As many of us have probably arrived home or are still recovering, the Indoor AgCon has come to an end. Hovering over the exhibition floor were 1500+ attendees, whereas 250 exhibitors came down to Vegas to showcase their products and solutions for indoor farming. This year, we've seen a lot of interesting panels coming into the program with cannabis, cultivating possibilities, planning & operations, and growers track on the side, filled with numerous panels that highlighted opportunities and challenges and delivered some proper discussions.
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The Montel team: Michael Trzpit, Jerome Doucet and Kevin Biernacki
Rick Langille with Harvest Today
With a large chunk of suppliers coming in, a lot of visitors came down to Vegas to see the latest trends at the show. Noticeable was the topic around CEA and retail, which was brought to the front in many panels. As seen in yesterday's article, CEA-grown products are becoming increasingly important to US retailers as external factors are growing, which causes a lot of supply volatility and uncertainty for both retailers and consumers. Luckily, a lot of partnerships are closed with indoor producers, mainly on the greenhouse side, and steadily in vertical farming.
Overall, exhibitors and attendees let slip that North America is most promising at this point in we're not excluding Mexico in this, in terms of greenhouse projects that keep increasing. The US greenhouse sector in Canada and the US continues to grow as new projects and acquisitions are in the pipeline. We're seeing greenhouse suppliers adding North American offices to add local presence and keep up with the speed of the market. As for the European market, it remains rather quiet, with an exception for the UK, Scandinavian, and Eastern European markets as, unfortunately, electricity prices are still causing growers to be limited in expansion.
Rick Schneiders and Raymundo Bacar Jr. with Siemens
The AmHydro team
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Coming from many lighting suppliers, new projects are expected to be rolled out in vertical farming though, globally, which is a good sign. This means that the market might not be there yet, but many are working on their operations to either pivot business models or increase efficiency in CapEx, but we'll get there. As many panels pointed out, the investment pit might have been a bit drier than before, but retail is pushing the need for CEA to stay there in the long run. We're hopeful!
Make sure to pencil in the Indoor Ag-Con 2025 edition which will be taking place on 11-12 March 2024 in Las Vegas, USA.
Now, it's your favorite time of the day: photo time!! If we haven't been able to pass by your booth and get a photo, please feel free to send it to info@verticalfarmdaily.com to have it included in the photo report.