It is sprouting in the Swedish salad sector. Several fast-growing startups are currently scaling up their vertical salad factories and 20-fold production.
At vertical farm Ljusgårda in Tibro, the factory is now being expanded for SEK 130 million. "We will grow from a cultivation area of 300 square meters to 2,500 and thus from cultivating 2 tonnes a month to 60 tonnes when the factory is in full swing after the summer," says Maria Hillerström, marketing manager at Ljusgårda.
For now, Ljusgårda focuses on one product, a crispy salad in a bag. “We will expand with more products this spring", explains Maria Hillerström. However, the expansion does not stop there. The company is already planning to operate several factories.
"We have ambitious expansion plans and are looking at a number of possible new locations," explains Ljusgårdas' CEO Andreas Wilhelmsson.
Among the partners of the salad company, we also find H&M's Chairman Karl Johan Persson's own investment box Philian.
“We have dialogues here with investors. As our first factory will soon start producing, it's time to start financing the growth plans. The interest is huge out there. On the one hand, we are joining the sustainability trend, foodtech is starting to become very popular at the same time as this type of company out in the countryside where we are is not so common. It is a perfect development that has given us a lot of attention," states Andreas Wilhelmsson.
Read the complete article at www.di.se (in Swedish).