YesHealth Group Taiwan

This interview details YesHealth Group, an indoor farming company based in Taiwan. The interview is with Jesper Hansen, Chief Commercial Officer of YesHealth Group.

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What is the origin story of YesHealth?

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YesHealth Group was founded by Winston Tsai, a serial entrepreneur with a background in high tech manufacturing. Winston, like many people who work in manufacturing, suffered the detrimental effects of long and intense working hours. After the IPO of his previous venture, he devoted himself to pesticide-free farming, with a focus on plant physiology and hydroponics.

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He brought together a team, from his previous company, to study and develop indoor vertical farming technologies. Semiconductor expert, Professor Wang Nang Wang played an important role, developing the hydroponic and LED hardware. They established a R&D farm in 2010, and began commercial operations in 2013.

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As a side note, the YesHealth Group logo depicts harmony, between plant and water, with a seed at its center. Originally, this reflected Winston’s focus on plant physiology and hydroponics, but it has evolved to reflect the harmony between health and sustainability within our organization as a whole. Over the past decade or more, this belief in health and sustainability has become our collective mission, uniting everyone at YesHealth Group.

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

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Right now, everyone in indoor vertical farming faces the same challenge of reaching profit. YesHealth Group has reached profit at our vertical farm in Taiwan, and now the challenge is to help our regional partners reach profit in their respective markets. Currently, we’re working with Leafood in Lithuania, and VFCo. in Saudi Arabia.

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What is unique about YesHealth compared to competitors? 

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We’re not like other vertical farming technology providers. All YesHealth Group technologies are developed in-house; we do not source from any third parties. We do not waste resources on minute data points, and we do not over automate our vertical farms either. That’s the unique thing about our technology, but what’s really unique about YesHealth Group is our team. We’re truly devoted to helping our regional partners succeed.

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

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Revenue is the most important factor at our partner vertical farm in Lithuania, as production is just getting started, and we need to scale up over the coming years. We already have significant revenue in Taiwan, so we’re thinking about how to expand further. As Chief Commercial Officer of YesHealth Group, I’m looking for regional partners around the world – partners that share YesHealth Group’s values and who we can work with long-term. I have to see our impact from the perspective of our partners, as well as our vertical farm in Taiwan.

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

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I come from a background in business, history, and culture, so I’ve had to learn a lot about how YesHealth Group vertical farms operate. I’m much more knowledgeable about science and technology now. However, the key idea that I’ve come to realize is about marketing.

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We’re not selling leafy vegetables as a commodity. In fact, we’re not really selling leafy vegetables at all; we’re actually selling health and sustainability. In this way, YesHealth Group has elevated the entire leafy vegetable product category in Taiwan, and we’re trying to help our partners do the same in their own respective markets.

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

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Follow YesHealth Group on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. We share all our latest news there, and we try to update regularly. If you need to get in touch with us directly, then send us a message via the contact form on our website. We cannot answer every message that we receive, but we always answer those that align with our interests.

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