Swegreen launched its ‘NextGen’ in-store vertical farms in Ica Maxi megastore in Linköping. This puts the company’s Farming-as-a-Service growing unit for leafy greens right at the entrance of the store.
Swegreen’s in-store service will make the Ica Maxi megamarket in Linköping, located in Mid-Sweden, the first of all Sweden’s megamarkets to offer fresh herbs and salads grown from seed to fully grown plant inside the store itself. Every day, several hundred fresh leafy vegetables can be harvested for the store’s customers on-site.
"It won’t get more locally produced than this", says Ica Maxi Linköping’s CEO Tomas Lundvall. The actual cultivation facility, which takes place in the middle of the store entrance, will have glass walls from floor to ceiling. This, together with an eye-catching light from the plants’ LED system, will leave a clear mark on the entrance to the store when installation is ready later this spring.
Cultivation
"We have chosen a central place for cultivation to really insist on our commitment to a greener and more climate-smart food production model. The cultivation will be an attraction in itself for our customers, and once they get the opportunity to taste these crops, many will understand what a fantastic quality such a cultivation system offers", Tomas highlights.
The new in-store system can recover energy, carbon dioxide and nutrients. Swedish agtech company Swegreen, is behind the product, which has developed both the cultivation system itself and also the AI-based control and monitoring system which, via a cloud service, controls and optimizes the environment and ensures the process of growth in the cultivation.
"We are very proud to work with the Ica Maxi in Linköping and their team for this project and installation. Their commitment to hyperlocal, sustainable and climate-smart-produced food shows that this is a megastore at the forefront of the sector," says Swegreen’s CEO Andreas Dahlin.
The new in-store service will start delivering leafy greens in May, and it will then be able to supply the megastore with different kinds of herbs such as coriander, dill, parsley, also lettuces and different varieties such as kale. The crops will also be used for in-house production in the store’s own kitchen, and in the future potentially more vegetables.
For more information:
Swegreen
Andreas Dahlin, CEO of Swegreen
[email protected]
www.swegreen.se