U.K. Supermarket Marks & Spencer Will Launch Infarm Vertical Farms In Six More London Stores

Infarm is a Berlin based vertical farming start-up founded in 2013, which raised $100 million in Series B funding earlier this year. With over five hundred of their hydroponic vertical farms in supermarkets (like Metro in Germany) and distribution centres around the world, which grow 200,000 plants each month.

By Elizabeth Rushe
Forbes
Oct 18, 2019

Excerpt:

“We believe that by offering produce grown and harvested in the heart of city, that’s how we want to practise this form of agriculture – resilient and sustainable and beneficial for the planet, while meeting the needs and desires of city dwellers like Londoners,” Co-founder of vertical farming start-up Infarm, Osnat Michaeli, told me yesterday on the phone from London, speaking about Infarm’s new partnership with UK supermarket Marks & Spencer.

Marks & Spencer is a much loved retailer in the UK, which was established 134 years ago and is known for high quality clothing, home wares and food products. Infarm’s hydroponic vertical farms will be launched in six more Marks & Spencer stores in central London by the end of the year, following the initial launch at the 105 year old Clapham Junction location in early September, which has been reopened as a food hall.

For the last few weeks, M&S shoppers have been able to purchase fresh herbs like Italian, Greek, or Bordeaux Basil, Mint, Curly Parsley and Mountain Coriander. The herbs are sold with their roots attached to maintain freshness. Infarm chose London for this rollout because it represents many of the sustainability challenges that people will experience in cities over the next decade, Michaeli told Forbes.

Read the complete article here.