"Being positioned in Fauske allows us great access to the highway and railway to the North. Luckily, we have access to cheap electricity which keeps costs quite low," shares Marius Johansen, Founder of Grønt Fra Nord (GFN), a vertical farm based in Norway.
Lars Vik in the Fauske farm
Despite his background, which was not in farming, Marius was persistent about having a farm on the island where he was born and raised. Analyzing the market, he found that there is a need for a stable supply of crispy lettuce, something used in the region's national kitchen. So why start a farm, - and Marius would disagree - in the middle of nowhere?
With the usual case of starting small and scaling up, Marius moved into a bigger farm, increasing his cultivation area by 600%. Transforming a former car shop into a vertical farm has been successful, yet, the farming hasn't been without hurdles. GFN has found it very handy to use overhead conveyors for the moving doors, the concrete floor, and the loading dockets at the backend of the facility. On the farming end, "It has been a trial and error kind of case."
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The 15-layered farm
A strong connection with the community
As he finds, Fauske has great water quality, which comes in handy when growing lettuce. Do you have any competition in the 'far North'? "We don't," Marius says. Besides imported produce, there are a few greenhouse growers in the area he explains, yet they are using pesticides to keep pests out. "It makes their products last way less long than ours. Retailers greatly appreciate the convenience of our extended shelf-life products, as it allows them to make more sales and have less waste."
On top of that, Marius explains that greenhouse operators have higher costs to manage their operations, "which consumes much more energy than operating a vertical farm of this size." A strong connection with the community certainly helps, Marius explains, especially when building a new brand. "We are thankful to say that this helped us a lot to build up trust and gain market share locally, and beyond."
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Crispisalad
From manual to semi-automated
The 15-layered farm is growing one product, in particular, Crispisalat, which means crispy salad in Norwegian. Marius wanted to explore the potential of his farm before heavily investing in elements that, according to him, aren't essential to run a vertical farm, such as complete software control, and automation. "We learned it the hard way," Marius shares. Soon, he realized that it's quite handy to make use of a certain level of automation, which he calls 'key automation'.
Lars Vik, a Market developer at GFN has been taking it upon himself to adopt automation using from-the-shelf items from local stores. From a lighting control system, a nutrient dosing system, and a climate control system, to a new automated packaging line, has helped GFN significantly to reduce man-hours on the farm. Now, Marius is slowly deploying more elements into the farm such as farming software, and more.
Gront Fra Nord is supplying microgreens to various stores
"We'll run some changes to the cultivation area as well to ramp up microgreens production and have all of our slow scale-up automation fall better into place. Strawberries and mushrooms are products we see potential in for the future," Marius affirms.
Looking into acquiring vacant facilities in the region, GFN aims to slowly expand into the Northern region, where they've positioned themselves as one of the main indoor farming suppliers to Coop and beyond. "Our salads are favored by locals as normally, they would see imported lettuce in-stores. The Norwegian flag on the packaging works its magic for sure," Marius shares proudly.
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For more information:
Grønt Fra Nord
Marius Johansen, Managing Director
+47 900 20 797
[email protected]
www.grontfranord.no