Perth startup Eden Towers to bring new vertical farms to Perth, plans national and international rollout

WA’s first vertical farm will celebrate its inaugural harvest next week, coinciding with a capital raising by the Perth-based startup to fund a major expansion across Australia and the Asia Pacific region. Eden Towers, founded by husband and wife team Christian Prokscha and Julia Prichodko, has established a small vertical farm in Malaga and will start distributing their leafy salads and micro herbs through an independent supermarket from next week. Vertical farming grows crops in stacked layers in a tightly controlled environment without soil and pests and weeds can be kept at bay, eliminating the need for chemicals. As well as saving space, vertical farming uses a fraction of the water that would normally be required. Eden Towers uses one litre to grow a kilo of lettuce, compared to 250 litres in an open field, and about 60-80kg can be grown per square metre, compared to 3.9kg in the open. Mr Prokscha, a former management consultant and private equity professional, said while the Malaga facility was built small to prove the technology, Eden Towers planned to build a bigger facility in Osborne Park or Bayswater, possibly in a repurposed warehouse, in coming months. The first phase — targeted for completion by the end of 2021 — would feature two towers up to 12m high and each stacking two columns of up to 72 trays. Each tower would enable 864sqm of growing space on a foot print of 36sqm, with each producing 30-45 tonnes a year. A further two towers would be built by mid 2022 at the same location. With a price tag of about $3.5 million for the new facility, the business will turn to crowdfunding via the Birchal platform to raise the money, with a target of between $3m and $5m. Further rounds of fundraising are planned, primarily through professional investors. The additional capital will be used to roll out further vertical farms in Jakarta, Singapore, Melbourne and Sydney by the end of 2022. Eden Towers has partnered with Scotland-based agritech Intelligent Growth Solutions, which specialises in crop science and water management, to build the farms. Ms Prichodko said climate change and global population growth had increased demand for food and put pressure on availability of arable land. “Farms are being pushed further from urban centres, adding more carbon miles between the farm and table, while the quest for higher yields means using more chemicals,” she said. “Eden Towers’ vision is to provide a sustainable future, through sustainable energy and water systems, and smart use of land and location.” This produces “post-organic” produce with almost zero food miles and continuous recycling of all farm inputs, Mr Prokscha said. The pair have big plans for the business. As well as growing salads and micro herbs, research and development is under way on strawberries and chillies. They would like to eventually supply Coles and Woolworths, possibly having vertical farms next to the distribution centres to reduce food miles. Longer term, Eden Towers is eyeing a stock market listing.