178: Why Modular Vertical Farming Holds the Key to Scalable Food Security with Fischer Farm's Tristan Fischer

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So, Tristan Fisher, CEO of Fisher Farms, thank you so much for round two on

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the vertical farming podcast. Thank you. It's good to be, good to be back.

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So for. I'll direct the listeners and the viewers to that episode.

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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

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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

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Farm two, we built new

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versions of our Building, which was a sort of different type of

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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

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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

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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to worry about. This is not on that list. And so

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when we got to build Farm 2, we built

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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.

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And it took us a long time to actually figure out what the problem was.

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But essentially what had happened was that although the floor

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of the corridor was flat, it wasn't flat,

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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nursery for other glass houses. So, you know,

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if you are, you know, doing tomatoes or bell

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peppers or aubergines, eggplants and

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those kinds of products, cucumbers, they all start off as a baby

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plant and then they get put out into a glasshouse and a

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hydroponics glass house. And so we are now having

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our pricing which is capable of actually being the

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nursery for those areas. So we've had a number of good discussions

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with that. We've had great discussions with people who

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are growing trees. So saplings is another interesting area

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for us as well. So it's. And we've also had discussions with people who are

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growing salads in glass houses,

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but they need a nursery room as well. So by having

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a vertically farmed zone before it

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goes into the main glass house, it means that the glass is much more

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effectively used for growing large plants. And also

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what happens in the glass house is highly

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dependent on the quality of the plants which went into the glass house in the

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first place. Yeah, makes sense. If you have plants which are grown in a

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really great environment, then you can

385

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get better yield in the actual glass house, whether it's for whatever plant you're

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doing. So you can get more strawberries or more tomatoes or more

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no cucumbers or more whatever in your glasshouse by actually

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starting off on a good point. So that's been a very interesting additional sort of

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area which we've been looking at in the market. So it's more

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food linked. As I said before, we can see how

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our price point for our capital cost per

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meter squared will drop to a point where we'll be well within

393

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the sort of the mid range of glasshouses in a relatively short period of

394

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time. A lot of it's to do with economies of scale. So basically, the more

395

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we do, the cheaper we can buy various different components

396

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to make the overall project costs for ourselves and for our

397

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customers cheaper as well. Yeah, I've been hearing a lot of that

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hybridization approach of glasshouses partnering with vertical

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farming. And I think the approach you just outlined makes a lot of sense when

400

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you see what can you see. Leveraging the strengths of both sides efficiently, I

401

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think is really the future of that partnership. And so it's exciting to see

402

00:24:50,550 --> 00:24:53,870

progress there. Can you talk a little bit about Fisher Farms Technology,

403

00:24:54,590 --> 00:24:57,750

how that was, you know what the intention there is. I know you're building up

404

00:24:57,750 --> 00:25:00,670

the team. You recently announced the John Mayer joining as your

405

00:25:01,230 --> 00:25:04,910

sales director as well. So talk a little about that project. Yeah. So Fisher

406

00:25:04,910 --> 00:25:08,740

Farms Technology is based out of Birmingham,

407

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near Birmingham Airport. And we have a dedicated facility there.

408

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And essentially we have a number of different components to that system.

409

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So we've got a core component is our trolley, and

410

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on our trolley we have our watering system, we have our

411

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lights, a lot of our electrics are on that. And then there are

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eight trolleys which will then go into a modular shipping

413

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container and then we have multiples of those. And so our

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facility there allows us to assemble and

415

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manufacture all the various different components which we need

416

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for that system. And

417

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we got the keys for the building in May this year.

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And if you come around at some point, you can see

419

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on the factory floor a whole range of containers which are in various different

420

00:25:59,140 --> 00:26:02,800

parts of being pulled together. And

421

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for our system, a lot of, you know, initially we're going to be, you know,

422

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eating our own dog food. And so we are sending them out to Abu

423

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Dhabi to be growing plants and products there, but

424

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also then to other players out there on the market as well. So the

425

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Fisher Farms technology has been great. And as you

426

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pointed out, we brought in John Meyer, who was one

427

00:26:25,160 --> 00:26:28,720

of the founders and key directors and head of the commercial director

428

00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:32,670

at BOM Group, which is one of the largest and

429

00:26:32,670 --> 00:26:36,510

most successful glass house manufacturers in the

430

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world. And so it's been great to have his experience and it's also

431

00:26:40,270 --> 00:26:44,070

been great to be able to know sense check, know where we are

432

00:26:44,230 --> 00:26:48,030

in terms of pricing and the quality and the system like

433

00:26:48,030 --> 00:26:51,790

that. So having somebody who actually has been doing that for years and

434

00:26:51,790 --> 00:26:55,430

years and years who understands the industry inside

435

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out, for him to go along to our system go, actually this is

436

00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,480

worth getting out of retirement for. And he was super excited

437

00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:06,360

about, you know, having access to another type of

438

00:27:06,360 --> 00:27:10,040

technology, something complementary to where he has come

439

00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:13,840

from. And. But it also means that, you know, when I'm

440

00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:17,080

having discussions with people about pricing, things like that, I have a pretty good understanding

441

00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,920

now of where we are relative to the market way, which if

442

00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,600

you're not an insider, you won't necessarily know. So we now have some, you know,

443

00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:27,410

inside knowledge on that, which has been great to have.

444

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So where do you see the potential for growth with Fisher Forms technology

445

00:27:31,810 --> 00:27:35,530

with, you know, what are the possibilities there? And have you thought out, you

446

00:27:35,530 --> 00:27:38,930

know, what's that roadmap look like? So we have

447

00:27:39,250 --> 00:27:42,690

a whole series of internal targets.

