Episode 178
178: Why Modular Vertical Farming Holds the Key to Scalable Food Security with Fischer Farm's Tristan Fischer
Ever wondered how to scale your vertical farm without breaking the bank—or your nerves?
In this episode of the Vertical Farming Podcast, I sit down with Tristan Fischer, CEO of Fisher Farms, one of the pioneers in modular farming technology. Tristan brings over 25 years of experience in clean energy and large-scale renewables, translating that expertise into creating more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective vertical farming solutions. Having navigated the challenges of building some of the largest vertical farms in the UK, Tristan is passionate about making vertical farming both accessible and sustainable—and he’s got the battle-tested insights to prove it.
We dive deep into Fisher Farms’ journey from traditional R&D setups to their cutting-edge modular approach, using shipping containers like building blocks for truly scalable farms. Tristan shares candid stories about the risks and surprises of massive farm construction, and how clever modular design is transforming the economics and flexibility of indoor agriculture, enabling global expansion—even in places like Abu Dhabi, where energy costs are astonishingly low.
Beyond technology, we explore Fisher Farms’ culture of innovation, their relentless focus on driving down costs, and why Tristan believes vertical farming should move from premium niche to practical staple for feeding the world. You’ll hear how the team’s values—kindness, respect, factfulness, and robustness—help foster big ideas and quick pivots, and how these principles drive Fisher Farms to be the lowest-cost vertical farm in the world.
If you’re ready to rethink what’s possible with vertical farming and discover how modularity might be the answer to your growth headaches, don’t miss this episode! Click play and join us as we explore the future of feeding the world—without wrecking the planet.
Ready to stop dreaming and start building a profitable, impactful vertical farm that transcends tired food system models? Click to listen and get inspired by Mary’s story, strategy, and actionable insights!
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Key Takeaways
00:00 Fisher Farms Expansion and Modular Approach
06:01 Overcoming Scaling Challenges at Farm Two
12:01 Fisher Farms Ethos and Focus on Cost Reduction
18:31 Advancements in Lighting and Efficiency
23:40 Competing with Glasshouses and New Market Opportunities
29:54 Modular Growth in the UAE and Global Impact
35:03 Plug and Play Modular Flexibility
40:02 Fisher Farms Technology Certification and Branding
46:08 Building an Innovative, Kind, and Robust Company Culture
52:42 Closing Reflections and Future Outlook
Tweetable Quotes
"If you have a thousand things which need to get right, I think we probably planned for about 900 of them and got them right, and then once Farm 2 got running, 50 of them were relatively quick to fix, but there were a few items which actually ended up being very, very difficult. Sometimes you had a problem hiding behind another problem."
"Our view is that if we focus on really driving down cost, cost, cost, cost, then we don’t have to worry about becoming a premium brand—but it gets us in the direction where we want to be, which is: how do you actually feed the world without trashing the planet at the same time?"
"What we want is my terrible idea and a genuinely bad idea, and your crazy, insane idea and somebody else’s drug-addled idea or sleep-addled idea—whatever it is—and they’re all actually genuinely bad ideas independently, but by putting those ideas together, layering those ideas on top, we come up with a beautiful, brilliant insight which none of us independently had thought about."
Resources Mentioned
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tristanfischer/?originalSubdomain=uk
Website - https://fischerfarms.co.uk/
Connect With Us
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Transcript
1
::So, Tristan Fisher, CEO of Fisher Farms, thank you so much for round two on
2
::the vertical farming podcast. Thank you. It's good to be, good to be back.
3
::So for. I'll direct the listeners and the viewers to that episode.
4
::We'll make sure that's in the show notes so they can get the origin story.
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::So we don't have to do too much of a deep dive there, but just
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::remind everyone where home is for you. So we are
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::based in Britain in the UK and Fisher Farms has
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::three sites now. So we've got Farm One, which is just north of
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::Birmingham, which is a 3200 square meter
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::vertical farm, which is mainly our research and development farm
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::now. And then we have Farm two, which is
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::just west of Norwich in England or east of
13
::Cambridge. And that is a 25,000 square
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::meter growing surface area farm, which makes it one of the largest vertical
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::farms in the world. And then we have a factory
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::near Birmingham airport at about 35 minutes away
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::from farm one, where we have a factory building
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::our next generation modular
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::vertical farms which are using shipping containers to be the
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::building blocks, almost like Lego of large vertical farms. So it's
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::a different from sort of a freight farm, shipping
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::container story, which is very much sort of individual units. It's
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::much more of using that structure to create
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::large vertical farms, but in a very, very modular fashion. But we can talk
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::about that. Yeah, for sure. So last time we spoke, I think Farm 2
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::was just under construction. So let's start there. Like
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::bring us up to speed what's happened since then. And it's
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::a big jump from the size of Farm one to Farm two. Yeah. So I
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::think it's a fascinating process actually going from
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::3,200 square meters to 25,000 square meters. And it
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::wasn't easy. It wasn't easy at all. And
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::we had a number of issues and it's sort of an
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::interesting one about size and
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::how you scale. And so
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::sort of the good news is that now it's working very well.
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::But it took us 18 months or so to build, but about
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::24 months to fix. And
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::it wasn't that we went into the project not
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::knowing anything about what we wanted to do and stuff like that. And we actually
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::built, planned a huge amount of our processes.
