Episode 53

S5E53: Reinventing the Food Industry with Juan Gabriel Succar

Episode Summary

Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show Juan Gabriel Succar, CEO and Director of Verde Compacto, the first vertical farming company out of Latin America. Verde Compacto is an organization that is dedicated to reinventing the food industry through technology. Today, Juan shares his origin story and how his passion for environmental sustainability led him to launch Verde Compacto. Juan and Harry talk about the exponential growth of the industry, why mass education and proper hiring are crucial and why government involvement in such endeavors has been lackluster at best. Finally, Juan talks about some of the upcoming projects he’s working on that will help to transform the agri-food industry in Mexico and around the world.

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Key Takeaways

03:41 – Harry welcomes to the show Juan Gabriel Succar who talks about how his passion for the environment led him and his cousin to launch the very first vertical farming organization in Latin America

11:29 – What Juan observed about vertical around the world that inspired him to launch Verde Compacto

12:47 – Partnerships and mixing family with business

17:38 – Mass education of vertical farming

19:26 – Verde Compacto’s offerings and explaining Huvster

22:21 – Feedback from early customers

26:03 – Government involvement (or non-involvement) in vertical farming

31:07 – What’s next for Juan and Verde Compacto

34:04 – Harry thanks Juan for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can learn more about Verde Compacto

Tweetable Quotes

“From 2016 to 2019, we focused on developing technology for indoor vertical farming to make it more productive at a lower cost and to reach more people and to get more people into the vertical farming industry.” (04:47) (Juan)

“In the end, if we do not have a healthy environment, we cannot have a healthy population. Everything that we do and our lives depend on the environment.” (10:44) (Juan)

“I think the most important thing here is to know where you want to go, have certain technical skills, but a lot of creativity and open mindedness to learn new things.” (18:31) (Juan)

“That’s very important in this industry to get focused on what you’re good at and what your value proposition is and how to increase it. It’s grow fast, but grow smart as well.” (25:52) (Juan)

“We are starting to develop a project for these food deserts. So we start creating a circular economy project, bringing container farms here in order to get better food to the people, which gets them healthy. Being healthy, everything starts working. Then you get jobs there and they can grow their own food. When you create jobs, you create health and you create innovation in these communities.” (27:52) (Juan)