448

00:27:43,010 --> 00:27:46,810

Those targets are. I'm not quite sure whether I've just

449

00:27:46,810 --> 00:27:50,290

lost you. Yeah, still here. I'm just switching the camera

450

00:27:50,290 --> 00:27:54,060

so you can continue. Yeah. So at Fisher Farms Technology, we have a

451

00:27:54,060 --> 00:27:56,540

whole series of targets of how many units we would want to be able to

452

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produce over the next few years. And, you know, so we know

453

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where we want to go. You know, some of those units are going to be

454

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for ourselves, for our own consumption. As I said, quite a lot of interest from

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existing vertical farming businesses to actually see whether we can grow

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on their behalf. And so we've got some good discussions going

457

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there. And also, you know, looking at,

458

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you know, various other different markets. So clearly we're in Abu Dhabi now and we

459

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think that's an interesting market for us to grow in. And one of the reasons

460

00:28:25,170 --> 00:28:28,930

why is because the cost electricity there is just crazy low

461

00:28:28,930 --> 00:28:32,690

compared to what we're currently paying in the UK. So in the UK we

462

00:28:32,690 --> 00:28:36,210

are at 22p a kilowatt hour. In Abu Dhabi we're at

463

00:28:36,210 --> 00:28:39,690

1p a kilowatt hour for our electricity. So if you've got a

464

00:28:39,690 --> 00:28:43,490

combination of, you know, being the cheapest large scale

465

00:28:43,490 --> 00:28:46,950

vertical farm cost base in the world,

466

00:28:47,110 --> 00:28:50,070

plus in terms of the capital cost, plus

467

00:28:50,870 --> 00:28:54,670

really almost free electricity. No, that then starts

468

00:28:54,670 --> 00:28:58,470

to create some very interesting opportunities. And

469

00:28:59,110 --> 00:29:02,710

there's a really quite crazy, insane possibility

470

00:29:03,430 --> 00:29:07,270

that the uae, which is a desert with almost no

471

00:29:07,270 --> 00:29:11,000

water, could actually end up being a food exporter as a result

472

00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,200

of this as well, which I think is super exciting for the

473

00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,760

Emiratis to sort of have that sort of shift in mentality

474

00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,480

from being a massive food importer to actually being able to

475

00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:25,160

export some of the products to other European markets for

476

00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:28,680

example as well. So a lot of the European market at the moment

477

00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,920

is dominated by, you know,

478

00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:35,760

imports which are air freighted during the winter months.

479

00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:39,440

And so this is something, you know, yet again, which we could actually potentially

480

00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:43,160

be participating in as well. Especially since, no,

481

00:29:43,240 --> 00:29:46,680

the Emirates are a fantastic logistical hub.

482

00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,760

And so with great airports and freight capacity

483

00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:54,840

all around the world. So that becomes an interesting development for us as well.

484

00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,880

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of promise in the UAE and especially

485

00:29:59,880 --> 00:30:03,080

with the price per kilowatt hour at 1p, you know, it seems to open up

486

00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,490

a lot of possibilities for partnerships there. Do you find the

487

00:30:06,490 --> 00:30:10,290

timeline for getting projects off the ground there to be the

488

00:30:10,290 --> 00:30:14,010

same? Longer, shorter? I know that, you know, I've had conversations

489

00:30:14,010 --> 00:30:17,610

with other folks who've had projects in motion there that haven't

490

00:30:17,610 --> 00:30:21,130

panned out and I don't know if it's the same across all the

491

00:30:21,370 --> 00:30:25,050

UAE countries, but I'm, I'm curious what your experience has been.

492

00:30:25,370 --> 00:30:28,850

So I think this is actually a really interesting point. One of the issues about

493

00:30:28,850 --> 00:30:32,300

building a vertical farm normally is that it's a big

494

00:30:32,300 --> 00:30:36,060

construction project and you. Which takes time to

495

00:30:36,060 --> 00:30:39,900

design, takes time to implement, takes time to raise

496

00:30:39,900 --> 00:30:42,980

the money to actually do it. And you've got to make sure

497

00:30:43,700 --> 00:30:47,460

that you've got an off taker who actually wants to buy the product. So you

498

00:30:47,460 --> 00:30:51,260

need to know what you're selling, what's the price that you're selling that product at

499

00:30:51,260 --> 00:30:54,180

and what's the volume and what kind of contracts you're going to be able to

500

00:30:54,180 --> 00:30:57,750

have. And because we have a modular system will

501

00:30:57,750 --> 00:31:01,310

not stuck in the build a massive facility and

502

00:31:01,310 --> 00:31:05,150

hope mentality that you get with big vertical farms which then

503

00:31:05,150 --> 00:31:08,510

require lots of money to come from. So we're in a situation now where we

504

00:31:08,510 --> 00:31:12,310

can start small, grow, delight

505

00:31:12,310 --> 00:31:15,950

customers, and then they say, oh, wow, I want more. And then we can just

506

00:31:15,950 --> 00:31:19,030

ship more units. And then they go, wow, this is great. And they say, how

507

00:31:19,030 --> 00:31:22,030

much more capacity do you want? Well, we want another X number of tons per

508

00:31:22,030 --> 00:31:25,460

week. Well, then we'll send more containers. And because we can build the

509

00:31:25,540 --> 00:31:28,940

systems quite quickly, we actually can then send those

510

00:31:28,940 --> 00:31:32,580

units in a way where our ability to grow

511

00:31:32,980 --> 00:31:36,700

actually grows as our customer demand grows. And so we don't

512

00:31:36,700 --> 00:31:40,500

get ahead of ourselves in terms of construction and therefore having a lot of

513

00:31:40,500 --> 00:31:44,100

capital out the door for prolonged

514

00:31:44,100 --> 00:31:47,780

periods of time. And now at some point, the ideal

515

00:31:47,780 --> 00:31:51,610

scenario is for us to have negative working capital. And by what

516

00:31:51,610 --> 00:31:55,370

I mean by that is that, you know, we should be able

517

00:31:55,370 --> 00:31:58,930

to build our systems and pay our suppliers

518

00:31:59,810 --> 00:32:03,570

after we actually get paid for the units which are going out the

519

00:32:03,570 --> 00:32:06,970

door and actually start to generate revenue from them because we can build them so