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::You know, we had a good understand of what we're going to do. Our software,
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::we had a very good understand about automation. We actually created an
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::entire automated harvesting, seeding, washing
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::line at Farm one. Just a practice about what we do. At
45
::Farm two, we built new
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::versions of our Building, which was a sort of different type of
47
::construction material out in Farm one as well. So we had a
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::lot of things that we planned and thought of. And I think that
49
::if you have a thousand things which need to get right, I think we
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::probably planned for about 900 of them and got them right and we got the
51
::right. And then once Farm 2 got running,
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::50 of them were relatively quick to fix. And then we probably
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::had, you know, a good sort of 35 or so which were
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::harder but doable. But there were a few items which actually
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::ended up being very, very difficult. You know. So to sort of some,
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::some examples, we used the software for Farm
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::one to Farm two, which kind of makes sense. But because Farm two
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::is so much bigger, we had a whole bunch of software issues which were
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::unexpected. So for example,
60
::we had had a whole conveyor system and our
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::bench trays which we sort of grabbed out of our tunnels and took them onto
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::a big robot, onto a conveyor system. As they went along the
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::conveyor system, there were a whole series of sensors. And the sensors would say stop
64
::and the tray would just continue going. And we were like, why
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::are you continue going? You know, it's sensors saying stop that we can see from
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::the logs that it's actually seeing that it's there. But the problem
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::was that there were so many movements were taking place at the time
68
::that the computer wasn't fast enough to calculate
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::all of the movements. And so it said stop. And then the
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::CPU dressedly is churning his mind, okay, okay, fine, it would
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::stop, but a little bit too late. And so sometimes we'd have
72
::bench trays just falling off the edge of the conveyor system
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::because they just hadn't stopped in time. We had other
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::issues whereby each. So just to sort of get your
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::head around the sort of layout of system, imagine a long
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::corridor is 100 meter long corridor. And then on the side,
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::left hand side and the right hand side of the corridor are 20 tunnels,
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::10 on each side, 10 on the other side. And all these big
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::yellow doors which open and we have
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::an automated storage retrieval unit which goes along and
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::the door automatically opens. The arm reaches
82
::out, grabs the tray and pulls the tray onto the robot
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::down and then onto the conveyor belt and goes all the way around. And
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::so we did a full scale test of this in our
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::factory. And so we had each one of the tunnels was
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::actually 40 meters long. So it's a long tunnel. So we did a
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::20 meter dummy tunnel with the robot going to
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::in front of the 20 meter tunnel and first of all, we did a five
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::year test. So we basically said, if you are cycling through
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::all these trays over five years, what is the result going to be? And so
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::we did a five year test. It was like absolutely fantastic, thought, wow, this is
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::great. And then I said, let's do a 20 year test. And so after about
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::year seven, the simulated year seven, all the bench
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::trays, the aluminum bench trays literally started to fall apart.
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::So we ended up having to redesign the trays. We did
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::different welding, we change all our wheels. And then after
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::that, we then did the 20 year test. And the test
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::was perfect. And I remember thinking of all the things that I need
99
::to worry about. This is not on that list. And so
100
::when we got to build Farm 2, we built
101
::the automated storage retrieval unit, went in, picked up all the trays
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::from the first tunnel. Perfect. Absolutely thrilled. This is just
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::great. No problems here. And then it moved along to the
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::next location. And then all of a sudden problems started to happen.
105
::And it took us a long time to actually figure out what the problem was.
106
::But essentially what had happened was that although the floor
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::of the corridor was flat, it wasn't flat,
108
::flat, flat, flat. Which basically meant that because it's
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::a 14 meter high robot, which is about 3 meters wide,
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::okay, if you were plus 2 millimeters on one side and minus
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::2 millimeters on the other side. So like a tiny, tiny variance by
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::the time you got to the top of the system, the grabber arms,
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::which went out to grab the trays, were a fraction of a second
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::off center. And so you grab the tray and one
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::would grab slightly earlier, which would cause a twisting motion.
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::And so as you twisted it would rip the trays apart and we'd have,
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::you know, plants and substrate and water just sort of gushing down and falling
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::all over the place. And so yet again, it's one of these things which, you
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::know, you did the testing, you know, you were really happy about that.
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::So that was problems. We also had issues. No, we were building it during COVID
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::so we had issues, for example, on a lot of our computer
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::chips, which we needed, which were generally being used in the car
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::industry. And you may remember people weren't able to buy cars because none of these
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::chips were available. So we got hit by things like that as well. So what's
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::interesting about Farm2 is that it was very big, took a long time to sort
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::of actually identify the problems. And sometimes we had a problem
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::hiding behind another problem. So we think we had the problem and then we
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::fixed that problem. But we didn't realize there was actually another
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::problem hiding behind that. And so we thought we fixed this problem. This is all
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::great, but actually we discover nothing at the end. So anyway, we finally
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::figured out all the issues. We got great runtime uptime now
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::producing fantastic crop and no products
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::which are mainly short, leafy green things, salads and herbs out of farm
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::too are going to a lot of the food service industry.
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::So a lot of restaurants, pub chains, Michelin star
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::restaurants, like really, really high quality. And so, no, we're very, very
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::happy about what's going on there. But
138
::we also came to the conclusion that building these very, very large
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::buildings had an inherent risk associated
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::with them. And the risk was that as we went on an international
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::basis, even if we use exactly the same
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::design, we would always go to a country and we'd use a
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::different main contractor, different
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::subcontractors, and they would all interpret what we had
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::chosen in our plans in a slightly different way. And it then became clear
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::that if you were slightly different, you could actually end up with projects which were
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::significantly over budget and delayed as a result of this. And so
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::by going back to the modular system, effectively what we've
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::got now is LEGO building blocks. And so we've got some building blocks
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::which are growing blocks. Some building blocks are welfare
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::units, some building blocks are irrigation blocks, some are corridor
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::blocks, some are blocks where we can put harvesting and seeding and
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::washing machines in there. And so we've got lots of different types of
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::these Lego building blocks which we can build in our factory.
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::So we can do the quality control, the quality assurance in the factory.
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::And because they are ISO international shipping organizations,
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::standard containers, we can send them anywhere in the world.
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::And so this becomes really interesting because we now have people who have
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::reached out to us and said, this is amazing, we're really interested in
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::this. And what we've discovered in this
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::process is that other vertical farm companies have
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::come to us and said, you know what? You are cheaper than what
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::we can build internally. Maybe we be using you
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::guys to actually do our expansion as well. And so that's becoming a
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::very, very interesting sort of market for us. Is actually working with other
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::vertical farm businesses and they essentially have the
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::benefit of an organization which knows what a really big farm is
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::and how you operate a really, really big vertical farm, but also
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::has gone through the learning curve of what to avoid
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::and what to actually do at a price point, which is
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::basically fantastic. That's an amazing update.
