More vertically grown greens are coming to the grocery store. The Evergreen Kosher Market, a well-known food retailer in Monsey, New York, announced this week it will soon debut a vertical farm from Israeli ag-tech company Vertical Field. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the farm will use technology and geoponics to provide shoppers with onsite greens at the grocery store.
Vertical Field’s farming indoor solution consists of “living walls” where plants grow vertically inside controlled environments and sensors regulate temperature and humidity levels to create ideal growing conditions for each type of plant. Since the environment is sealed off from the outside world, it is free of the usual pests that can infiltrate crops and therefore free of pesticides. And Evergreen being a Kosher market, a partnership with Vertical Field makes sense, as the company’s greens are all Star-K Kosher Certified.
The company’s use of geoponics is unusual in today’s world of vertical farming, where the majority of companies use hydroponics or aeroponics to grow plants. Vertical Field’s system is proprietary, and the company claims on its website that its use of geoponics means lower initial and operating costs, better quality plants, and more crop variety than one would get using hydroponics.
Read more at the Spoon (Jennifer Marston)