520

00:32:06,970 --> 00:32:10,610

quickly. So that becomes super interesting

521

00:32:10,770 --> 00:32:14,570

in terms of expansion and it's great for all customers who use

522

00:32:14,570 --> 00:32:18,370

our systems. So now we're in a sort of interesting situation in Abu Dhabi

523

00:32:18,370 --> 00:32:22,140

now where, you know, we've got, you know, customers lined up for our

524

00:32:22,140 --> 00:32:25,780

first system, which is out there, and we have other people who say, well,

525

00:32:25,780 --> 00:32:29,220

once you've shown it and we like the product,

526

00:32:29,700 --> 00:32:33,380

then we want to have stuff as well. And so that then allows you

527

00:32:33,380 --> 00:32:37,100

to grow into that market rather

528

00:32:37,100 --> 00:32:40,620

than having a big project. We're hoping that people come. And I think that's

529

00:32:40,620 --> 00:32:44,060

basically where most of the vertical farming industry's been and they've had to be that

530

00:32:44,060 --> 00:32:47,880

way because they'll looking at big buildings. And by not having a big building,

531

00:32:48,040 --> 00:32:51,800

it just gives us the flexibility and it gives our customers the flexibility.

532

00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:55,080

And we're also in a situation where we can offer

533

00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:59,240

different types of solutions for people. So it could be that some people

534

00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:03,000

say, you know what, just sell us Basel. And

535

00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:06,840

other people will say, actually we want to buy

536

00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:10,640

your units or rent your units and we will

537

00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:14,450

own them. And. And then we'll just have a tolling arrangement in

538

00:33:14,450 --> 00:33:18,170

place whereby either we'll grow it in your systems

539

00:33:18,170 --> 00:33:21,970

or you can grow it for us, but we'll just do it at a fixed

540

00:33:21,970 --> 00:33:25,690

price so you know where your revenues are and we can just choose what we

541

00:33:25,690 --> 00:33:28,770

want to do in our system. So there's that kind of flexibility.

542

00:33:29,330 --> 00:33:32,610

And it means now that we are able to

543

00:33:33,570 --> 00:33:37,330

look at cooperating with most people, so we're

544

00:33:37,330 --> 00:33:41,130

not looking at other vertical Farms and say, no, your competitor to us, we're

545

00:33:41,130 --> 00:33:44,570

actually looking at the vertical farms and say, you are one of our customers, you

546

00:33:44,570 --> 00:33:48,250

are one of our target markets. No, they benefit from the fact

547

00:33:48,250 --> 00:33:51,690

that we're one of the largest vertical farms in the world. We've got more growing

548

00:33:51,690 --> 00:33:55,409

experience than most people and we have a cheap system which they can

549

00:33:55,409 --> 00:33:58,970

deploy and then they can gradually build up their

550

00:33:58,970 --> 00:34:02,410

capacity. And also they can also go into different

551

00:34:02,410 --> 00:34:06,090

markets quite quickly. So for example, if you're trying to now

552

00:34:06,090 --> 00:34:09,650

you're in the US and you've currently got one

553

00:34:09,650 --> 00:34:13,250

vertifarm or two vertical farms and you want to be able to expand into

554

00:34:13,250 --> 00:34:16,970

many cities quite quickly, you can go with us and we can actually send

555

00:34:17,770 --> 00:34:21,370

10 units, 10 grow containers to one city and then 10 to another

556

00:34:21,370 --> 00:34:25,210

city, 10 to another city. And if you're not getting great results,

557

00:34:26,170 --> 00:34:29,690

you just pick them up and move them to the place where you're actually getting

558

00:34:29,770 --> 00:34:33,260

a better customer feedback. So instead of being stuck in a

559

00:34:33,260 --> 00:34:37,100

location, you can just basically say, okay, clearly Seattle's not

560

00:34:37,100 --> 00:34:40,820

working for us. Let's move from Seattle and San Diego,

561

00:34:40,820 --> 00:34:44,420

here we come. And. Or you get to a situation where electricity

562

00:34:44,420 --> 00:34:48,180

prices in California are going crazy high and say, okay, I'm going to

563

00:34:48,180 --> 00:34:51,460

move over, over the border into Canada

564

00:34:51,700 --> 00:34:55,180

and get no lower cost electricity there from

565

00:34:55,180 --> 00:34:58,420

hydropower. So it's an interesting that flexibility

566

00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,640

is something which is relatively unheard of in the industry.

567

00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:06,360

It's pretty exciting. Yeah, it is very exciting. I love that approach, especially

568

00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,960

like the plug and play opportunities you have and this

569

00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:13,560

modular approach. And you wouldn't have the ability

570

00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,400

if things hadn't been working out in a specific region to pick up a whole

571

00:35:16,400 --> 00:35:19,960

factory and move it. Totally insane. Completely insane. Totally unheard of.

572

00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,280

And you know, if you look at the US market, you know, there's a lot

573

00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:25,700

of people who are doing sort of the micro green space. And you know,

574

00:35:25,700 --> 00:35:29,340

microgreens are things we'd really want to be fast and close to the customer. You

575

00:35:29,340 --> 00:35:32,700

don't want them to really be traveling any distance at all. And because they're so

576

00:35:32,700 --> 00:35:35,980

efficient, you know, these are high margin sort of products. Having

577

00:35:36,380 --> 00:35:40,180

multiple, no microgreen factories all

578

00:35:40,180 --> 00:35:43,780

over the place near your target market is something which is very easy for us

579

00:35:43,780 --> 00:35:46,540

to do, but you'd be pretty. And it's worth noting that

580

00:35:47,580 --> 00:35:51,100

our cost structure scales really

581

00:35:51,180 --> 00:35:54,870

nicely. So a lot of systems are very, very

582

00:35:54,870 --> 00:35:58,590

expensive at small and then they get cheaper and cheaper. Cheaper, cheaper as you get

583

00:35:58,590 --> 00:36:02,310

bigger. Well, we are actually cheap at small and medium and large.