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::And it's such a dedication to quality and
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::a Commitment to ensuring that you're thinking long term about the
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::sustainability and the lasting impact of
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::your farm and all the moving parts that are required to make this work. And
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::so it's fascinating to hear how you were piecemealing all these different
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::scenarios and then understanding, you know, looking out that 20 year
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::window because obviously you're thinking about as people are using
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::your technology in your kit, you know, thinking
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::ahead, you know, to, and figuring out how much of an investment this is for
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::them on the upfront side, being conscious of, you know, looking
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::out for them. And I'm wondering, Tristan, where does this mindset or
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::this approach come? Is it an amalgamation of just like brain power
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::you have on the team, or is this just something like an
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::ethos that, you know, Fisher Farms carries. In
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::thinking through how you build things? I think the various things. So first of all,
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::I've spent 25 years in a whole range of different clean
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::energy technologies. So I've done a lot of solar farms,
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::including working on actually the construction of
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::a factory making solar panels. There's a
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::years and years ago when I was working with Shell Renewables, doing a joint
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::venture with Saint Gobain, building a solar factory, making
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::thin film solar panels. So I've gone from
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::literally making factories and how factories are designed to create these
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::modular systems in the solar side. Now I've done a lot of solar projects, a
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::lot of wind projects. In my previous company, lumicity, we built
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::179 biomass packaged plant rooms. And these biomass
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::package plant rooms are very similar footprint in size to our
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::grow modules that we have for Fisher Farms. You know, slightly more complicated than
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::what we have for Fisher Farms, but we built 179 of them in a six
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::month period of time. And that yet again, sort of got me used to sort
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::of looking at things from a modular basis. And what we saw out of that
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::was that the first package plant rooms we built were taking like
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::sort of five days to build, then four days to build and three days to
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::build. And eventually they took us about two days to build these units. As you
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::just got better and better at looking at these and becoming more efficient.
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::And the design which we have now allows
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::us to also go into other people's supply chains and really
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::on a global basis. So we don't just necessarily procure from the uk,
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::we actually can look at various items and say, okay, well who in the world
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::can actually provide us this item or that item a really good price point?
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::And so what's happening is that we can really see the cost
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::of these systems go down. And we think there's a lot of
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::scope for them to go down even further than where they are now.
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::And that's part of the getting on. The sort of the overall ethos of Fisher
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::Farms is that Fisher Farms wasn't set up
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::in order to grow salads and herbs, which is what
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::we're doing at the moment. So Fisher Farms was fundamentally created
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::to look at a problem that I was
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::increasingly conscious of from my clean energy and renewable energy space.
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::And so I was looking at climate change and how we can
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::have renewables and clean energy in order to combat climate change. And
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::then in my, you know, my biomass packaged plant room project, which I just mentioned,
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::179 of those that was providing heating systems to
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::the chicken and the turkey sector. And that got me looking
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::at food. And then as I saw the food crisis
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::emerging, which is more people, more middle class, a bigger demand,
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::but then less quality land becoming available because a lot of
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::urban developments which are taking place, some of the best farmlands in the world in
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::places like China and India have been taken over now with new
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::megacities. So you've got land scarcity issues,
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::but you also have problems associated with
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::water. So like 40% of all farms around the world have
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::water stress. 25% of all farms are around the
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::world use underground aquifer water, of which
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::all that water will probably be gone in about 20 years. So I can see
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::these really significant problems that
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::if they weren't solved, were bad on its own. But climate change
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::has made everything worse. And so Fisher Farms are set up to say,
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::okay, what can we do to develop a
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::technology which allows us to grow staple crops like
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::rice and wheat and then protein
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::crops like soy and peas? And so Fisher Farm was
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::designed for that. And so then the question is like, well, can
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::we today grow rice and wheat and soya peas at a price
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::point which is competitive to field grown crops? And the answer is no, not even
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::close. But you gotta start somewhere. And so our phase
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::one crops are, you know, the, what we're growing now, which are the sort of
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::short leafy greens, the salads, the herbs, the micro herb, microgreens.
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::We is sort of typical of most vertical farms. Our phase two crops are
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::fruity things. So, you know, we, and we started to go in that
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::market now. So we've got dwarf tomatoes and strawberries,
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::which we're doing research and development on getting our cost base. But then
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::fundamentally it's all about the final ones. And in order to be able to get
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::to that final one, there needs to Be dramatic cost reductions
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::in terms of the cost per meter squared for growing. The also
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::needs to be cost reductions in terms of the price of electricity, so more
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::renewables, more batteries. And then you also need to
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::have more efficiency in terms of your heating and ventilation and air conditioning
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::systems, your H Vac systems. And with all those things together, taking a little
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::bit here, a little bit there, you actually get to a point where you can
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::grow those products at a price point which is competitive with the
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::open crop. Still not today. I think that it's probably
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::15 years out, maybe slightly longer. But given the fact
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::that some of my early battery projects were
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::$10,000 a kilowatt hour and now are
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::$65 a kilowatt hour, so 10,000 to
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::65. And I've seen sort of enormous reductions in cost
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::for the wind projects and for solar projects. I think that if you
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::have certain design which is factory based, where you're actually building
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::these things in a factory at scale, you can get to do
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::some really interesting things. And so at Fisher Farms, we've hired people
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::who have factory experience. So we've got our two key guys
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::now running our technology factory come from the car industry, the
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::automobile industry, and they've actually built factories in addition to actually
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::running lines. So it's like, how do you have a design which is
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::really, really focused on delivering low cost? And I think
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::that's probably from a sort of mentality perspective,
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::quite different for Fisher farmers and many other players in the vertical farming
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::space who are very much looking at vertical farming as a premium
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::product. And they're talking about the great stuff that vertical farming does. And Vertical
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::farm produces high quality crops. They just do. They're
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::more nutritious, they've got longer shelf life, they got less air
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::miles to travel. So vertical farming deserves to
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::be a premium product. And a lot of companies
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::are putting branding around that to show that it's a great
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::product. But we're looking at a very different way. We're basically saying
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::if you're a premium product, you're always going to be a niche product
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::because nobody actually has that much money to spend on premium
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::products, premium anything. But they do have money to spend on
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::boring bulk base products of
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::whatever category it is. You know, so they're not that many, you know,
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::Bugattis which are sold. No, but there are, you know, a lot of,
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::you know, vws know which are sold. So, you know, you need to know what
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::it is. And so our view is that if we focus on really
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::driving down cost, cost, cost, cost,
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::then we don't have to worry about becoming a premium brand or anything
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::like that, but it gets us in the direction where we want to be, which
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::is how do you actually feed the world without trashing the planet
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::at the same time? And that fundamental ethos of what Fisher Farms is all
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::about. Yeah, I love that explanation. Thanks for sharing that.
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::You also understand you've been able to drive down the cost per
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::kilowatt hour as well. Can you talk a little bit about, about that exercise and
304
::what that looks like for you now? Yeah. So, I mean, it's interesting. So our.
