Vertical farm CAPEX as low as €650 per square meter
Source: VFD.com
Investment figures well above €1,500 per m² of growing area have made it hard to build a compelling business case, especially when competing against greenhouse or open-field production. At medium and large scale, it drops to €730 and €650, figures that are difficult to ignore." Bigger farms, more automation The Moving Tower System is mechanical and modular, applicable to any farm size.
Total cost per kg drops from €5.50 at the small scale to €3.80 at the large scale, with labour making up a smaller share as capacity increases. The mechanical design avoids complex robotics or software dependencies, keeping maintenance simple and costs predictable." At medium scale, OPEX runs €3.74/kg against a €7.00/kg sales price.
The result: lower risk for first-time operators, and a system that scales from a 226 m² pilot farm to a 2,500 m² commercial facility — without reinventing the infrastructure." Proven in the field Dutch Lion has completed its first United States indoor farm project this year, located in Wyoming. "Through vertical cultivation and automated plant movement, the installation achieves 10x effective cultivation area within just limited floor space — a 10:1 area ratio that makes the system particularly suited to space-constrained sites." For the past 18 months, Vertify has also been running an operational MTSys installation at World Horti Center in Naaldwijk, the Netherlands.
Why this matters: For operators, this is a water-management story. The useful signal is that direct substrate measurements can help cut drain loss materially without giving up yield or fruit quality, which is exactly the kind of controllable efficiency gain a facility can build on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does substrate sensing matter in free-drain strawberry systems?
Because drain percentage tells a grower what already happened, while substrate moisture and EC data show root-zone conditions directly. That makes it easier to cut water loss without guessing.
What is the operator takeaway from this trial?
If the thresholds are understood well enough, growers can reduce drain water materially while protecting yield and fruit quality, which makes sensing an operational tool instead of a reporting tool.
