Vertical farming specialist outlines plans

A Leeds-based manufacturer of hydroponic vertical farm systems has spoken to Insider about its development of a sustainable system to support healthy food production and its recent fundraising.Green Build Systems (GBS) is developing the Vertiplex systems for restaurants, supermarkets and the hospitality sector.The company’s team includes experienced agronomists and engineers, and it has collaboration agreements with the likes of fresh produce supplier Worldfresh and GE Current, a Daintree Company.Together with its partners, the business combines renewable energy (solar, wind, and thermal), and battery storage back-up systems, with vertical and urban farming methods.GBS chief executive Alexander Pearce told Insider: “There is little doubt that population growth, environmental changes, and climatic conditions are issues and the agricultural and horticultural sectors need all the help they can get when it comes to providing workable solutions. Such issues include global food shortages, food security/accessibility, and the shortening or localising of supply chains – to which part of addressing these issues involves being mindful of sustainability and environmental concerns whilst doing so.”There are numerous Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) organisations, including vertical farm businesses, that are either established, or that are entering this vital marketplace. So many of these are either the industrial-sized multimillion-pound enterprises (some yet to prove themselves as economically viable) or those that utilise container farms, which by their physical structure come with some limitations.”Pearce has a background in property, forestry and land, together with an interest in sustainability, environmental protection, and plant-based health products. He previously developed a structural insulated eco panel designed for Passivhaus structures.This backgrounds, combined with his desire to work in an industry that addresses food scarcity problems, ultimately led to the progression of GBS’s vertical farming systems.He said: “GBS originally developed a modular vertical farm designed to be ‘a bridge’ between the container farms and the massive industrial scale sized operations – however, we soon realised that so many potential growers existed outside of these parameters, e.g. entry-level farmers, smaller scale urban farms, along with hospitality and retail sector businesses looking to become growers as well as simply buyers. Thus, GBS’ development of the Vertiplex – a game-changing hydroponic vertical farm solution which can be daisy-chained or stacked – that comes in two basic sizes – and as a system, it can grow as your business grows.”Recognising that there is little point in helping to solve one crisis in terms of healthy food production, but in doing so, providing solutions in a cost-prohibitive manner due to energy requirements and accelerating costs, GBS is also seeking to address this issue. With the support and expertise of its strategic partners, the company has mastered the ability to generate and store enough renewable energy to run and maintain our own vertical show farm off-grid. We are continuing our research in order to offer this solution with various sized farms.”Green Build Systems has recently completed a crowdfunding campaign, raising more than £250,000 through the Crowdcube platform.The crowdfunding forms part of a broader fundraising, with more than £2.4m in EIS investment funding to date.Dan Seehye, GBS director of marketing, said: “The Crowdcube funding will be used for further R&D and optimisation of GBS’ prototype Vertiplex farming system, the development of its off-grid sustainable energy solutions, as well as the scaling of the GBS business. Scaling will include the development of our sales and marketing channels for our Vertiplex brand, enabling us to market the Vertiplex systems to our target customers such as supermarkets, restaurants, retail outlets, pharmaceutical companies along with traditional and entry level farmers, to name a few.”In light of the UK’s recent, post-pandemic food supply challenges along with the potential future concerns in this area and not to mention an inexorable transition to achieving greater sustainability, GBS aims to become the leading manufacturer of low cost, state-of-the-art, bespoke, and modular vertical farm solutions for the hospitality and retail sectors in the UK and worldwide.”Seehye added that crowdfunding brought additional benefits to the funding.He said: “In our opinion, Crowdfunding as a method is a great way to ‘spread the word’ about our product(s) and solution(s) – and especially so as Crowdcube has a very large membership of participants that not only includes investors themselves, but also includes produce consumers, potential commercial buyers, and useful specialist professionals across various fields.”Investment/funding is one thing – but the potential expansion of our support network through connectivity and relationship building on such platforms for the business moving forward is another great reason for selecting the crowdfunding route.”