Founded by a former software engineer, the company--which just received almost $1 million in funding--is working on ways to provide local food to cities. And by local, they mean truly local. Their special "growing pods" can produce food anywhere.
As fuel prices go up, the cost of shipping produce thousands of miles away rises accordingly. In the past few years, a number of companies have attempted to capitalize on the increasing hunger for locally produced food--we've seen rooftop farming startupBrightFarms and Brooklyn hydroponic farming startup Gotham Greens, just to a name a couple. PodPonics, an Atlanta-based company started by a former software programmer, thinks it can outgrow them all. The company is already well on its way. Last week, PodPonics announced that it raised $725,000 in a seed funding round led by private investors.
PodPonics started in 2010 when founder Matt Liotta--a serial entrepreneur who has launched Internet, software, and telecom startups--noticed that demand significantly outstripped supply in the local food business. "[My work] in Internet, telecom, and agriculture is all pretty similar in that the goal was to find a mature industry and come up with a disruptive technology," he says. "If you wanted to produce fresh produce at the point of consumption in a way that was economically viable, what would you have to invent to do it?"
Liotta decided to use recycled shipping containers as "grow pods," which are outfitted with organic hydroponic nutrient solutions; computer-controlled environmental systems to regulate temperature, humidity, pH levels, and CO2; and lights that emit specific spectrums at different points in the day. The system provides the exact amount of water, lights, and nutrients that a crop requires--so there is no wasted energy (though the pods are still hooked up to the power grid). In a 320 square foot area, PodPonics can produce an acre's worth of produce. The pods can be stacked on top of each other for more efficient use of space.
The startup already supplies 150 pounds of lettuce, arugula, and other microgreens to restaurants (and a smattering of independent groceries) throughout the Atlanta area every week. "We've presold three times more production than we have. The question is, how do we build this faster and more efficiently than we do today? There's an unlimited demand that we're unable to satisfy," says Liotta.
COMMENTARY: I think it's a slick idea. Green greens. The ability to grow locally-grown veggies close to users, inside recycled cargo containers. This offers a protected environment away from bugs and diseases. Plus, you can ship those veggies quickly and get them to stores and restaurants very fast while they are at the peak of freshness. This makes for a very efficient farming system without the farm and weather problems that go with it. Vegetables grown year-round. I bet they are making a bundle to convince investors to give them $725,000.
Courtesy of an article dated August 2, 2011 appearing in Fast Company
Well toast to that!
We can always master hydroponics system, you'll never know we can use it on space travels.
Posted by: plumbing supplies | 12/19/2011 at 04:01 PM