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::We've had several generations now of our lights, so we developed our own
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::lights. We originally bought lights off the shelf from, you know, some of the big
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::suppliers out there. And, you know, they were great lights
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::and we're very happy with those lights, but they were always very, very expensive. And
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::so our lights now are probably 10% of
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::the cost of our original lights on in terms of capital cost.
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::And we've. So we've gone from 100 units, we're now down to about 10 units.
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::And we've also made big improvements in terms of our efficiency as well.
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::So if our efficiency was 100 units to start with, probably about 60
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::units now. So there's a nice big drop in terms of the efficiency that we've
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::got and also a significant improvement in terms of the capital
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::cost of those lights as well. And we're still seeing
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::improvements with our lights. We've also changed the type of lighting that we had. So
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::if you look at our very first farm, you know, the lights are very purple,
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::you know, which is like a lot of the players. And there was a view
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::that you didn't need the green in the lights. And we've actually introduced
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::some of that back in and out. So our lights look, you know,
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::more like natural light. They've still got, you know, more red and
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::blue and less green than actual
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::sunlight, but they look like a regular
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::whiteish light today. So that's been an interesting
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::change. So how does. When you look at the market and
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::how other people's expenses are, you know, maybe they're not doing the
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::same things that Fisher Farms is doing. How does it compare when you look
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::at costs and when people are considering the OPEX and Capex
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::costs for these, for running these farms, it seems like that's been a consideration of
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::yours from. Day one in the UK is a strange place to be
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::developing a vertical farm. And it's a strange place because our electricity
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::prices are really insanely high. The big change in pricing
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::really has happened over the last few years as well. So when we
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::Originally designed Farm2, our weighted
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::average price of electricity was supposed to be 10p a kilowatt hour, which
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::is slightly more expensive than what we were paying at Farm one at the
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::time. And that was a combination of buying from the grid and also
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::buying from Solar Farm. And
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::now at Farm2, we're paying 22p a kilowatt hour
341
::rather than 10. And so the UK is very
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::expensive from an electricity perspective. And if you've got
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::something which is very, very expensive, it means you really, really need to work
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::hard to reduce the amount of that expensive thing that
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::you use. And I think that is an interesting one for us because I think
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::that we're probably more efficient than many other players out there in the market. You
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::don't have to worry so much about electricity because they're pricing
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::electricity is well less than half of what we have
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::to pay. So in the United States, you're around sort of 6 or 7
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::cents a kilowatt hour, which is significantly cheaper
351
::than what we're paying in the uk. So I think efficiency, I think, is
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::something which has been important to us. And then clearly, you know, the capital cost
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::is something which we've already been. We talked about earlier, and where we are
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::on the capital cost in the meter squared is that we're
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::basically getting now to a point where we are
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::at the high end of a glass house cost.
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::And this is an interesting one for us because, you know, those, you
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::know, last year there was about $52 billion
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::of capital expenditure on glass houses. So that's a big
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::market. So for us to be able to actually now
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::be a. Have pricing, which is now sort of getting
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::into that zone, it's very, very interesting because it means that our
363
::addressable market starts to shift. So it's not just
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::sort of short, leafy green things, but is also acting as a
365
::nursery for other glass houses. So, you know,
366
::if you are, you know, doing tomatoes or bell
367
::peppers or aubergines, eggplants and
368
::those kinds of products, cucumbers, they all start off as a baby
369
::plant and then they get put out into a glasshouse and a
370
::hydroponics glass house. And so we are now having
371
::our pricing which is capable of actually being the
372
::nursery for those areas. So we've had a number of good discussions
373
::with that. We've had great discussions with people who
374
::are growing trees. So saplings is another interesting area
375
::for us as well. So it's. And we've also had discussions with people who are
376
::growing salads in glass houses,
377
::but they need a nursery room as well. So by having
378
::a vertically farmed zone before it
379
::goes into the main glass house, it means that the glass is much more
380
::effectively used for growing large plants. And also
381
::what happens in the glass house is highly
382
::dependent on the quality of the plants which went into the glass house in the
383
::first place. Yeah, makes sense. If you have plants which are grown in a
384
::really great environment, then you can
385
::get better yield in the actual glass house, whether it's for whatever plant you're
386
::doing. So you can get more strawberries or more tomatoes or more
387
::no cucumbers or more whatever in your glasshouse by actually
388
::starting off on a good point. So that's been a very interesting additional sort of
389
::area which we've been looking at in the market. So it's more
390
::food linked. As I said before, we can see how
391
::our price point for our capital cost per
392
::meter squared will drop to a point where we'll be well within
393
::the sort of the mid range of glasshouses in a relatively short period of
394
::time. A lot of it's to do with economies of scale. So basically, the more
395
::we do, the cheaper we can buy various different components
396
::to make the overall project costs for ourselves and for our
397
::customers cheaper as well. Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of that
398
::hybridization approach of glasshouses partnering with vertical
399
::farming. And I think the approach you just outlined makes a lot of sense when
400
::you see what can you see. Leveraging the strengths of both sides efficiently, I
401
::think is really the future of that partnership. And so it's exciting to see
402
::progress there. Can you talk a little bit about Fisher Farms Technology,
403
::how that was, you know what the intention there is. I know you're building up
404
::the team. You recently announced the John Mayer joining as your
405
::sales director as well. So talk a little about that project. Yeah. So Fisher
406
::Farms Technology is based out of Birmingham,
407
::near Birmingham Airport. And we have a dedicated facility there.
408
::And essentially we have a number of different components to that system.
409
::So we've got a core component is our trolley, and
410
::on our trolley we have our watering system, we have our
411
::lights, a lot of our electrics are on that. And then there are
412
::eight trolleys which will then go into a modular shipping
413
::container and then we have multiples of those. And so our
414
::facility there allows us to assemble and
415
::manufacture all the various different components which we need
416
::for that system. And
417
::we got the keys for the building in May this year.
