Situated in the midst of fertile farmland on the edge of the Romanian plain, Ploiesti is not an obvious place for a vast indoor farm. Yet the vertical farm was recently set up by retailer Kaufland and the largest local grower of microgreens and aromatic herbs. Ultragreens meets a need; it will supply customers of Kaufland hypermarkets in the area with fresh herbs and leafy greens.
Ultragreens’ vertical greenhouse is one of a growing number being set up in Western and increasingly in Central and Southeast Europe as well to meet the continent’s year-round demand for fresh fruit and vegetables. Projects like this can be considered the pioneers of a new model of agriculture to feed the world’s growing urban populations as climate change takes its toll on traditional agriculture.
Before setting up the vertical farm for Kaufland Ploiesti, Ultragreens installed modular hydroponic farming units for Kaufland and fellow retailers Carrefour and Cora with in-aisle micro-vertical farms in 25 locations across Romania.
The company says it is taking agriculture to “new horizons.” “Basically, we have engaged our business towards farm as a service, based on the requests and needs of the Romanian market. We have our proprietary vertical farm technology, developed by our R&D team, and currently, we are scaling up production facilities in large farming units called GreenHubs,” Ultragreens’ marketing specialist Ioana Dumitriu said.
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