Vivegreens Spain

This interview details Vivegreens, an indoor farming company based in Spain. The interview is with Francisco Quinzán, Production Manager and Founder of Vivegreens.

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What is the origin story of Vivegreens?

Our company started as a hobby, out of personal enjoyment for plants, especially microgreens. In 2017 we started growing very artisanally and for our own consumption. At the same time, we realized that there was no local supplier of microgreens in our city (Vigo, Spain), not even in the region. So we ventured to show what we did to restaurant chefs.

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We saw interest on their part and decided to professionalize ourselves and began to see it as a potential business. We spent two years in a small 80 m2 space experimenting and getting to know our customers. In 2020 we decided to expand and moved to a 200 m2 space and invested in acquiring 12 cultivation shelves to increase production.

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‍What are some of the biggest challenges facing your team in the future?

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‍Our biggest challenge is to expand the Vivegreens brand and explore the rest of the country with more cultivation facilities. For this, it is necessary to create teams and gain the interest of investors willing to participate in a new industry such as vertical farming.

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‍What is unique about Vivegreens compared to competitors?

Our main differentiation factor is that our product is 100% kilometer zero (locally produced). This gives us closeness with our customers, which allows us to deliver an ultra-fresh product (it arrives in kitchens within hours after harvest), receive feedback and know the changing demands of chefs to adapt to them. There is great communication with our customers and we deliver products tailored to their needs, unlike large producers who offer standardized products.

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

We are still a very new company, so our main goal is to gain more and more recurring customers and become known as the Vivegreens brand. As we have gained customers over the years, we have invested in equipment and hiring personnel.

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

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‍You must be very clear about the market you want to supply because your cultivation infrastructure and therefore your costs depend on this. Although technical knowledge about indoor cultivation, such as humidity levels, light, irrigation, seed types, planting techniques, etc., is essential, the place where you want to set up, how many people to hire, how many shelves you should have, maintenance logistics and transportation of your product are key variables for the success of your business and the latter are closely related to your potential customers.

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

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‍We are very active through Instagram, this is the fastest way to contact us directly. You can also visit our website vivegreens.es, send us an email at info@vivegreens.es or WhatsApp at +34 604073136.

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