418
::And if you come around at some point, you can see
419
::on the factory floor a whole range of containers which are in various different
420
::parts of being pulled together. And
421
::for our system, a lot of, you know, initially we're going to be, you know,
422
::eating our own dog food. And so we are sending them out to Abu
423
::Dhabi to be growing plants and products there, but
424
::also then to other players out there on the market as well. So the
425
::Fisher Farms technology has been great. And as you
426
::pointed out, we brought in John Meyer, who was one
427
::of the founders and key directors and head of the commercial director
428
::at BOM Group, which is one of the largest and
429
::most successful glass house manufacturers in the
430
::world. And so it's been great to have his experience and it's also
431
::been great to be able to know sense check, know where we are
432
::in terms of pricing and the quality and the system like
433
::that. So having somebody who actually has been doing that for years and
434
::years and years who understands the industry inside
435
::out, for him to go along to our system go, actually this is
436
::worth getting out of retirement for. And he was super excited
437
::about, you know, having access to another type of
438
::technology, something complementary to where he has come
439
::from. And. But it also means that, you know, when I'm
440
::having discussions with people about pricing, things like that, I have a pretty good understanding
441
::now of where we are relative to the market way, which if
442
::you're not an insider, you won't necessarily know. So we now have some, you know,
443
::inside knowledge on that, which has been great to have.
444
::So where do you see the potential for growth with Fisher Forms technology
445
::with, you know, what are the possibilities there? And have you thought out, you
446
::know, what's that roadmap look like? So we have
447
::a whole series of internal targets.
448
::Those targets are. I'm not quite sure whether I've just
449
::lost you. Yeah, still here. I'm just switching the camera
450
::so you can continue. Yeah. So at Fisher Farms Technology, we have a
451
::whole series of targets of how many units we would want to be able to
452
::produce over the next few years. And, you know, so we know
453
::where we want to go. You know, some of those units are going to be
454
::for ourselves, for our own consumption. As I said, quite a lot of interest from
455
::existing vertical farming businesses to actually see whether we can grow
456
::on their behalf. And so we've got some good discussions going
457
::there. And also, you know, looking at,
458
::you know, various other different markets. So clearly we're in Abu Dhabi now and we
459
::think that's an interesting market for us to grow in. And one of the reasons
460
::why is because the cost electricity there is just crazy low
461
::compared to what we're currently paying in the UK. So in the UK we
462
::are at 22p a kilowatt hour. In Abu Dhabi we're at
463
::1p a kilowatt hour for our electricity. So if you've got a
464
::combination of, you know, being the cheapest large scale
465
::vertical farm cost base in the world,
466
::plus in terms of the capital cost, plus
467
::really almost free electricity. No, that then starts
468
::to create some very interesting opportunities. And
469
::there's a really quite crazy, insane possibility
470
::that the uae, which is a desert with almost no
471
::water, could actually end up being a food exporter as a result
472
::of this as well, which I think is super exciting for the
473
::Emiratis to sort of have that sort of shift in mentality
474
::from being a massive food importer to actually being able to
475
::export some of the products to other European markets for
476
::example as well. So a lot of the European market at the moment
477
::is dominated by, you know,
478
::imports which are air freighted during the winter months.
479
::And so this is something, you know, yet again, which we could actually potentially
480
::be participating in as well. Especially since, no,
481
::the Emirates are a fantastic logistical hub.
482
::And so with great airports and freight capacity
483
::all around the world. So that becomes an interesting development for us as well.
484
::Yeah, there seems to be a lot of promise in the UAE and especially
485
::with the price per kilowatt hour at 1p, you know, it seems to open up
486
::a lot of possibilities for partnerships there. Do you find the
487
::timeline for getting projects off the ground there to be the
488
::same? Longer, shorter? I know that, you know, I've had conversations
489
::with other folks who've had projects in motion there that haven't
490
::panned out and I don't know if it's the same across all the
491
::UAE countries, but I'm, I'm curious what your experience has been.
492
::So I think this is actually a really interesting point. One of the issues about
493
::building a vertical farm normally is that it's a big
494
::construction project and you. Which takes time to
495
::design, takes time to implement, takes time to raise
496
::the money to actually do it. And you've got to make sure
497
::that you've got an off taker who actually wants to buy the product. So you
498
::need to know what you're selling, what's the price that you're selling that product at
499
::and what's the volume and what kind of contracts you're going to be able to
500
::have. And because we have a modular system will
501
::not stuck in the build a massive facility and
502
::hope mentality that you get with big vertical farms which then
503
::require lots of money to come from. So we're in a situation now where we
504
::can start small, grow, delight
505
::customers, and then they say, oh, wow, I want more. And then we can just
506
::ship more units. And then they go, wow, this is great. And they say, how
507
::much more capacity do you want? Well, we want another X number of tons per
508
::week. Well, then we'll send more containers. And because we can build the
509
::systems quite quickly, we actually can then send those
510
::units in a way where our ability to grow
511
::actually grows as our customer demand grows. And so we don't
512
::get ahead of ourselves in terms of construction and therefore having a lot of
513
::capital out the door for prolonged
514
::periods of time. And now at some point, the ideal
515
::scenario is for us to have negative working capital. And by what
516
::I mean by that is that, you know, we should be able
517
::to build our systems and pay our suppliers
518
::after we actually get paid for the units which are going out the
519
::door and actually start to generate revenue from them because we can build them so
520
::quickly. So that becomes super interesting
521
::in terms of expansion and it's great for all customers who use
522
::our systems. So now we're in a sort of interesting situation in Abu Dhabi
523
::now where, you know, we've got, you know, customers lined up for our
524
::first system, which is out there, and we have other people who say, well,
525
::once you've shown it and we like the product,
526
::then we want to have stuff as well. And so that then allows you
527
::to grow into that market rather
528
::than having a big project. We're hoping that people come. And I think that's
529
::basically where most of the vertical farming industry's been and they've had to be that
530
::way because they'll looking at big buildings. And by not having a big building,
531
::it just gives us the flexibility and it gives our customers the flexibility.
532
::And we're also in a situation where we can offer
533
::different types of solutions for people. So it could be that some people
534
::say, you know what, just sell us Basel. And
535
::other people will say, actually we want to buy
536
::your units or rent your units and we will
537
::own them. And. And then we'll just have a tolling arrangement in
538
::place whereby either we'll grow it in your systems
539
::or you can grow it for us, but we'll just do it at a fixed
540
::price so you know where your revenues are and we can just choose what we
541
::want to do in our system. So there's that kind of flexibility.