584

00:36:02,950 --> 00:36:06,350

Yeah. Because we're all modular. So it's like where there's one container or ten containers,

585

00:36:06,350 --> 00:36:10,190

a hundred containers, it's still the container, and so it doesn't really matter. So

586

00:36:10,190 --> 00:36:13,790

that scaling approach, where you don't have to build a really big

587

00:36:13,790 --> 00:36:16,790

facility and just hope that you're going to get it filled, you can have a

588

00:36:16,790 --> 00:36:20,270

much more nimble structure. And as I said, you know, you can build, you know,

589

00:36:20,270 --> 00:36:23,710

you can go to 10 cities and have 10

590

00:36:23,710 --> 00:36:27,510

containers each city and then realize that actually three of them are terrible

591

00:36:27,510 --> 00:36:31,230

markets and just pull those containers out and reallocate them to

592

00:36:31,230 --> 00:36:34,830

somewhere else. Very smart. And I'm sure that anyone who's

593

00:36:34,830 --> 00:36:38,630

considering a new project would be keen on partnering with you,

594

00:36:38,630 --> 00:36:42,230

especially in their conversations with investors in terms of, like, the investment

595

00:36:42,550 --> 00:36:46,340

in equipment. And a lot of times, you know, the investors have that

596

00:36:46,340 --> 00:36:49,300

as a big concern and understanding how they're going to recoup

597

00:36:50,260 --> 00:36:53,940

their investment in the project. And I think speaking to it as a modular approach

598

00:36:54,420 --> 00:36:57,380

that's flexible and can turn

599

00:36:58,180 --> 00:37:01,980

on the conditions that are in that market, I think that's another selling point

600

00:37:01,980 --> 00:37:05,140

for some of these projects to get off the ground. It's also worth noting that

601

00:37:05,700 --> 00:37:08,820

when you're starting out for these kind of modular systems,

602

00:37:09,300 --> 00:37:13,040

because each container is identical to the other container. Once you

603

00:37:13,040 --> 00:37:15,360

know how to do it in one container, you know how to do it in

604

00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,600

ten or a hundred or a thousand. And this is very different from

605

00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,440

scaling of a big farm. So a big farm, you know, when you

606

00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:26,280

go from 3,000 square meters where we were, to 25,000 square meters,

607

00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:30,040

you know, the additional complexity about growing in a bigger space,

608

00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,120

you're, you know, although you think everything is the same, they're not. Your

609

00:37:34,120 --> 00:37:37,240

water hand, your water works differently, your substrate

610

00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:40,800

interaction with the trays works differently, your lights work differently, and the

611

00:37:40,800 --> 00:37:44,270

airflows work completely different. Your humidity, your temperature, all those things

612

00:37:44,500 --> 00:37:48,260

quite different. Whereas in our system, you get it right with one container,

613

00:37:48,340 --> 00:37:51,900

that's it, you're done. It's the same recipe, same everything for every other

614

00:37:51,900 --> 00:37:55,540

container, which you do, because they're all exactly the same. And so

615

00:37:55,540 --> 00:37:58,740

you don't have to, you know, one of the questions investors have is like, how

616

00:37:58,740 --> 00:38:01,900

do you scale? How do you know that if I go from one size to

617

00:38:01,900 --> 00:38:05,460

another size, you're not going to make a mistake? And with our system,

618

00:38:05,620 --> 00:38:09,380

basically, I've proven it with one, and therefore it is exactly the same

619

00:38:09,380 --> 00:38:13,140

for ten or one hundred or a thousand. And that is yet again,

620

00:38:13,140 --> 00:38:16,900

the mindset is very similar to a Solar farm. So solar

621

00:38:16,900 --> 00:38:20,220

farm, you know, starts off with a solar panel. Solar panel is

622

00:38:20,380 --> 00:38:24,100

380 watts to 540 watts. You know, those are your

623

00:38:24,100 --> 00:38:27,860

sort of ranges of the solar panels. Now that's. And there's a fixed size. And

624

00:38:27,860 --> 00:38:31,500

if you put no, one of those, it's 340 watts

625

00:38:31,500 --> 00:38:34,820

or 540 watts, whatever it is. And if you have 10 of them, it's

626

00:38:34,820 --> 00:38:38,260

5,400 watts. You know, it's like, that's what it is. And you put them on

627

00:38:38,260 --> 00:38:42,030

a different string and then have an array. And so there's some sort of interface

628

00:38:42,030 --> 00:38:45,230

between them. But fundamentally, you know exactly what you're going to get. And that's the

629

00:38:45,230 --> 00:38:48,590

same thing with our system. So if you know that one grow container

630

00:38:48,910 --> 00:38:52,390

is 96 meters squared of growing space and has these

631

00:38:52,390 --> 00:38:56,150

characteristics, then if you have, you know, 10

632

00:38:56,150 --> 00:38:58,830

of them, you've got 960 meters squared of growing space,

633

00:38:58,990 --> 00:39:02,510

109,600 meters of growing space. All of those things are

634

00:39:02,510 --> 00:39:05,870

super scalable. And you learn once

635

00:39:06,460 --> 00:39:09,660

and repeat rather than having to relearn every single time.

636

00:39:09,980 --> 00:39:13,820

And yet again, you know, if I look at my experience in the wind

637

00:39:13,820 --> 00:39:17,460

industry, you know, the wind industry scaled in

638

00:39:17,460 --> 00:39:21,220

two different axes. So one was if you say, you

639

00:39:21,220 --> 00:39:24,980

know, have a one megawatt wind turbine, you could go from a

640

00:39:24,980 --> 00:39:28,740

one megawatt turbine and have ten one megawatt turbines to create a

641

00:39:28,740 --> 00:39:32,500

ten megawatt farm, or you can go from a one megawatt turbine to a

642

00:39:32,500 --> 00:39:36,230

ten megawatt turbine. Now, going from one megawatt to ten megawatt is

643

00:39:36,230 --> 00:39:39,750

extraordinarily difficult. It was extraordinarily difficult to do

644

00:39:39,910 --> 00:39:43,550

and highly risky. But going from 1 to 10 to get to 10 megawatts is

645

00:39:43,550 --> 00:39:47,390

actually really, really well understood. And it's that kind of mindset that we

646

00:39:47,390 --> 00:39:50,710

have at Fisher Farms. It's like using a design motif

647

00:39:51,110 --> 00:39:54,790

that worked and got costs down dramatically

648

00:39:55,190 --> 00:39:59,030

in the wind and the solar and the battery storage areas in particular,

649

00:40:00,130 --> 00:40:02,770

I think, is very much what we're focused on in the organization.

