“At this point, we’re at an operative level, however, we’re aiming to create a new commerce, namely a franchised model where others can start their own indoor farm,” says Endre Szucs, co-founder of bedrock.farm. “We’re in contact with a large Hungarian supplier to build an urban farm next to their warehouses, for them to supply their customers. We’re starting to roll out more urban farms throughout the city. Next to that, we’re expanding with three to four farms abroad, such as Romania for instance.”
Bedrock.farm is based near Budapest’s Danube river, in the heart of the city, within a 20-minute walking distance to its clients. The company is growing in a basement, which normally cannot be used for many other purposes, says Endre, however the company is glad to re-use unused spaces with added value for the community.
Co-founders László Sebestyén and Endre Szucs
(Photo credits: László Sebestyén)
Farm control platform
“As our main skill is thoroughly managing farm production, we’re getting new species in a larger production setting, providing consistency. The team is constantly developing the system enabling automation and efficiency. We’re opting for manufacturing as well because there aren’t many options available in the market. Therefore, we’re developing our own systems which are price friendly.
Our aim is to develop remote quality tools for indoor farms by establishing that in our own farms, which we use as our benchmark. The cloud-connected technology allows for complete farm control, gathering data of all farms connected to the system. Just put the plug into the electricity and it’s ready to go. Being interconnected enables other system users for constant updates of crop growing recipes all available to them. Our decentralized network of indoor farms provides ‘calmness as a service’ for local chefs. Our self-developed growth platform guarantees a mass, customized and continuous supply of crops year-round,” says Endre.
The bedrock team consists of people with a background in product- and management development. The farm consists of 150m2 growing room, whereas the company will upscale the facility with another 50-55m2 growing space. Within a year, another facility will be opened in another part of the city. As for now, bedrock.farm provides microgreens, edible flowers, herbs and leafy greens to chefs, and local specialty stores.
Photo credits: László Sebestyén
Modular farms
These crops are cultivated in bedrock.farm’s self-developed small, but scalable and adaptable growing system. “We basically turned the indoor farming model around and sliced up the big factories. Creating smaller, but more modular farms which are suited to fulfill the ever-changing local demand. We’re carrying our produce directly into the city. The brand bedrock.farm is a platform and managed between distributed ‘urban’ farming production and local demand.
Bedrock.farm is currently kicking off its next funding round, a €1 million seeding round with the aim to further develop and explore crop varieties. With this funding round the company focuses on manufacturing in order to add more farms to its network.
The company is trying to meet the demand of its current orders. According to Endre, it’s harder to supply demand and invest in new production capacity. The pandemic had a huge effect on the supply chains so managing the acquisition of raw materials and technological solutions are still hard.
For more information:
Endre Szucs, Co-founder
bedrock.farm
end@bedrock.farm
www.bedrock.farm