Eating healthy and freshly grown food has been on the minds of people around the world lately. But what do you do when you live in an apartment or an area that does not meet the needs to grow salads, tomatoes and other produce?
Hyperlocally grown food is the option. Click & Grow is a company that has been manufacturing smart gardens for 11 years. With the help of their products everyone can become a gardener and have a supply of healthy produce all year round no matter what the climate outside may be.
The company sees growing food at places of consumption – such as in homes, schools, hospitals – as the most sustainable and economically viable solution: the textbook definition of hyperlocal.
Click & Grow has put up a wall filled with 500 living plants for the duration of EXPO 2020 Dubai. The wall consists of 13 different plant types ranging from dill to dwarf basil, thyme, red chard and green sorrel. The last of them is a plant that does not like heat so is not an ideal type of plant for areas with extreme temperatures such as Dubai.
The company will not use the EXPO as just another fair to introduce their products but as an event that will popularise plant growing for urban areas in general, says Martin Laidla, the PR Manager for Click & Grow.
“We took part in the previous EXPO that took place in Milan, Italy, and we enjoyed the experience. We saw that we have something to offer during the Dubai EXPO, so we jumped on board. We are aiming to make growing fresh foods even more popular,” Laidla adds.
The product list of Click & Grow consists of five different smart gardens that are intended for indoor usage. The core of the technology they use is actually in the innovative soil mix that creates the perfect environment for the plants.
Laidla stresses that with the help of Click & Grow it’s possible to grow up to three times more vitamin-rich foods and it also takes 95% less water than in traditional agriculture, all without the introduction of pesticides or other harmful chemicals. The soil is packed into a pod with seeds. At the moment, there are 60 different plant types available.
Remember Kickstarter, the once popular crowdfunding website? Click & Grow launched their first product there. Their latest one, named Click & Grow 25, was also launched there and managed to surpass the modest 35 000 USD goal many times over. Backers pledged over half a million US dollars to fund the product.
The unique part of the 25 is that it is modular. Up to three modules can be stacked on top of each other, meeting the average family’s nutritional needs for fresh greens. All the gardens’ systems are controlled via a smartphone app and have built in LED lights which are vital to produce fresh greens year-round.
Retailers are already selling Click & Grow products in the United Arab Emirates, but you can place an order at the Estonian Pavilion and the product will be shipped to your door.
According to the business daily Äripäev, Click & Grow has tripled its turnover during last year from €8M in 2019 to €24M in 2020. At the same time, the profitability has increased 3.75 times up to €1.5M. Mattias Lepp, the founder and CEO of Click & Grow, said that the company is in the growing phase and aims for the turnover of 30 million euros in 2021.
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