Approximately one mile east of Scunthorpe, near England’s easternmost city, the Jones Food Company (JFC), owner of Europe’s largest vertical farm, has broken ground on what will eventually be the world’s largest vertical farm.
There will be 148,000 square feet of growing space at the new multimillion-pound farm being constructed in the English county of Gloucestershire.
Its size will be similar to almost 70 tennis courts and it will be able to supply thousand of UK supermarkets with fresh produce, the group stated.
“With this new facility we further accelerate Britain’s position as a world-leader when it comes to vertical farming,” said JFC founder James Lloyd-Jones. “We already supply thousands of British retail stores with basil grown in our first facility in Lincolnshire but this new site, which is three times bigger, will allow us to supply tens of thousands more stores and to widen our product offer with our partners.”
With its UK-based headquarters in Lincolnshire and backing from the Ocado Group, the Jones Food Company was founded in 2017 and opened its doors in 2018.
The JFC2 facility is due to open in early 2022, and will be able to serve supermarkets throughout the UK.
“Our food supply chain is under significant stress, with empty supermarket shelves and shortages of foods increasingly common place, vertical farming is undoubtedly a vital part of the UK’s and the world’s farming future,” Lloyd-Jones added. “Given what we’re already doing, the world-leading technology we have and the intensely pressing need for more sustainable forms of farming over coming decades we plan to be able to supply 70 per cent of the UK’s fresh produce within the next ten years.
“From an environmental perspective, vertical farming allows us to grow in 17 layers, so every acre becomes seventeen times more productive. It allows us to grow entirely without pesticides and using 95 per cent less water. And it means we can significantly reduce the air and road miles of the foods we grow.
“But vertical farming doesn’t just make environmental sense, it makes economic sense too,” he explained. “Scale is vital in order to create a cost base that allows us to deliver delicious, healthy herbs, salad leaves, cut flowers, fruit and veg at a price the average shopper also really likes. This second facility further cements our ability to do this.
“And this isn’t the end, we fully anticipate more facilities in other parts of country and around the world in coming years.”
Floyd-Jones says JFC now believes that through the latest vertical farm technology, ‘the garden of England’ can now grow in Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Argyll, Fermanagh or virtually any other county in the country, providing sustainable food storage options for the UK.
“We’ve learnt so much, had such strong backing and have such amazing technology that we now believe we can replicate and replicate and replicate,” he continued.
“I accept we’re currently a small part of the UK’s agriculture industry, but this move makes us mainstream, it makes us a really significant player in this country. And you only have to look at Germany, the Netherlands, the United States, across the Middle East and Asia to see this is a global movement, revolutionising the way the world grows produce – vertical farming is the future.
“Building the world’s biggest vertical farm puts the UK at the vanguard of this global movement – we’re leading the world’s vertical farming revolution.”
Source : fruitnet
