Ljusgårda

This interview details Ljusgårda, an indoor farming company based in Sweden. The interview is with Andreas Wilhelmsson, CEO of Ljusgårda.

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What is the origin story of Ljusgårda?

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Ljusgårda was founded by four entrepreneurs in 2017. Out of these four, three still work in the company. They started in a garage, like so many other successful startups. After trials, they started to look for factory space. There were many empty old furniture factory buildings in Tibro, and since they all lived nearby, they set up the first factory there. As it happens, the new factory was only 500 meters away from the garage.

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Focusing on a smaller amount of varieties of lettuce was the key and becoming really good at growing them. We still only grow two types of lettuce in the factory.

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6 years later, we have grown to become one of the world’s largest indoor farms. A first 7000 sqm lettuce factory with industrial scale and industrial knowledge (automation, process, and operations). We are currently seeding, transplanting, and harvesting almost 15 000 plants/day with yields of +1,5 tons/day (in 60g bags that’s 25 000 bags/day).

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It’s basically a full supply chain in a factory working to replace a part of a complex and unsustainable food system. Based on this, we today have plans in place for a bigger second factory in Sweden and several international projects.

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

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To finance and build production facilities as fast as we would want to. We have shown that we can grow and sell on an industrially large scale. Through an independently conducted Life Cycle Assessment we are also the first closed environment agriculture farm (indoor/vertical farm) to show a lower CO2e footprint than regularly farmed lettuce (!).

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What is unique about Ljusgårda compared to competitors?

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Compared to conventionally grown and imported lettuce we have a significantly smaller CO2 footprint, we do not use any pesticides and we use significantly less water.

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Compared to other vertical farmers it is: Scale and focus – we had an industrial approach and clear focus on only a few crops from day one. This has given us superior effectiveness and efficiency, resulting in that we can compete not only on quality but also on price with regularly farmed produce. To be clear, we can sell a superior product, with predictable yields all year round, at a par or even lower price.

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

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We produce more than a ton of lettuce every day, and we employ approximately 70 people. We know that we compared to conventional imported lettuce we save more than 50% CO2.

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

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I wish I would have known more about growing lettuce. On the other hand, we have real experts in the company for that.

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

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You can just send an email, follow us on social media or visit our website (www.supernormalgreens.com).

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