Greeny Grow

This interview details Greeny Grow, a leading vertical farm in Sweden. The interview is with Graham Clark, Owner of Greeny Grow.

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What is the origin story of Greeny Grow?

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Greeny Grow started as an additional business for me to support my initial business where cash flow was reducing, which was Timber Trading. Our suppliers were drying us as they were being bought out by larger concerns, pricing was on a roller coaster ride seeing a wrong trade potentially bankrupt the business.

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This business was started after a bout with the Big C which devastated my life, and it was a way of keeping me physically but more importantly mentally active as I struggled during the long journey back from lifesaving treatment. (My wife gets pissed when I explain the circumstances in detail BUT its what happened).

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As an Agricultural Machinery Engineer, I spent my earlier life travelling the world for the largest names in the Industry. An interest in Hydroponics was kindled when in Saudi Arabia during the early 80’s and the Project I was based on grew wheat, alfalfa and Rhodes Grass under centre Pivot Irrigation.

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The soil quality was extremely poor, however the Agricultural Manager (AM) was a bit of a perfectionist and applied fertiliser water and micronutrients in precise qualities seeing unbelievable yields. I was a bit staggered by this given the soil quality and the AM explained that we were basically farming under hydroponic conditions with the soil basically holding the crop.

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From then on, I kept an eye out for things related to hydroponics. Our initial plan was to produce Micro Algae, Microgreens and Salad heads. Micro Algae production in a greenhouse was focused on after listening to Professor Joe Cuello from the University of Arizona whilst attending the Urban Future Global Conference in Oslo during 2019. This seemed to fit in with the excess of empty greenhouses around where we live.

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After a lot of searching for a suitable greenhouse, things progressed well, and the start button was all ready to be pressed with the U of A when Covid Struck. Nothing could progress so given the massive amount of time, effort, and research that we put in, we felt it a terrible waste, so we turned thing around and looked at Microgreens and Living Salad Heads.

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We located a suitable 180m2 industrial location with the potential for 150m2 of planting, growing and harvesting area just down the road from home. We struck a deal with the owner late 2020 and started a worldwide search for systems to “prove the concept”

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What is unique about Greeny Grow compared to competitors? How do you measure the impact of your company so far? (Revenue, Employees, Customer Quantity, Production Volume) etc?

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We are probably the only grower in Sweden that offers both Microgreens and Living Salad Heads grown completely without soil. I don’t know of another. There are a few Microgreen Producers along the West Coast however they basically grow in soil seeing our product superior as its is a no need to wash product. Our Salad heads are grown without soul and supplied with retailers with minimal packaging.

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When compared to the competition, some 70% plus of the purchased weight is edible versus an average of 40 to 50% or less with ALL of the competitors. In a supposedly environmentally conscious Sweden this relates to less damage to the National Infrastructure, Less Pollution, Less load on the Refuse Disposal System and a clearer conscience for the end users when disposing of packaging.

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In addition, as ALL of our Salads are harvested living which includes the root, they just need to be set into a receptacle of water to allow them to continue growing, maintaining freshness and giving the customer true value for money.

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What have you learned that you wish you knew when you joined or started the company?

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We wish we had applied for support funding before investing all of our capital into the business, given the strange state of the world and its effect on investors it is more difficult to raise funds today than it was a year or more ago. As with every business, a greater level of working capital is required than expected and calculated especially when you want to grow.

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We are currently working overtime to find investors to support out modest scaleup plans. We have learnt that there is a lot of experimentation required, its ongoing discovering ways to improve taste, production speed and control of the growing room. As we do not own the facility, we are not prepared to put in additional money to ensure we have Controlled Environment Agriculture and therefore adjust things as best possible.

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As an example, with the huge increase in electricity prices, almost triple 2022 rates we have switched off all the Air Conditioners and started to pump in cool air from outside the building. We have also looked at every electrical device, calculated or measured its power consumption and made changes in equipment or switched off items we consider no essential to save electrical costs.

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Despite saving some 3,500 kWh we pay more than we did previously at full consumption.Experimentation is ongoing as is establishing tasting crops to identify new products that the customers accept. Seasonal demand fluctuation and specific season crops (Microgreens) have seen us learn a lot, this is something we really wish we knew previously.

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How can people connect with you or learn more about Greeny Grow?

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We have a website, not that great, I have a LinkedIn site, not that great either which is sad really as we had planned a great deal from day one,  however the physical time demand to control the business, scaleup and oversee the daily work routine work has taken over everything, and it just gobbles time 7/7.

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We have generally been quite poor at social media however we will restart with vengeance next month asking to connect with some of our big customers media accounts given that have 1000’s of followers. Two (2) Vertical Farming Daily articles have been published and we have quite a bit of local coverage with the local newspapers etc.

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We work closely with three different Communes and their council members. The Commune where we are based have selected us as a startup that they will promote us to highlight how new businesses can flourish within their Commune.

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This will encompass a video interview on their web site and also a short film from our production facility. They have asked us to take over a Commune controlled space in the largest shopping mall in the Commune and we will set up a small GrowPipes Salad Production System, promote ready to eat clean microgreens and living salad heads and conduct a series of workshops.

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