“We are already growing 200 kg per month, and will soon have capacity to grow 1 ton per day from our various farms already committed,” says Gerard Lim, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Agroz Group. Once completed, the 100,000 sq ft Agroz Indoor Vertical Farms are expected to produce 3 tons of clean and fresh vegetables every day.
“The Agroz Indoor Vertical Farms will create hundreds of new high valued jobs and generate income in our local communities heading into this post COVID-19 era. We invite everyone to join us on this journey to build resilience and be better prepared for our future together,” adds Gerard.
Agroz Group Sdn Bhd will build 100,000 square feet of indoor vertical farms in Malaysia throughout 2021. This will make Agroz Group, the largest indoor vertical farm operator in Malaysia.
Agroz Group was founded and is led by serial technopreneur, Gerard Lim Kim Meng, who is no stranger to the Malaysian technology and digital industry with a proven track record leading, managing, building businesses from start-up stage, to turnaround management, and growing businesses into multi-million dollar ventures then exiting two of the ventures through trade sale to public listed companies on the Sweden and London Stock Exchange, creating over 20x Return On Investment (ROI) for shareholders.
According to the Economist Group, Malaysia ranks 28th on the 2019 Global Food Security (GFS) Index, while neighbouring Singapore, which hardly produces its own food, has topped the index two years in a row, in 2018 and 2019. Agroz Group aims to address the issue of food safety, food security and sustainability in Malaysia with its commercial large scale and industrial grade indoor vertical farms.
Food Security: According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM), in 2018 Malaysia was a net importer of approximately RM 18 billion yearly for food comprising crops, livestock and fishery with selected food items including cabbages and chilli below the 50% self-sufficiency ratio (SSR), which means that the supply of these agriculture produce in the country is still not sufficient to meet domestic needs.
Food safety
Traditional farming methods involve farms in far away open farm land using pesticides, fungicides, herbicides as well as utilising existing supply chain and distribution methods requiring cold chain; the food we consume is not clean and fresh. Most “fresh vegetables including organic vegetables” are several days or even weeks old, preserved “fresh” using large amounts of chemicals and preservatives.
Indoor Vertical Farms are built within the community, closest to where the food and vegetables are to be consumed, fulfilling “Farm to Fork” within hours. This means delivering clean, fresh, tasty, nutrient rich, chemical free and high quality food that is wholesome and good for our health.
Sustainability
Using a myriad of advanced technologies to ensure the methods and approach of growing food is repeatable, scalable and traceable to feed everyone in our ever growing population, in an inclusive manner. Agroz’s indoor vertical farms use IoT, sensors, big data analytics, vision, artificial and AI, machine learning (ML), blockchain and (in future) 5G communications, combined with innovative and differentiated business models as well as financing to create a new sustainable approach to modern precision agriculture through indoor vertical farming.
Agroz Group is seeking to raise RM 100 million by issuance of Redeemable Convertible Preference Shares (RCPS), with exit plans in 5 years through a proposed initial public offering (IPO) or via a trade sale to a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), if applicable.
Agroz Group currently has over RM 5 million worth of contracts in its order books with millions of dollars more in the pipeline to design, build, operate and manage various Indoor Vertical Farms.
Agroz Group
gerard@agrozgroup.com
www.agrozgroup.com