Growing the farm of the future

Hidden in a modern warehouse in a Gold Coast industrial estate is a company that is revolutionising the farming industry.

Gold Coast-based start-up Stacked Farm? is using robots to plant, grow, and harvest crops indoors in vertically stacked layers.

The company has developed the technology, with pending patents, to fully automate fruit and vegetable farming and the process requires vastly less water than regular farming, and no pesticides or agrochemicals. The operations are also less vulnerable to fires, floods and droughts while the crops can be harvested all year round.

Sam Canavan , the Chief Operating Officer of Stacked Farm, said the business was originally started as a hobby but is now eyeing off global expansion.

Stacked Farm raised more than $50 million to build a 20-level vertical farm on 2000sqm section of a 6500sqm Arundel warehouse and has also received significant incentives from the City of Gold Coast. The facility also includes a 2000sqm workshop for future farm construction, a 446sqm cold room and a wing dedicated to Research and Development.

The new facility which is now in full production is engineered to output more than 400 tonnes of herbs and leafy greens per year. Depending on the variety, crops can be ready to harvest in just 16 to 31 days, compared to 45 to 80 days at a traditional farm.

Stacked Farm, which is now the biggest player in Australia’s vertical farming industry, says it can produce more crops more quickly and in less space than traditional agriculture requires.

However, Mr Canavan says vertical farms will not replace traditional farms in Australia any time soon.

“Australia, with its abundance of land, doesn’t need to rely on farms like ours for our future,’’ he said.

“So, in Australia, I think vertical farms will be a provider of niche products all year round.

“But if you look at the Middle East and South East Asia, where the agricultural industry is limited, you begin to see the huge potential of the business”.

Stacked Farm is now planning to expand nationally and internationally as the company grows.

Mr Canavan, who joined the company three months ago after an international career, says the Gold Coast has been transformed.

“Under no circumstances would I have considered moving back to the Gold Coast until after Covid-19,’’ he said.

“Having grown up in Queensland, I got out of Queensland as soon as I finished a short period in the Australian army.

“I headed to Sydney and then overseas, I spent a lot of time overseas in Singapore, US, Middle East and Asia. The Gold Coast was not on my radar even though my identical twin brother lived here.

“But after the Covid-19 epidemic, it was incredible the volume of people I knew well and respected who had moved to the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast is diversifying and growing into a much better business destination very quickly.”

A big part of the appeal of moving to the Gold Coast was also the level of innovation Mr Canavan saw coming out of Stacked Farm.

Stacked Farm’s growing facility is fully automated, and well into production. It has developed its own structures, lighting, seeding and harvesting machines, which means from seed to packaging, the produce is not touched by humans.

“When I was in Singapore, vertical farming and urban farming was becoming a big thing,’’ said Mr Canavan.

“Singapore has no food sovereignty and limited farming land. The industry developed very quickly, and they were developing farms on rooftops and any space they could.

“It really piqued my interest in the sector but at that stage I hadn’t seen anything coming out of Australia.

“Since then, I have visited a lot of vertical farms and what they have achieved at Stacked Farm is world-leading.

“The company is clearly the most innovative vertical farm in the southern hemisphere because of the level of automation, the patent applications we have in place and the scale of the operation.

“I was staggered when I discovered the types of innovation that was coming out of the company.”

Mr Canavan said another reason that attracted him to Stacked Farm was that if the business model could be successful in Australia, with its comparatively high wages and high energy costs, the model would work anywhere around the world.

“That is what compelled me to join the company,’’ he said. “I started with the company in late June, and I am very excited about our future.”

Mr Canavan says the calibre of people moving to the Gold Coast is incredible, but the city’s business leaders still need to better tailor the message for potential recruits.

?“I think one of the major appeals is that the Gold Coast does have something of a more laidback nature,’’ he said.

“Yes, the weather is wonderful, and everybody knows it is, but the city’s culture feels very different. If you are in the world’s big business capitals like Sydney, New York and London, you constantly feel the stress of the rat race, even when you are not working.

?“Maybe it’s because there is not an expectation here that people should work 70 hours per week. For many companies in many countries, the idea of work-life balance is really just paid lip service. ?

“My view is that there is a huge level of diminishing returns after people work 50 hours in a week. As somebody who has worked in 30 countries, there is a huge positive aspect to having a great work-life balance. Retention rates are better, and it attracts the right people.

“It is the city that creates that work-life balance naturally. The sun is out and you should be out too, spending time with your family.”

“That is not to say that the Gold Coast does not encourage productivity. It certainly does.”

Mr Canavan said that while Stacked Farm liked to say the farm only required 6 people to run and maintain, but there were actually 50 employees at the company.

“I like to say we are a robotics company masquerading as a farmer. About 80% of our employees are engineers. All but one of the robotics used in our proprietary closed-loop farming system have been designed, built, and patented here.

“As an example of the incredible innovation here, our grow cycle only extends 31 days. During that time, from planting to harvesting and bagging, nothing is touched by hands.

“After the food is harvested, the growing trays go through what we call the ‘clean machine’. That takes 90 seconds and they are back in the production line and re-seeded.

“So, in a month of growing time, the trays are out of commission for 90 seconds.”

Mr Canavan said he would strongly encourage people to also think about how they should be positioning their company.

He said he found that Queensland business owners, perhaps because of the tall poppy syndrome in Australia, did not trumpet their achievements as much as people did overseas.

“At Stacked Farm we are proud to call ourselves the most innovative vertical farming operation in the world,’’ he said. “In my experience, Queensland business owners don’t do enough work on promoting themselves and the achievements of their businesses.”

Mr Canavan says he has found that it is very easy to do business on a national level from the Gold Coast.

“I honestly thought it would be difficult to attract the big decision makers to visit the farm, but the opposite is true,’’ he said.

“It is very easy to do business from the Gold Coast and there is a big reason for that. For many people, they will take any excuse to come to the Gold Coast, even if it is just for a day trip.

“The Gold Coast Airport means that decision makers from Sydney and Melbourne can jump on a plane, be here for a morning tour of the farm, enjoy a lunch and be back home on the same day.”

With production at the farm now running at full capacity, the company has signed a series of deals with major customers for its produce. One of those customers is the gourmet burger chain Grill’d.

“We worked with Grill’d to develop a specific type of leaf shape to work with the burgers they make,’’ he said. “They asked us because they were wasting too much lettuce.

“Over the course of the year, we designed a perfectly sized Cos lettuce leaf in one of our 12 R&D rooms.? The new products is markedly more efficient for them and they are able to make many more burgers from every kilogram of lettuce.”

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