542
::And it means now that we are able to
543
::look at cooperating with most people, so we're
544
::not looking at other vertical Farms and say, no, your competitor to us, we're
545
::actually looking at the vertical farms and say, you are one of our customers, you
546
::are one of our target markets. No, they benefit from the fact
547
::that we're one of the largest vertical farms in the world. We've got more growing
548
::experience than most people and we have a cheap system which they can
549
::deploy and then they can gradually build up their
550
::capacity. And also they can also go into different
551
::markets quite quickly. So for example, if you're trying to now
552
::you're in the US and you've currently got one
553
::vertifarm or two vertical farms and you want to be able to expand into
554
::many cities quite quickly, you can go with us and we can actually send
555
::10 units, 10 grow containers to one city and then 10 to another
556
::city, 10 to another city. And if you're not getting great results,
557
::you just pick them up and move them to the place where you're actually getting
558
::a better customer feedback. So instead of being stuck in a
559
::location, you can just basically say, okay, clearly Seattle's not
560
::working for us. Let's move from Seattle and San Diego,
561
::here we come. And. Or you get to a situation where electricity
562
::prices in California are going crazy high and say, okay, I'm going to
563
::move over, over the border into Canada
564
::and get no lower cost electricity there from
565
::hydropower. So it's an interesting that flexibility
566
::is something which is relatively unheard of in the industry.
567
::It's pretty exciting. Yeah, it is very exciting. I love that approach, especially
568
::like the plug and play opportunities you have and this
569
::modular approach. And you wouldn't have the ability
570
::if things hadn't been working out in a specific region to pick up a whole
571
::factory and move it. Totally insane. Completely insane. Totally unheard of.
572
::And you know, if you look at the US market, you know, there's a lot
573
::of people who are doing sort of the micro green space. And you know,
574
::microgreens are things we'd really want to be fast and close to the customer. You
575
::don't want them to really be traveling any distance at all. And because they're so
576
::efficient, you know, these are high margin sort of products. Having
577
::multiple, no microgreen factories all
578
::over the place near your target market is something which is very easy for us
579
::to do, but you'd be pretty. And it's worth noting that
580
::our cost structure scales really
581
::nicely. So a lot of systems are very, very
582
::expensive at small and then they get cheaper and cheaper. Cheaper, cheaper as you get
583
::bigger. Well, we are actually cheap at small and medium and large.
584
::Yeah. Because we're all modular. So it's like where there's one container or ten containers,
585
::a hundred containers, it's still the container, and so it doesn't really matter. So
586
::that scaling approach, where you don't have to build a really big
587
::facility and just hope that you're going to get it filled, you can have a
588
::much more nimble structure. And as I said, you know, you can build, you know,
589
::you can go to 10 cities and have 10
590
::containers each city and then realize that actually three of them are terrible
591
::markets and just pull those containers out and reallocate them to
592
::somewhere else. Very smart. And I'm sure that anyone who's
593
::considering a new project would be keen on partnering with you,
594
::especially in their conversations with investors in terms of, like, the investment
595
::in equipment. And a lot of times, you know, the investors have that
596
::as a big concern and understanding how they're going to recoup
597
::their investment in the project. And I think speaking to it as a modular approach
598
::that's flexible and can turn
599
::on the conditions that are in that market, I think that's another selling point
600
::for some of these projects to get off the ground. It's also worth noting that
601
::when you're starting out for these kind of modular systems,
602
::because each container is identical to the other container. Once you
603
::know how to do it in one container, you know how to do it in
604
::ten or a hundred or a thousand. And this is very different from
605
::scaling of a big farm. So a big farm, you know, when you
606
::go from 3,000 square meters where we were, to 25,000 square meters,
607
::you know, the additional complexity about growing in a bigger space,
608
::you're, you know, although you think everything is the same, they're not. Your
609
::water hand, your water works differently, your substrate
610
::interaction with the trays works differently, your lights work differently, and the
611
::airflows work completely different. Your humidity, your temperature, all those things
612
::quite different. Whereas in our system, you get it right with one container,
613
::that's it, you're done. It's the same recipe, same everything for every other
614
::container, which you do, because they're all exactly the same. And so
615
::you don't have to, you know, one of the questions investors have is like, how
616
::do you scale? How do you know that if I go from one size to
617
::another size, you're not going to make a mistake? And with our system,
618
::basically, I've proven it with one, and therefore it is exactly the same
619
::for ten or one hundred or a thousand. And that is yet again,
620
::the mindset is very similar to a Solar farm. So solar
621
::farm, you know, starts off with a solar panel. Solar panel is
622
::380 watts to 540 watts. You know, those are your
623
::sort of ranges of the solar panels. Now that's. And there's a fixed size. And
624
::if you put no, one of those, it's 340 watts
625
::or 540 watts, whatever it is. And if you have 10 of them, it's
626
::5,400 watts. You know, it's like, that's what it is. And you put them on
627
::a different string and then have an array. And so there's some sort of interface
628
::between them. But fundamentally, you know exactly what you're going to get. And that's the
629
::same thing with our system. So if you know that one grow container
630
::is 96 meters squared of growing space and has these
631
::characteristics, then if you have, you know, 10
632
::of them, you've got 960 meters squared of growing space,
633
::109,600 meters of growing space. All of those things are
634
::super scalable. And you learn once
635
::and repeat rather than having to relearn every single time.
636
::And yet again, you know, if I look at my experience in the wind
637
::industry, you know, the wind industry scaled in
638
::two different axes. So one was if you say, you
639
::know, have a one megawatt wind turbine, you could go from a
640
::one megawatt turbine and have ten one megawatt turbines to create a
641
::ten megawatt farm, or you can go from a one megawatt turbine to a
642
::ten megawatt turbine. Now, going from one megawatt to ten megawatt is
643
::extraordinarily difficult. It was extraordinarily difficult to do
644
::and highly risky. But going from 1 to 10 to get to 10 megawatts is
645
::actually really, really well understood. And it's that kind of mindset that we
646
::have at Fisher Farms. It's like using a design motif
647
::that worked and got costs down dramatically
648
::in the wind and the solar and the battery storage areas in particular,
649
::I think, is very much what we're focused on in the organization.
