SMARTKAS

Founded in 2020, Netherlands-based SMARTKAS operates a fully automated, sustainable agricultural process that uses renewable sources to produce food without pesticides. SMARTKAS uses renewable energy sources to power its smart farms and has an autonomous irrigation system. It also uses an innovative solution to microdose plants with CO2, recycle excess CO2, and reduce its carbon footprint. Its crops are grown without pesticides or soil, using a wholly airtight and automated process that eliminates the need for washing before consumption. SMARTKAS relies on AI, robotic vision, and a data-driven approach that allows it to operate 24/7 without human intervention. It offers 50+ varieties of fruits, vegetables, and herbs and claims to have a water-positive irrigation system that recycles 95% of the water and generates an extra 5% from rain and humidity. The smart farm offers year-round availability of five Salanova lettuce varieties, including Butter, Oak Leaf, Lollo, Crispy, and Batavia, each available in red and green. It also offers Crystal Lettuce and Everbearer Strawberries, developed over a 10-year breeding program.

The company has a 6,000 sqm indoor vertical farm in Amsterdam, Netherlands, with 10 layers of elevation up to 12 meters, growing six varieties of lettuce and strawberries. The farm is fully automated and equipped with robotics, cloud computing, AI, dynamic LED lighting, indoor precision farming, yield precision systems, and 2,000 solar panels for solar-powered energy supply. In addition, the company operates what it claims is the largest and highest-yielding vertical farm in Harlow, UK, with a smart strawberry farm with 12 layers that covers a growing space of 27,000 sqm. In February 2023 , the farm partnered with BerryWorld, a soft fruit specialist, to grow its strawberry variety. It has trialed it at its R&D site in the Netherlands over 12 months to ensure consistent quality, taste, and flavor.

The SMARTKAS Central Eastern European Headquarters is in Budapest, Hungary. The R&D laboratory covers 750 sqm and is developing four new unique and proprietary products for SMARTKAS. The company has signed an MoU with the municipality of São João del-Rei in Brazil to construct a smart greenhouse facility on 65 hectares of land. The facility, set to begin construction in 2023, would use sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural processes to yield up to 10,000 tonnes of premium fruits and vegetables annually without pesticides. Smart greenhouses would rely on renewable sources of energy and water.

SMARTKAS partnered with His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan in July 2020 to create a joint venture in Dubai. The goal is to use high-tech SMARTKAS units to transform desert areas into farms, providing food security in the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf region.