650

00:40:03,970 --> 00:40:07,730

I love that model. It's so interesting that it's modular. And from a

651

00:40:07,730 --> 00:40:10,530

training perspective, like you said, once you've learned on one, you can learn in the

652

00:40:10,530 --> 00:40:14,370

others. And I could see in the future as these farms start to get

653

00:40:14,370 --> 00:40:18,210

rolled out and there's either consultants you work with or team members that

654

00:40:18,210 --> 00:40:21,090

you work with. I could see almost like a Fisher Farms technology certified

655

00:40:22,290 --> 00:40:25,770

person who's had experience with this and could sort of build a business around like,

656

00:40:25,770 --> 00:40:29,460

hey, we, we know these farms. We've done them across the country. So if

657

00:40:29,460 --> 00:40:32,900

you've got a project that's Fisher Farms tech related, then, you know, we could get

658

00:40:32,900 --> 00:40:35,980

it up and running, you know, in a shorter period of time than having to

659

00:40:35,980 --> 00:40:39,500

train people from scratch. That's a great idea. That's a great idea. We'll have to

660

00:40:39,500 --> 00:40:43,260

copy that one. Thank you. Yeah, have someone be Fisher Farms

661

00:40:43,260 --> 00:40:46,900

technology certified, you know, and that could be. Yeah, yeah, that's a great

662

00:40:46,900 --> 00:40:49,940

idea. But it's also the other things we're thinking about is that you can add

663

00:40:49,940 --> 00:40:53,190

the sort of the Fisher Farms inside. So we're very, very keen on it co

664

00:40:53,190 --> 00:40:56,990

branding side. You know, it's like, no, if you are no X, you

665

00:40:56,990 --> 00:41:00,590

know, Vertical Farm co. No. And it was like. And

666

00:41:00,750 --> 00:41:03,550

then you got fish of arms on the inside and you could be really great

667

00:41:03,790 --> 00:41:07,270

at your branding. And so, you know, this

668

00:41:07,270 --> 00:41:10,910

basically says you don't have to be an expert in all domains,

669

00:41:11,230 --> 00:41:14,750

you can be really, really good at branding, really good at

670

00:41:14,750 --> 00:41:18,470

customers. In the same way that, you know, a farmer doesn't

671

00:41:18,470 --> 00:41:21,990

actually have to build their own tractor, they don't have to build their own

672

00:41:21,990 --> 00:41:25,430

combine harvester. You know, you're not expecting them to be fully vertically integrated,

673

00:41:25,510 --> 00:41:28,270

they're just to do one part really, really well. And so I think a lot

674

00:41:28,270 --> 00:41:30,870

of businesses who are fantastic,

675

00:41:31,590 --> 00:41:35,430

amazing at branding, amazing at getting these done and so they

676

00:41:35,430 --> 00:41:39,150

can focus on the part which they're really, really good at, and we can

677

00:41:39,150 --> 00:41:42,110

focus on the part which we're good at, which is basically providing them a really,

678

00:41:42,110 --> 00:41:45,350

really high value, low cost

679

00:41:45,670 --> 00:41:49,370

system so they make more money and they don't have to worry about the technology

680

00:41:49,530 --> 00:41:53,050

risk and they can just get on with all the stuff which they're good at

681

00:41:53,050 --> 00:41:56,890

and making their customers totally delighted. I like that approach.

682

00:41:57,370 --> 00:42:01,050

Speaking of certification, you were recently granted the BR CGS

683

00:42:01,050 --> 00:42:04,890

certification as well. Yeah. So Fisher Farms, you know, in

684

00:42:04,890 --> 00:42:08,730

the UK market there's a whole series of different certifications you need in order to

685

00:42:08,730 --> 00:42:11,210

be able to sell food and stuff like that. And we have, you know, we

686

00:42:11,210 --> 00:42:14,970

score extremely highly on that. And it's an interesting one

687

00:42:15,530 --> 00:42:19,130

where the more I understand about the overall food

688

00:42:19,130 --> 00:42:22,930

industry, the more I discover that the Fisher

689

00:42:22,930 --> 00:42:26,410

Farm's quality and standard is so massively

690

00:42:26,410 --> 00:42:30,250

greater than a regular field. And it sort of feels like an

691

00:42:30,250 --> 00:42:34,090

obvious thing to say, but it's actually more shocking just

692

00:42:34,090 --> 00:42:37,890

how good we are in terms of quality than the rest of the sort of

693

00:42:37,890 --> 00:42:41,690

conventional land based systems are. So, no, we're very pleased about that.