650
::I love that model. It's so interesting that it's modular. And from a
651
::training perspective, like you said, once you've learned on one, you can learn in the
652
::others. And I could see in the future as these farms start to get
653
::rolled out and there's either consultants you work with or team members that
654
::you work with. I could see almost like a Fisher Farms technology certified
655
::person who's had experience with this and could sort of build a business around like,
656
::hey, we, we know these farms. We've done them across the country. So if
657
::you've got a project that's Fisher Farms tech related, then, you know, we could get
658
::it up and running, you know, in a shorter period of time than having to
659
::train people from scratch. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. We'll have to
660
::copy that one. Thank you. Yeah, have someone be Fisher Farms
661
::technology certified, you know, and that could be. Yeah, yeah, that's a great
662
::idea. But it's also the other things we're thinking about is that you can add
663
::the sort of the Fisher Farms inside. So we're very, very keen on it co
664
::branding side. You know, it's like, no, if you are no X, you
665
::know, Vertical Farm co. No. And it was like. And
666
::then you got fish of arms on the inside and you could be really great
667
::at your branding. And so, you know, this
668
::basically says you don't have to be an expert in all domains,
669
::you can be really, really good at branding, really good at
670
::customers. In the same way that, you know, a farmer doesn't
671
::actually have to build their own tractor, they don't have to build their own
672
::combine harvester. You know, you're not expecting them to be fully vertically integrated,
673
::they're just to do one part really, really well. And so I think a lot
674
::of businesses who are fantastic,
675
::amazing at branding, amazing at getting these done and so they
676
::can focus on the part which they're really, really good at, and we can
677
::focus on the part which we're good at, which is basically providing them a really,
678
::really high value, low cost
679
::system so they make more money and they don't have to worry about the technology
680
::risk and they can just get on with all the stuff which they're good at
681
::and making their customers totally delighted. I like that approach.
682
::Speaking of certification, you were recently granted the BR CGS
683
::certification as well. Yeah. So Fisher Farms, you know, in
684
::the UK market there's a whole series of different certifications you need in order to
685
::be able to sell food and stuff like that. And we have, you know, we
686
::score extremely highly on that. And it's an interesting one
687
::where the more I understand about the overall food
688
::industry, the more I discover that the Fisher
689
::Farm's quality and standard is so massively
690
::greater than a regular field. And it sort of feels like an
691
::obvious thing to say, but it's actually more shocking just
692
::how good we are in terms of quality than the rest of the sort of
693
::conventional land based systems are. So, no, we're very pleased about that.
694
::And, you know, we've got a great team now, I think, and Fisher Farms has
695
::been able, has been very lucky and that we've managed to attract and retain some
696
::really, really great people within the organization. And, you know,
697
::it's one of these things where, you know, they've done really great
698
::things for the business. I imagine that changes the way retailers view
699
::Fisher Farms as well. So retailers,
700
::when we, yet again, when we were originally looking at this, you know, the retailers
701
::I think gave us a pretty hard time about what they wanted and I think
702
::they were almost like trying to raise the overall standard of everything and using
703
::the way of actually driving that up. But no, I think retailers realize
704
::now that, no, how we do things, how our processes
705
::work are really, really great from a food
706
::standard, food, food health, food safety perspective. Now we've done
707
::a really good job. Congrats on the BBC interview. I saw that
708
::as well. And yeah, I believe in the role of vertical farming in
709
::the UK in terms of food security. So can you talk a little bit of
710
::what that experience was like? Yeah, so, I mean, we've had quite a
711
::few guys out there from there, ranging from, you know, the BBC a few times
712
::now. Sky News has been around to us as well.
713
::And it's always fun. And it's sort of one of these strange ones where I'll
714
::sort of get a text message in the morning from
715
::friends and say, oh, I heard you on Radio 4, which is the sort of
716
::the go to news radio outlet here in the UK
717
::for sort of talk and thoughtful inspection and stuff like that. So,
718
::no, it's been really fun. It's been fun getting that. And I think it's great
719
::for the team to actually also hear that people are
720
::talking about Fisher Farms, not just in our own small community, but actually out
721
::there in the real world as well. And, you know, but it is an
722
::interesting story. No, and what Fisher Farms is doing and very much
723
::is a sort of the future of food. And I think a lot of people
724
::have opinions about things like this and so it
725
::becomes topical as well. I think in one of past interviews,
726
::One of the CEOs mentioned that I think because of the podcast or because
727
::he was working on vertical farming, his kids now thought he was working on something
728
::cool.
729
::Yeah, well, you know, my kids are doing pretty cool stuff. I've got quite
730
::a few kids and they're all doing some fun stuff as well.
731
::So last time, Trishna, you spoke beautifully about creating a culture where bad
732
::ideas combine into great ones. And I'm wondering how that
733
::culture has scaled as your team and your global ambitions have
734
::grown. Yeah, I mean it is always an interesting, it's a fascinating one. We now
735
::have our sort of values that are plastered all over the wall
736
::and things like that. And yet again, for sort of your listeners perspective,
737
::those sort of four core values plus a fifth. So
738
::we've got two soft values and one of them is
739
::kindness. And so the idea is that let's just be kind to each other
740
::and know what. And kindness doesn't have to be a massive thing.
741
::It can be literally, you know, saying please and saying thank you and opening the
742
::door and can I get you a cup of tea? And I think that one
743
::thing which people forget is that, you know,
744
::whilst we are colleagues and employees and workers
745
::and all that kind of stuff, we are actually individual people who have
746
::the life cycle of what it is to be a human being.
747
::And so some of us will be having, you know, parents who may be dying
748
::or problems with our spouses. You know, somebody might be getting divorced
749
::or they have problems with their teenage kids or their young kids or they're
750
::not sleeping because of the baby or whatever like that. And so I think it's
751
::very important for us to acknowledge that we are much more
752
::rounded individuals than you would than the person you see working with you.
753
::And we have feelings and thoughts. And so just being kind to people
754
::goes a long way. And it's surprising how not
755
::kind a lot of people are, how rude they are or selfish
756
::they are or they don't consider these kind of things. So kindness I think is
757
::an important one. The other one we have is respect. And respect
758
::isn't that you get respect because you
759
::have no agency over that is like. But you respect other people and you
760
::respect their time, you respect their effort and make sure that you
761
::are, you know, if somebody says I had to have a deadline at
762
::this particular moment, are you going to do anything with that information or are you
763
::going to just sit on it for another few days, in which case maybe you
764
::need to get that deadline as sharply, as quickly as you needed it. So kindness
765
::and respect are the sort of the soft sides, but we also
766
::have factfulness as one of the other, one of the hard ones. And fact
767
::is just tell the truth as it really is.
768
::And sometimes people aren't lying, but they're just,
769
::they're putting things in a way which are where they'd like them to be. So
770
::for example, you know, the number is five. Well, the number will
771
::be five if certain things happen. But they're not five
772
::now. They're actually Four now. And so. But if I'm counting on
773
::you to tell me what's reality, I need to know that it's four now.
