based in Germany. The interview is with Isabelle van Doorn, Business Development Manager/ Plant Scientist at greenhub.

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What is the origin story of greenhub?

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The journey of greenhub began with Kay's enthusiasm for hydroponics and aquaponics. Kay and Alex, the two founders, met during their studies and talked about these cultivation methods for the first time. Kay wanted to build something in this industry for the long term.

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This opportunity came in June 2018 when he took over the "Greenhub" working group at Leipzig University. At the time, with a strong focus on small-scale aquaponics systems for private households. After a market analysis, however, it quickly became clear that a business case was difficult or impossible to realize at that time. With Alex's support, the two worked closely with experts to analyze the industry's challenges.

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The result was that the industry is still in its infancy and stakeholders still need to be enabled to collect standardized data for an automated and resource-efficient cultivation process. This gave rise to the idea of the Green Researcher as a data mining tool. The idea also gave birth to greenhub solutions GmbH.

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What are some of the biggest challenges facing greenhub in the future?

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The industry is currently struggling with past promises and the legitimate re-evaluation of the industry. We need to ensure that the current upswing in biological lead development is at the forefront of technological development in the industry. The industry has also understood that the long-proclaimed transparency and impact on the food system must be the standard and not the path we want to take.With great companies in the industry embracing this urgent development, we see a bright future ahead of us. Until then, we need to be vocal about the complexity of biological processes and the associated challenges of reliable automation 24/7, 365 days a year, for years to come. 

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We as greenhub are part of this development and see our individual challenges in collecting the right data points with our partners to achieve the next wave of increased resource use efficiency. Finding the partners who want to join us on this long but necessary journey. Last but not least, with the increasing popularity of GreenResearcher, we have to scale the production of the system to increase the data points that our partners can collect. 

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What is unique about greenhub compared to competitors? 

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As greenhub we have set ourselves the task of digitizing and automating the knowledge of tomorrow's vertical farming. That is why we have developed a data mining tool, the GreenResearcher. The Green Researcher is a small-scale plug-and-grow system that is primarily used in industrial and academic research as well as in basic research from seed breeding to fertilizer composition, modeling, etc.

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Our targeted customers include research facilities, universities, colleges, vertical farmers, new indoor farmers, and breeders. We enable them to conduct standardized and repeatable trials to understand what different plants in different environments need to reach their full potential. We understand our customers as our partners, supporting the industry to gain insights on the latest developments from their exceptional research.

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For the industry, we will use this knowledge to enable vertical farm and greenhouse operators to increase their resource use efficiency so that they can offer profitable solutions in their local and regional markets. We believe that the industry should be guided by biological knowledge to improve technological systems. Therefore, we need to digitize the developments of tomorrow instead of maintaining the status quo of today. 

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What are some other relevant metrics of the company (growing area size, production quantity, team size, etc.)? 

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We started with the Green Researcher and are now trying to increase our sales. With the first 5 systems on the market, we want to increase this figure fourfold this year.

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As far as the team is concerned, we are already well-positioned with 10 people from all the key departments we need. From plant science, software developers, industrial designers, and engineers to marketing and sales specialists.

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With our current funding, we want to increase the team to 14 people with motivated plant enthusiasts who want to challenge the status quo. 

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What are some goals in 2024 and beyond for greenhub? 

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The core values of greenhub are to provide access to food for everyone in the world, regardless of where they live. We believe that by moving parts of food production indoors, we can do just that. One of our goals for 2024 is to democratize the vertical farming value chain and provide access to growth data that can lead to a more consistent harvest throughout the year, using less energy. Having another 20 systems on the market would be a great sign that industry and research are willing to move in this direction with us.

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With our ongoing innovation projects with partners, we also want to create a platform for automated cultivation recipes that can be customized to individual needs. We are seeing a significant decline in expertise in the agricultural sector and need to learn from our experts in the market in order to move forward. 

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How can people connect with you or learn more about greenhub? 

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You can reach us at any time via Linkedin and get in touch with the team there. This is also where we post about our latest updates. If you are interested in getting to know the Green Researcher, take a look at our product brochure or get to know the basics, take a look at our website or contact us via info@greenhub.eu 

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