694

00:42:42,260 --> 00:42:45,260

And, you know, we've got a great team now, I think, and Fisher Farms has

695

00:42:45,260 --> 00:42:48,780

been able, has been very lucky and that we've managed to attract and retain some

696

00:42:48,780 --> 00:42:52,420

really, really great people within the organization. And, you know,

697

00:42:52,420 --> 00:42:56,100

it's one of these things where, you know, they've done really great

698

00:42:56,180 --> 00:42:59,860

things for the business. I imagine that changes the way retailers view

699

00:42:59,860 --> 00:43:03,460

Fisher Farms as well. So retailers,

700

00:43:03,460 --> 00:43:07,100

when we, yet again, when we were originally looking at this, you know, the retailers

701

00:43:07,100 --> 00:43:10,340

I think gave us a pretty hard time about what they wanted and I think

702

00:43:10,340 --> 00:43:14,060

they were almost like trying to raise the overall standard of everything and using

703

00:43:14,220 --> 00:43:17,940

the way of actually driving that up. But no, I think retailers realize

704

00:43:17,940 --> 00:43:21,540

now that, no, how we do things, how our processes

705

00:43:21,540 --> 00:43:24,940

work are really, really great from a food

706

00:43:25,100 --> 00:43:28,900

standard, food, food health, food safety perspective. Now we've done

707

00:43:28,900 --> 00:43:32,740

a really good job. Congrats on the BBC interview. I saw that

708

00:43:32,740 --> 00:43:36,540

as well. And yeah, I believe in the role of vertical farming in

709

00:43:36,540 --> 00:43:39,890

the UK in terms of food security. So can you talk a little bit of

710

00:43:39,890 --> 00:43:43,610

what that experience was like? Yeah, so, I mean, we've had quite a

711

00:43:43,610 --> 00:43:47,410

few guys out there from there, ranging from, you know, the BBC a few times

712

00:43:47,490 --> 00:43:51,250

now. Sky News has been around to us as well.

713

00:43:51,730 --> 00:43:55,330

And it's always fun. And it's sort of one of these strange ones where I'll

714

00:43:55,330 --> 00:43:59,130

sort of get a text message in the morning from

715

00:43:59,130 --> 00:44:02,770

friends and say, oh, I heard you on Radio 4, which is the sort of

716

00:44:02,770 --> 00:44:06,410

the go to news radio outlet here in the UK

717

00:44:06,410 --> 00:44:10,180

for sort of talk and thoughtful inspection and stuff like that. So,

718

00:44:10,180 --> 00:44:13,460

no, it's been really fun. It's been fun getting that. And I think it's great

719

00:44:13,460 --> 00:44:17,180

for the team to actually also hear that people are

720

00:44:17,180 --> 00:44:20,980

talking about Fisher Farms, not just in our own small community, but actually out

721

00:44:20,980 --> 00:44:24,700

there in the real world as well. And, you know, but it is an

722

00:44:24,700 --> 00:44:28,500

interesting story. No, and what Fisher Farms is doing and very much

723

00:44:28,500 --> 00:44:31,500

is a sort of the future of food. And I think a lot of people

724

00:44:31,500 --> 00:44:35,060

have opinions about things like this and so it

725

00:44:35,060 --> 00:44:38,800

becomes topical as well. I think in one of past interviews,

726

00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:42,480

One of the CEOs mentioned that I think because of the podcast or because

727

00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:45,520

he was working on vertical farming, his kids now thought he was working on something

728

00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:45,920

cool.

729

00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,880

Yeah, well, you know, my kids are doing pretty cool stuff. I've got quite

730

00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:55,760

a few kids and they're all doing some fun stuff as well.

731

00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:59,960

So last time, Trishna, you spoke beautifully about creating a culture where bad

732

00:44:59,960 --> 00:45:03,680

ideas combine into great ones. And I'm wondering how that

733

00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:07,390

culture has scaled as your team and your global ambitions have

734

00:45:07,390 --> 00:45:10,950

grown. Yeah, I mean it is always an interesting, it's a fascinating one. We now

735

00:45:10,950 --> 00:45:14,670

have our sort of values that are plastered all over the wall

736

00:45:14,670 --> 00:45:18,390

and things like that. And yet again, for sort of your listeners perspective,

737

00:45:18,390 --> 00:45:22,230

those sort of four core values plus a fifth. So

738

00:45:22,230 --> 00:45:25,670

we've got two soft values and one of them is

739

00:45:25,670 --> 00:45:29,430

kindness. And so the idea is that let's just be kind to each other

740

00:45:29,590 --> 00:45:33,380

and know what. And kindness doesn't have to be a massive thing.

741

00:45:33,380 --> 00:45:36,900

It can be literally, you know, saying please and saying thank you and opening the

742

00:45:36,900 --> 00:45:40,060

door and can I get you a cup of tea? And I think that one

743

00:45:40,060 --> 00:45:43,300

thing which people forget is that, you know,

744

00:45:43,300 --> 00:45:46,940

whilst we are colleagues and employees and workers

745

00:45:46,940 --> 00:45:50,340

and all that kind of stuff, we are actually individual people who have

746

00:45:50,500 --> 00:45:54,340

the life cycle of what it is to be a human being.

747

00:45:54,420 --> 00:45:58,190

And so some of us will be having, you know, parents who may be dying

748

00:45:58,670 --> 00:46:02,310

or problems with our spouses. You know, somebody might be getting divorced

749

00:46:02,310 --> 00:46:06,030

or they have problems with their teenage kids or their young kids or they're

750

00:46:06,030 --> 00:46:09,390

not sleeping because of the baby or whatever like that. And so I think it's

751

00:46:09,390 --> 00:46:12,830

very important for us to acknowledge that we are much more

752

00:46:12,830 --> 00:46:16,470

rounded individuals than you would than the person you see working with you.

753

00:46:16,470 --> 00:46:19,950

And we have feelings and thoughts. And so just being kind to people

754

00:46:20,430 --> 00:46:24,090

goes a long way. And it's surprising how not

755

00:46:24,090 --> 00:46:27,930

kind a lot of people are, how rude they are or selfish

756

00:46:27,930 --> 00:46:31,050

they are or they don't consider these kind of things. So kindness I think is

757

00:46:31,050 --> 00:46:34,290

an important one. The other one we have is respect. And respect

758

00:46:34,370 --> 00:46:38,130

isn't that you get respect because you

759

00:46:38,130 --> 00:46:41,930

have no agency over that is like. But you respect other people and you

760

00:46:41,930 --> 00:46:45,490

respect their time, you respect their effort and make sure that you

761

00:46:45,490 --> 00:46:49,290

are, you know, if somebody says I had to have a deadline at

762

00:46:49,290 --> 00:46:52,490

this particular moment, are you going to do anything with that information or are you

763

00:46:52,490 --> 00:46:55,570

going to just sit on it for another few days, in which case maybe you

764

00:46:55,570 --> 00:46:59,330

need to get that deadline as sharply, as quickly as you needed it. So kindness

765

00:46:59,650 --> 00:47:02,850

and respect are the sort of the soft sides, but we also

766

00:47:03,730 --> 00:47:07,450

have factfulness as one of the other, one of the hard ones. And fact

767

00:47:07,450 --> 00:47:11,010

is just tell the truth as it really is.

