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Why 'Hydroponic' Doesn't Sell: Lessons from Growy · 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 today I am at the World Congress for Vertical
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  Farming. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? And it is!
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  Today was the first day and we went on a trip to a vertical farm called Growy,
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  and there were so many interesting things that
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  we talked about and we saw that I don't want to give it a rushed podcast
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  where haven't fully researched it and i'm not
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  half pissed in a hotel room in
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  amsterdam so i thought i'd talk about one specific aspect
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  of what growy do and labeling of
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  hydroponic crops and produce in general
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  because i think it's a really interesting topic so they
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  said that that for their
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  for their customers they just put on that it's
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  pesticide free and you don't need to wash it they were
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  the first two first only sort
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  of you know important points that they wanted to emphasize
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  pesticide free you don't need to wash it there was nothing that said that it
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  was grown hydroponically or on a vertical farm or had anything to do with the
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  technology on the bag which i thought was really interesting because the customer
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  just doesn't care it doesn't solve the problem when they're in the supermarket
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  of how they feed their family or feed themselves,
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  all they care about is is it pesticide free not necessarily is it organic is
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  it free of those nasty things that are going to harm me and do i need to wash it if.
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  Pain in washing the vegetables and washing the fresh fruit fresh produce and then having to,
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  dry it more importantly so especially with herbs and
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  things like this so that's all they cared about the company's name wasn't.
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  Necessarily on the bag on some of them
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  it was and that's important because they as long.
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  As you can throw your ego out of the door and
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  are happy to have it because i not know your name then people
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  don't care so they're more than happy to allow the supermarkets to to
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  label it just have a small label on it saying where it's
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  from and at the end of the day customers very very rarely
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  read the packet text on
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  a bag of lettuce do you you just know is it
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  lettuce and when is the use by date and that
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  was something that they emphasized there was because it's virtually grown
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  it's not grown in a field where you get mud splatter and
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  things like this they had a massively long shelf life
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  i think it was about 16 days for their lettuce and then
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  obviously less for herbs and microgreens but that
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  was really interesting so customers just care about what it is what it
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  looks like through the transparent bag so that's
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  important you have to be able to see the the produce and the
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  use by date so there's three things interestingly the
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  farm today had experimented with completely
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  paper or card based packaging but obviously
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  the farmer the grow supermarkets insisted on
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  there being some plastic there so you could actually see the
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  crop see the see the lettuce and the herbs so obviously
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  that the customers just wouldn't buy it if they couldn't see it and then obviously
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  not having the name of the company there not having saying grown hydroponically
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  is an important point to consider if you're an investor in hydroponics because
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  people aren't going to pay a premium for the produce that's grown or manufactured.
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  With a really high-tech technology so
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  you know if you're if you were buying guttering for
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  your house you wouldn't pay a premium if you knew that it
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  was produced with a specific new laser
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  technology you would pay more if it was you know
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  potentially biodegradable or uv safe and things like this and
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  so features and benefits is what people are buying
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  they're not buying the technology used for manufacturing and that's critical
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  for investors to understand because yes it might be a better slightly better
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  product when you look at use use by days and stuff like this but it has to compete
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  in a one-on-one race with field-grown vegetables and things like this.
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  So really interesting point there.
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  But what really brought this home to me for a really interesting point was because
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  on the way back to the hotel, I stopped off at a supermarket,
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  my favorite supermarket, Jumbo.
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  If Jumbo want to sponsor the podcast, I'm more than happy. They are my favorite
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  supermarket in Holland. I had to go into a Jumbo to get their amazing deviled eggs.
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  Went to pick up some salad from the salad bar and it
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  was all the growy produce in there
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  so i knew the guys laura and people
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  like that at growy uh weren't talking rubbish when
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  they were talking about vertical farming and the intricacies
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  of vertical growth because when i
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  went into my favorite shop in holland there was
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  their produce and it was stacking the stuff the shelves
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  it was you know that everywhere and that's the
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  important other point to consider when it's a point of
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  sale vegetables and herbs in supermarkets rather
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  than say restaurant supply or markets or
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  things like this or direct to end user is that
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  often you can get a monopoly on a
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  shop for the supply of a particular produce you
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  know if i wanted to go in and grow marsh sandfire for say
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  sainsbury's then i might be able to get a
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  monopoly on just marsh sandfire but if i'm growing
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  lettuce then i'm probably going to be supplying a lot of the other
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  mixed herbs and mixed veg and
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  all sorts so maybe not
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  the best product often wins it's maybe the best distributor and
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  best middleman things like this who can get
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  the advantage as we talked about with the fruit attraction.
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  Podcast often it's the middleman making
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  the money the logistics moving it from a to b
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  maybe that that's why they get their their big
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  books because they can secure the big contracts between the
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  supermarkets and the producers but who knows maybe we
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  should do an in-depth investigation or if you know more
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  please let me know email into hydroponics daily
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  and another episode tomorrow where i'll.
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  Probably give a brief overview of some of the talks we've listened to and then
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  i'll go into more in depth on specific subjects certainly learned a lot today
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  at groey so that's very much worthy of one or two podcasts about the amazing
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  robots and grow rooms they've got in that massive vertical farm in the city center of Amsterdam.
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  Thank you very much for listening and until tomorrow, goodbye.