Leafood Lithuania

This interview details Leafood, an indoor farming company based in Lithuania. The interview is with Valentinas Civinskas, CEO & Founder of Leafood.

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What is the origin story of Leafood?

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While living in Copenhagen, the founder of Leafood Valentinas Civinskas, an investment banker, came across the vertical farming concept, as an alternative to traditional farming. Naturally, he was faced with the question - why do we need it? Why can’t we grow in the fields? He started exploring the origin of salads in supermarket shelves in Denmark and Lithuania, and noticed that most of the salads came from South European countries, even Africa, travelling thousands of kilometers and reducing the shelf life by 3-5 days. 

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Building a vertical farm in Lithuania became a reason for Valentinas and his family to return to Lithuania and contribute to society after 9 years living abroad. 

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While in Denmark, Valentinas met the developers of the vertical farm technology YesHealth Group from Taiwan, and secured a partnership for Lithuania. Currently, the team of Lithuanian and Taiwanese engineers are working side by side to transfer the knowledge and to help with the initial steps of operation. 

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To fund the project, Leafood has secured a €6,45 million seed round, led by Niels Peter Pretzmann, founder of organic farm Farmer’s Circle and hospitality hub Baltic Food Republic, alongside private Lithuanian Angel Investor and YesHealth Group.

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The farm is in operation since mid May 2023, and plans to reach its full capacity by the end of the year, harvesting up to one ton of greens per day. 

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

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Like many other vertical farms in Europe, Leafood faces the unpredictable power prices as electricity bills accounts for most of the cost at the farm. However this issue has been addressed before launching the farm - Leafood has secured significant proportation of the required electricity by fixing power prices. The farm runs fully on renewable energy.

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What is unique about Leafood compared to competitors? 

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Leafood will be growing leafy greens indoors by using Hydroponics. Leafood has teamed up with the YesHealth Group, who are industry leaders in vertical farming. The farm will employ one of the most cutting-edge LED generations and their unique, plant-based, zero-waste hydrogel, YesBase.

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Water serves as the plant's growth medium, but the roots also need a substitute for soil or a suspension medium. This typically takes the shape of a sponge, piece of fabric, or other fibrous substrate that the plant's roots can interlace and bond with to create a stable foundation for growth. Most substrate materials used in hydroponic agriculture have two main drawbacks. Some materials are prone to disintegrating, compromising.

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‍How do you measure the impact of Leafood so far? (Revenue, Employees, Customer Quantity, Production Volume) etc

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We have created 30 new job positions in Lithuania so far. This is a significant figure for new industry.

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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‘re learning every day and improving our processes on the daily basis. Knowing some things in advance would have been helpful, but not necessarily an advantange. Only during the process you can become wiser.

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

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Leafood can be followed on Linkedin, Facebook and Instagram.

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