768

00:47:11,330 --> 00:47:14,850

And sometimes people aren't lying, but they're just,

769

00:47:15,290 --> 00:47:18,450

they're putting things in a way which are where they'd like them to be. So

770

00:47:18,450 --> 00:47:22,130

for example, you know, the number is five. Well, the number will

771

00:47:22,130 --> 00:47:25,850

be five if certain things happen. But they're not five

772

00:47:25,850 --> 00:47:29,610

now. They're actually Four now. And so. But if I'm counting on

773

00:47:29,610 --> 00:47:32,890

you to tell me what's reality, I need to know that it's four now.

774

00:47:33,530 --> 00:47:36,290

And you can tell me that if these things happen, it will be five. And

775

00:47:36,290 --> 00:47:39,730

that's great. That's also factful. No, that's the part of the factfulness I need to

776

00:47:39,730 --> 00:47:43,420

understand what's going on. But don't say it's five when it actually is four. And

777

00:47:43,420 --> 00:47:47,100

so just being honest with ourselves, I think is really important.

778

00:47:47,420 --> 00:47:50,540

The other one is robustness. So the idea is that

779

00:47:51,100 --> 00:47:54,700

we can't always be nice. Yeah, we can't always be respectful.

780

00:47:54,700 --> 00:47:58,500

Sometimes we get our numbers wrong. Sometimes people just

781

00:47:58,500 --> 00:48:01,700

had a bad day. And what we don't want to do have is an organization

782

00:48:01,700 --> 00:48:05,380

where people are running around on eggshells wondering, oh, what are they going to. If

783

00:48:05,380 --> 00:48:08,980

I say something slightly wrong way now, how are they going to react to that?

784

00:48:08,980 --> 00:48:12,560

So I think there's a level of just suck it up and be

785

00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:15,840

robust. And so people can have and can have

786

00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,400

conversations where they disagree with you and sometimes they'll disagree with you quite

787

00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:23,000

strongly, hopefully in a kind way, hopefully in a respectful

788

00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:26,080

way. But we can't actually always be that. And I think the key thing about

789

00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:29,920

these values is that they're not where we are at. We're not like 10 out

790

00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:33,120

of 10. And all these values, they're much more of a destination. These are a

791

00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:36,280

journey which we all want. Everyone and some of us are going to be more

792

00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:38,600

kind than others, some are going to be more factful than. Some of them are

793

00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,930

more robust than others. But you just want to have those as a destination. And

794

00:48:41,930 --> 00:48:45,490

the idea is that those four values then help the

795

00:48:45,490 --> 00:48:48,810

fifth one, which is the critical one, which is the sort of the

796

00:48:48,810 --> 00:48:52,290

innovation side, and what we are doing

797

00:48:52,530 --> 00:48:55,490

is at the absolute cutting edge of technology.

798

00:48:56,130 --> 00:48:59,810

And because of that, we don't actually know what we're doing.

799

00:48:59,970 --> 00:49:02,850

And it sounds like a sort of crazy statement like, how can you say you

800

00:49:02,850 --> 00:49:06,650

don't know what you're doing? But no, if we knew what we

801

00:49:06,650 --> 00:49:09,940

were doing, we would have the answer already. I would today

802

00:49:10,660 --> 00:49:14,420

be the lowest cost. I would be cheaper than a glass house today.

803

00:49:14,820 --> 00:49:18,100

Yeah, that's what I would be. But I'm not, which means that I'm not there

804

00:49:18,100 --> 00:49:21,460

yet, which means that I need to do things, which means that I need to

805

00:49:21,460 --> 00:49:25,220

have an organization whereby people are putting ideas out

806

00:49:26,100 --> 00:49:29,780

which they don't really know the answer to. And what we

807

00:49:29,780 --> 00:49:33,620

want is my terrible idea and a genuinely bad idea.

808

00:49:33,620 --> 00:49:37,450

And your crazy insane idea and somebody else's

809

00:49:38,250 --> 00:49:42,010

drug addled idea or sleep addled idea, whatever it

810

00:49:42,010 --> 00:49:45,370

is, and they're all actually genuinely bad

811

00:49:45,370 --> 00:49:48,970

ideas independently. But by putting those

812

00:49:48,970 --> 00:49:52,570

ideas together, layering those ideas on top, we come up with

813

00:49:52,570 --> 00:49:56,410

a beautiful, brilliant insight which none of us independently

814

00:49:56,410 --> 00:50:00,210

had thought about. And if we have a culture where we're rude to each

815

00:50:00,210 --> 00:50:03,990

other or mean to each other, or we're lying to

816

00:50:03,990 --> 00:50:07,750

each other, or we're flaky and we're worried about what people

817

00:50:07,750 --> 00:50:11,510

will think, and you say something in a slightly weird way and then

818

00:50:11,510 --> 00:50:15,230

I get really upset, then we're not going to put those ideas on the

819

00:50:15,230 --> 00:50:18,910

table and we're never going to put the ideas on the table. And because if

820

00:50:18,910 --> 00:50:22,630

you slap me down for my bad idea, I'll never give you

821

00:50:22,630 --> 00:50:25,710

a good idea, I'll never give you any idea again because I'll be self

822

00:50:26,190 --> 00:50:30,000

censoring on those ideas. And so by having a mentality where

823

00:50:30,000 --> 00:50:33,800

it's like somebody has something and say, how do you build on this idea? I'm

824

00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:37,480

not saying this is a great idea at all, but this is something which

825

00:50:37,480 --> 00:50:41,120

we can build on. And we have found that, we found that a lot of

826

00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:44,920

our great insights have come from just

827

00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:48,640

adding to those ideas. And as a result of that, it's very difficult for

828

00:50:48,640 --> 00:50:52,400

somebody to say that's my idea, because it's not. It's like I've taken

829

00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:55,730

a little bit of that idea, I've taken a little bit of your idea, taken

830

00:50:55,730 --> 00:50:58,810

a little bit of my idea, and we've added them together and create a new

831

00:50:58,810 --> 00:51:02,570

idea. And so there's a much greater sense of ownership of the overall

832

00:51:02,570 --> 00:51:05,890

collective idea because it's not really anybody's idea. In particular, some person might be the