774
::And you can tell me that if these things happen, it will be five. And
775
::that's great. That's also factful. No, that's the part of the factfulness I need to
776
::understand what's going on. But don't say it's five when it actually is four. And
777
::so just being honest with ourselves, I think is really important.
778
::The other one is robustness. So the idea is that
779
::we can't always be nice. Yeah, we can't always be respectful.
780
::Sometimes we get our numbers wrong. Sometimes people just
781
::had a bad day. And what we don't want to do have is an organization
782
::where people are running around on eggshells wondering, oh, what are they going to. If
783
::I say something slightly wrong way now, how are they going to react to that?
784
::So I think there's a level of just suck it up and be
785
::robust. And so people can have and can have
786
::conversations where they disagree with you and sometimes they'll disagree with you quite
787
::strongly, hopefully in a kind way, hopefully in a respectful
788
::way. But we can't actually always be that. And I think the key thing about
789
::these values is that they're not where we are at. We're not like 10 out
790
::of 10. And all these values, they're much more of a destination. These are a
791
::journey which we all want. Everyone and some of us are going to be more
792
::kind than others, some are going to be more factful than. Some of them are
793
::more robust than others. But you just want to have those as a destination. And
794
::the idea is that those four values then help the
795
::fifth one, which is the critical one, which is the sort of the
796
::innovation side, and what we are doing
797
::is at the absolute cutting edge of technology.
798
::And because of that, we don't actually know what we're doing.
799
::And it sounds like a sort of crazy statement like, how can you say you
800
::don't know what you're doing? But no, if we knew what we
801
::were doing, we would have the answer already. I would today
802
::be the lowest cost. I would be cheaper than a glass house today.
803
::Yeah, that's what I would be. But I'm not, which means that I'm not there
804
::yet, which means that I need to do things, which means that I need to
805
::have an organization whereby people are putting ideas out
806
::which they don't really know the answer to. And what we
807
::want is my terrible idea and a genuinely bad idea.
808
::And your crazy insane idea and somebody else's
809
::drug addled idea or sleep addled idea, whatever it
810
::is, and they're all actually genuinely bad
811
::ideas independently. But by putting those
812
::ideas together, layering those ideas on top, we come up with
813
::a beautiful, brilliant insight which none of us independently
814
::had thought about. And if we have a culture where we're rude to each
815
::other or mean to each other, or we're lying to
816
::each other, or we're flaky and we're worried about what people
817
::will think, and you say something in a slightly weird way and then
818
::I get really upset, then we're not going to put those ideas on the
819
::table and we're never going to put the ideas on the table. And because if
820
::you slap me down for my bad idea, I'll never give you
821
::a good idea, I'll never give you any idea again because I'll be self
822
::censoring on those ideas. And so by having a mentality where
823
::it's like somebody has something and say, how do you build on this idea? I'm
824
::not saying this is a great idea at all, but this is something which
825
::we can build on. And we have found that, we found that a lot of
826
::our great insights have come from just
827
::adding to those ideas. And as a result of that, it's very difficult for
828
::somebody to say that's my idea, because it's not. It's like I've taken
829
::a little bit of that idea, I've taken a little bit of your idea, taken
830
::a little bit of my idea, and we've added them together and create a new
831
::idea. And so there's a much greater sense of ownership of the overall
832
::collective idea because it's not really anybody's idea. In particular, some person might be the
833
::person who said it, but they said it because
834
::somebody else had promoted or thought about these things, or they've taken
835
::four or five different other things together and to come up with the things. So
836
::I think sort of the innovation think is good. You need to do
837
::innovation in a safe way. And another way
838
::of thinking about it is that if you're trying to find where the edge of
839
::a cliff is in the fog, in the dark, you
840
::don't go to a guy and say, walk in that direction. And when you scream,
841
::I will know where the edge of the cliff is. What you want to do
842
::is you want to tie them up with a rope, attach them to some
843
::strong point and then you get them to walk off. And then they go, ah,
844
::but now you know where the edge is and you just pull them back out.
845
::And then they say, I've now found the edge. And then you walk off another
846
::direction and you literally fall off the edge of the cliff. But then you get
847
::pulled back in again. But the edge of the cliff is the
848
::edge of knowledge. And if you basically are frightened
849
::about getting to the edge of the cliff, you never go as far as you
850
::could do as an organization. You never go like, okay, this is what the next
851
::level is, because you're always frightened of failure. So
852
::you've actually got go the edge, fail, and then get
853
::pulled back. And now you know, this is a new. This is the new truth.
854
::And as a result of that, you can come up with a cheaper, better, faster
855
::way of doing things than you would have been able to before. But you're safe.
856
::And so these core values, the kindness, respect, the
857
::robustness, the factfulness, combined together create this
858
::culture which allows us to do things, which is one, I think, one of the
859
::reasons why we are the lowest cost vertical farm
860
::in the world. I couldn't think of a better
861
::bow to put on this conversation than to just
862
::kind of summarize those amazing values. Very inspiring. And I'm sure any business
863
::leader who's listening in any industry would be keen to kind of
864
::follow that model. And it seems like you've built an environment and
865
::a culture where everyone is supporting each other and pushing each other
866
::and challenging each other. And I think that speaks volumes to where
867
::you are today. So I really appreciate you coming back
868
::on Tristan and sharing this, the journey, and it's so exciting to see
869
::how much progress you've made and innovation you've made. And likely
870
::due to all these values with Fisher Farms, I'm really grateful
871
::for where this is headed for you. And this idea of the modular farms really
872
::feels like it has a lot of momentum and I think will allow people to
873
::play in the spaces where they excel, whether it's the marketing
874
::side and just, you know, allowing you to bring in the expertise
875
::on the production side. So lots of good things happening and I'm really grateful
876
::for the update. Thank you very much and thank you for your time and keep
877
::up the good work. And so we'll have all the links to contact
878
::you and the team in the show notes and wishing the best success. What do
879
::you have planned for conferences coming up? I've actually gone through a lot of
880
::conferences the last few months, so I've been in Germany a few times, been
881
::in the Netherlands a few times, Middle East a few times. So my next batch
882
::is going to be probably sometime in January, though I have a bit of a
883
::break at the moment. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully Anir or someone from the
884
::team will get to connect with you as well. I appreciate your time. Excellent. Okay.
885
::Good luck. Thank you very much.
