CONCEPT
CONNECTING LEAVES TO LIVES
We envision a world where delicious fresh vegetables improve the lives of families at the dinner table every day, where farmers can eliminate the stress from arduous tasks and concerns from unpredictable weather. Now we can share this vision across generations with the integration of AI and robotics. Aiming to be a new model for agriculture, Techno Farm™ will deliver high quality fresh vegetables protected from the effects of the outdoor environment. The addition of automation enables both the stabilization of production and the standardization of cultivation processes. The result is a user-friendly vegetable production platform that represents a new age for agriculture.
MOViEBACKGROUND
RISING TO THE CHALLENGE
Spread made its first step into the world of vertical farming at a time when issues of water scarcity, climate uncertainty, global population growth, excessive use of pesticides, and aging farming populations, among other challenges facing agriculture, were making headlines. Meanwhile, the inability of farmers to control the timing of their harvests was causing extreme price fluctuations that resulted in vast food waste. Never before had the balance between nature and agriculture been so delicate.
Research for Spread began in a small apartment back in 2006, when large scale indoor vertical farms were largely seen as figments of the imagination. The bold leap to build Spread’s Kameoka Farm came just a year later. However, success was not easily achieved. Consumers were initially hesitant to purchase vegetables that weren’t bathed in sunlight, and yields at the time were less than ideal.
Despite several years of struggle initially, stubborn persistence enabled Spread to bring the yield rate of its lettuce to 97% and turn its business into a fully profitable operation. Spread was able to meet the needs of its customers by providing the same price and volume of shipments for its lettuce at stable quality all year round, even during price fluctuations due to unstable weather. The result was a steady increase in recognition of its production system and quality.
This has continued to present day, with 21,000 heads of lettuce being grown at Kameoka and delivered daily to dinner tables all over Japan.
Fast forward to 2018, where Spread has added technological innovation to the operational know-how it refined over a decade and started its next journey toward large scale vertical farming in the form of Spread’s next generation food production system - Techno Farm™.