833

00:51:05,890 --> 00:51:09,370

person who said it, but they said it because

834

00:51:09,370 --> 00:51:13,090

somebody else had promoted or thought about these things, or they've taken

835

00:51:13,090 --> 00:51:15,970

four or five different other things together and to come up with the things. So

836

00:51:15,970 --> 00:51:19,490

I think sort of the innovation think is good. You need to do

837

00:51:19,490 --> 00:51:23,150

innovation in a safe way. And another way

838

00:51:23,150 --> 00:51:26,870

of thinking about it is that if you're trying to find where the edge of

839

00:51:26,870 --> 00:51:30,630

a cliff is in the fog, in the dark, you

840

00:51:30,630 --> 00:51:34,190

don't go to a guy and say, walk in that direction. And when you scream,

841

00:51:34,670 --> 00:51:37,310

I will know where the edge of the cliff is. What you want to do

842

00:51:37,310 --> 00:51:40,830

is you want to tie them up with a rope, attach them to some

843

00:51:40,910 --> 00:51:44,030

strong point and then you get them to walk off. And then they go, ah,

844

00:51:44,670 --> 00:51:47,790

but now you know where the edge is and you just pull them back out.

845

00:51:48,090 --> 00:51:51,170

And then they say, I've now found the edge. And then you walk off another

846

00:51:51,170 --> 00:51:53,570

direction and you literally fall off the edge of the cliff. But then you get

847

00:51:53,570 --> 00:51:57,250

pulled back in again. But the edge of the cliff is the

848

00:51:57,250 --> 00:52:00,890

edge of knowledge. And if you basically are frightened

849

00:52:01,050 --> 00:52:04,610

about getting to the edge of the cliff, you never go as far as you

850

00:52:04,610 --> 00:52:07,970

could do as an organization. You never go like, okay, this is what the next

851

00:52:07,970 --> 00:52:11,690

level is, because you're always frightened of failure. So

852

00:52:11,690 --> 00:52:15,300

you've actually got go the edge, fail, and then get

853

00:52:15,300 --> 00:52:18,100

pulled back. And now you know, this is a new. This is the new truth.

854

00:52:18,420 --> 00:52:22,140

And as a result of that, you can come up with a cheaper, better, faster

855

00:52:22,140 --> 00:52:25,140

way of doing things than you would have been able to before. But you're safe.

856

00:52:25,380 --> 00:52:29,180

And so these core values, the kindness, respect, the

857

00:52:29,180 --> 00:52:32,780

robustness, the factfulness, combined together create this

858

00:52:32,780 --> 00:52:35,780

culture which allows us to do things, which is one, I think, one of the

859

00:52:35,780 --> 00:52:39,300

reasons why we are the lowest cost vertical farm

860

00:52:40,270 --> 00:52:43,790

in the world. I couldn't think of a better

861

00:52:43,790 --> 00:52:47,590

bow to put on this conversation than to just

862

00:52:47,590 --> 00:52:51,270

kind of summarize those amazing values. Very inspiring. And I'm sure any business

863

00:52:51,270 --> 00:52:54,910

leader who's listening in any industry would be keen to kind of

864

00:52:54,910 --> 00:52:58,710

follow that model. And it seems like you've built an environment and

865

00:52:58,710 --> 00:53:02,510

a culture where everyone is supporting each other and pushing each other

866

00:53:02,510 --> 00:53:06,280

and challenging each other. And I think that speaks volumes to where

867

00:53:06,280 --> 00:53:10,080

you are today. So I really appreciate you coming back

868

00:53:10,080 --> 00:53:13,920

on Tristan and sharing this, the journey, and it's so exciting to see

869

00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:17,600

how much progress you've made and innovation you've made. And likely

870

00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:21,279

due to all these values with Fisher Farms, I'm really grateful

871

00:53:21,279 --> 00:53:24,840

for where this is headed for you. And this idea of the modular farms really

872

00:53:25,320 --> 00:53:29,040

feels like it has a lot of momentum and I think will allow people to

873

00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:32,680

play in the spaces where they excel, whether it's the marketing

874

00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:36,320

side and just, you know, allowing you to bring in the expertise

875

00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:40,160

on the production side. So lots of good things happening and I'm really grateful

876

00:53:40,160 --> 00:53:43,320

for the update. Thank you very much and thank you for your time and keep

877

00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:46,960

up the good work. And so we'll have all the links to contact

878

00:53:46,960 --> 00:53:50,640

you and the team in the show notes and wishing the best success. What do

879

00:53:50,640 --> 00:53:54,240

you have planned for conferences coming up? I've actually gone through a lot of

880

00:53:54,240 --> 00:53:58,080

conferences the last few months, so I've been in Germany a few times, been

881

00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,570

in the Netherlands a few times, Middle East a few times. So my next batch

882

00:54:01,570 --> 00:54:04,850

is going to be probably sometime in January, though I have a bit of a

883

00:54:04,850 --> 00:54:08,570

break at the moment. Okay. Yeah. Hopefully Anir or someone from the

884

00:54:08,570 --> 00:54:12,170

team will get to connect with you as well. I appreciate your time. Excellent. Okay.

885

00:54:12,170 --> 00:54:13,410

Good luck. Thank you very much.