Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Minecraft and Vertical Farms: Harvest London's Canary Wharf Operation

Transcript

Minecraft and Vertical Farms: Harvest London's Canary Wharf Operation · Hydroponics Daily

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  Hello there and welcome back to
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  Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
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  I'm your host Dr. Russell Sharp and as I say in previous episodes I am the founder
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  of Utrema Limited and we make interesting fertilizers, novel biostimulants and
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  organic biopesticides.
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  And I was whatsapped by a friend of mine with some really interesting news about hydroponics.
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  And this one is a hydroponic farm that you can go and visit in London.
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  And anyone can go and visit it. Now, I am lucky enough to go and have visited
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  some of the most impressive hydroponic facilities in the world,
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  really, in North America, Europe, and in the UK.
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  But I'm an industry insider. If you remember the general public,
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  you don't really get to see hydroponic setups or vertical farms.
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  And that's disappointing because you do get to see other farms.
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  You can go out and visit a carrot farm in your local area
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  or whatever it is that they grow in your local area but very rarely do you get
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  to see a vertical farm you can see it on youtube you can see pictures of them
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  you might be able to go to a grow shop but and maybe a grow tent very small
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  scale but very rarely you can see a vertical farm normally they're hidden inside massive warehouses,
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  or in shipping containers with no windows even those that are next to restaurants could be in a.
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  Customers, the diners, to actually see them being grown.
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  The closest you get is maybe a cabinet being grown with some leafy veg inside.
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  However, this is very different.
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  My friend Benjamin Litchfield, he texted me and said that he was there with
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  his family at the Minecraft Experience in London, which is in Canary Wharf, Canada Square.
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  And he said that they've got a massive hydroponic farm and send me some pictures
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  and it turns out is this company called harvest london which has come on my
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  radar recently as well and they are supplying leafy greens and vegetables to.
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  Local restaurants in the city of london and in canary wharf where the supply
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  will be difficult to get hold of especially fresh produce and shelf life and
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  quality might be limited because of the just the sheer fact of having to get
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  fresh produce into the city of london which is difficult,
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  most people commute in because the roads are so difficult and
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  there's you know there's a congestion charge and things like this so
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  they have set up in canary wharf itself and they're
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  growing multi-tiered looks like ebb
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  and flood or nft system and the beauty of this
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  is that the the walls of a
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  lot of the grow room are open to the public and to especially there's sort of
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  like sofas where you can lounge around outside and a restaurant area with lots
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  of street food type kiosks where you can go and have food and maybe some of these.
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  Restaurants and street foods are supplied by Harvest London,
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  and there is a pizza company that's supplied by them.
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  And kids are going to go to the Minecraft experience that's on there,
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  especially at half term, as it is at the moment, during the holidays,
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  and they're going to see crops being grown hydroponically in a vertical farm,
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  which is really interesting, and will spark their imagination.
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  And you can just sit there and look at the crops being grown and harvested and
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  operations, and so you can study.
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  If you want to study how they do it, then you can go and see it there's no
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  clearly then there's no trade secrets on display
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  so i think this is a fantastic opportunity and
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  i'll be getting down to canada square to go and have a look the pictures
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  look amazing there's nothing revolutionary it's
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  like let's have a count four five tier deep so it's not a small short hydroponic
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  setup it's fairly big and they've got led lights and trays which i think are
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  either nft or flood and drain they're growing microgreens and leafy veg and.
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  Yeah, it's an impressive site. And they've got seeding areas and germination areas.
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  And yeah, they claim it to be 100% pesticide-free as well.
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  So obviously it's glass walls, so you can't actually get into the growing room.
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  But you don't need to. You can look in. You don't need to touch, as I tell my children.
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  You just have to look. And yeah, you can see how they're getting on. It'd be interesting.
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  Obviously, their biosecurity and their systems will have to be cleaner than
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  clean because they can't get away with any nasties because they're always on show to the public.
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  So they can't be saying they're 100% pesticide-free and then spraying stuff,
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  and they can't be having algae everywhere and lots of waste around and things like this.
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  So the fact that they're on public display all the time will keep them on their toes.
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  It also plays into a lot of psychological triggers when it comes to purchasing.
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  And you think being on display in the public has no advantage,
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  but it's been shown through a number of psychological experiments that when
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  people can see the effort that something has taken to be produced,
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  they value it more and prepare to pay more for it.
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  So if you went to the pizzeria and they said,
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  this is being grown in that vertical farm next door,
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  and you can see the people working away and you can see the effort that's required,
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  then you will value it much more and that's proven with things like when restaurants
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  where you can see the chefs working if you go to a number of restaurants now
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  you can see the open plan kitchen whether that is a chain restaurant like Wagamama's.
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  You know which is you know a chain a family
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  restaurant or you go to a mitchell and star restaurant you're
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  a mitchell and star restaurant so you can see the chefs working even the
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  chefs come out for this specific reason
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  this psychological trigger that when
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  people see the effort that something was um
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  took to be made they evaluate more so
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  we could see more sort of facilities like this one in harvest london and i think
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  it's a great opportunity i think they could doing it the right way and they
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  are maximizing their potential there's a lot of people on linkedin certain people
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  who won't be named who always talking about growing crops on top of supermarkets.
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  That is a stupid idea because you the people
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  don't see it it's on top of the supermarkets they're never going to see
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  it so they're not going to value it more and also you have
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  to pack it and and sanitize it and
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  harvest it and you have to get all the
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  fertilizer and things like this so it's not an easy the post
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  harvest is just as difficult as the the growing and
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  that's going to be even more difficult to do on top of a supermarket
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  especially when you've got acids and alkalis and things like
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  this that could leak through into the supermarket and you
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  know leafy veg is only a small part of what a supermarket grows whereas
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  something like this a farm integrated into a
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  food hall a food court where people can
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  see it and taste it and experience it
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  i think is a great opportunity so chapeau to
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  harvest london and everyone at canada water
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  who's involved in that so um a really interesting one if
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  you're into minecraft then double bubble you can get down there and experience
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  some minecraft and also some hydroponic grain and the vertical farm almost does
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  look like it's been built but by a player on minecraft the the windows are all squares the.
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  The units are all rectangular and so you can
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  imagine it the exact same system being rendered
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  in a minecraft world so really
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  interesting that one thank you very much for listening to this babble today
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  our website, and check out what we do.
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  That's been Hydroponics Daily for today. Thank you very much for listening and
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  until next time, goodbye.