Automation and cost reduction of the hardware and software components of a novel indoor sustainable vertical growing solution

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The applicants are leading developers of indoor "vertical" growing cabinets that enable the user to grow their own green produce in their own homes or place of work. Most importantly of all, the applicant (Evogro) produces cabinets that are intelligent enough to manage the growth process remotely for the customer. Evogro provides clients with a complete integrated system including hardware, consumables, remote monitoring and support services, which enables them to grow-their-own high quality crops with minimal effort and without needing horticultural expertise. Customers can harvest fresh green at any time and avoid significant environmental impact of conventional salad produce.Evogro are selling these cabinets to restaurants and hotels who grow high value greens on site. This is a specialist market that has enabled the business to develop but the volume of sales are too low to enable Evogro to achieve the economies of scale needed to make the business fully profitable. Evogro's vision is to automate and streamline the system software to make it less labour intensive for Evogro to operate. Furthermore, Evogro aims to develop and simplify the cabinet production process such that the cost price of the cabinet is much lower. This will then enable the growing system to be in the price range of domestic consumers and a wider range of customers in the food services sector.If Evogro is able to secure Innovate UK loan support the business project can increase growing system sales to an expectant client base in the UK and internationally.