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- Vertical Farming World Congress 2023
Vertical Farming World Congress 2023
Bringing together vertical farming operators, investors, suppliers and customers, this 4th annual Vertical Farming World Congress is designed to help develop and advance the sector’s future. It is the most substantial dedicated event of the year, featuring two days of conference sessions, exhibits, local vertical farm tours, networking with key industry figures and presentation of the Vertical Farming World Awards 2023. For new entrants as well as industry leaders.
Sponsors
About
Zenith Global's Vertical Farming World Congress is the highest level and most significant dedicated industry event of the year.
Bringing together vertical farming operators, investors, suppliers and customers, the 4th annual event in London will again assemble key industry leaders from around the globe to debate and advance the industry's future.
There will be two days of conference sessions, where industry leaders, innovators, suppliers, advisers and investors will share their insights through a series of presentations, interviews and interactive panel discussions, in addition to vertical farm tours, a welcome drinks reception, industry policy round tables, extensive networking breaks and a gala industry dinner where the Vertical Farming World Awards will be presented.
Speakers at last year’s Congress included Aerofarms, Bowery, CEA Food Safety Coalition, Festo, Fischer Farms, Freight Farms, Future Crops, Intelligent Growth Solutions, Infarm, Infinite Acres, Jones Food Company, N.Thing, Rabobank, USDA, Wageningen University, 80 Acres Farms and more. View the complete agenda online here.
Speakers include
Monday 9 October
Timings to be confirmed.
Afternoon tours to depart from Leonardo Royal Hotel London City for visits to local vertical farm facilities, returning at 18.00.
Tuesday 10 October
Peter Bachmann, Managing Director – Sustainable Infrastructure Fund at Gresham House, United Kingdom
Professor Derek Stewart, Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre at James Hutton Institute, United Kingdom
Professor Francesco Orsini, Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at Bologna University, Italy and Convenor of VertiFarm 2024
Questions and discussion
Sponsor presentation
Refreshment and networking break around sponsor and exhibitor displays
Panel discussion on key industry issues such as market opportunity, consumer appeal, political support and sustainability
Speaker to be announced from AeroFarms
Irving Fain, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bowery Farming
Craig Ratajczyk, Chief Executive Officer of Crop One Holdings
Rick Vanzura, Chief Executive Officer of Freight Farms
Tisha Livingston, Chief Executive Officer of Infinite Acres and President of 80 Acres
Panel discussion on key industry issues such as market opportunity, consumer appeal, political support and sustainability
Tristan Fischer, Chief Executive Officer of Fischer Farms, United Kingdom
Erez Galonska, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Infarm, Germany
James Lloyd-Jones, Chief Executive Officer of Jones Food Company, United Kingdom
Conrad Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Stacked Farm, Australia
Jesper Hansen, Chief Commercial Officer of YesHealth Agri-biotechnology, Taiwan
Sponsor presentation
Lunch and networking break around sponsor and exhibitor displays
Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute, United States
Speaker to be announced
Tom Könisser, Business Development Manager at Philips Horticulture LED Solutions
Questions and discussion
Speaker to be announced
Associate Professor Caitlin Byrt, Science Adviser to Lunaria One, Australia
Questions and discussion
Refreshment and networking break around sponsor and exhibitor displays
Geraldo Maia, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pink Farms, Brazil
Daniel Tzvetkoff, Founder and Chief Architect of Stacked Farm, Australia
Daniele Benatoff, Founder of Planet Farms, Italy
Questions and discussion
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Wednesday 11 October
Speaker to be announced
Speaker to be announced
Speaker to be announced
Speaker to be announced
James Dashwood Chase, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Baz & Co, United Kingdom
Questions and discussion
Refreshments and networking break around sponsor and exhibitor displays
Tal Lutzky, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pigmentum, Israel
Speaker to be announced
Speaker to be announced
Questions and discussion
Jamie Burrows, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vertical Future, United Kingdom
Jack Farmer, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of LettUs Grow, United Kingdom
Jack Leung, Founder of Agrician, Hong Kong
Speaker to be announced
Questions and discussion
Lunch and networking break around sponsor and exhibitor displays
• Workforce skills
• New crops
• Energy costs
• New technology
• Distribution
• Nutrition and health
• Communications
• Sustainability
Plenary reports back from round tables
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Speakers
Professor Derek Stewart
Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre at James Hutton Institute, United Kingdom
Speaker to be announced
Aerofarms
Jack Leung
Founder of Agrician
Jack Leung is the founder of Agrician, a Hong Kong-based vertical farming company founded in 2021 providing premium fresh produce for local community with a subscription model and promoting urban farming social benefits to the public.
James Dashwood Chase
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Baz & Co
Irving Fain
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Bowery Farming
Irving Fain leads Bowery, the largest vertical farming company in the U.S. that designs and builds smart indoor environments to reimagine the future of food.
Bowery is scaling quickly with three commercial farms, two state-of-the-art R&D farms, and two more commercial farms under development that will more than double the company’s total production. Bowery is sold in over 1,800 locations including Whole Foods, Ahold Delhaize, Amazon, Safeway/Albertsons, and Walmart.
Bowery is backed by tech and agriculture leaders with $647M in equity and debt raised from investors including Fidelity, Temasek, GV, KKR, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, First Round Capital, and individuals including Jeff Wilke, Tom Colicchio, José Andrés, and David Barber.
Craig Ratajczyk
Chief Executive Officer of Crop One Holdings (FreshBox Farms)
Tristan Fischer
Chief Executive Officer of Fischer Farms
Tristan Fischer is the green energy expert and visionary behind Fischer Farms, an independent business specialising in sustainable vertical farming.
The 4-acre site will house 25,000 m2 of growing space – enough to supply 6.5 tonnes of leaf salad, leafy herbs and other fresh produce to UK supermarkets every day – and will produce yields 250 times greater than conventional farms.
With a vision of transforming the future of farming through the latest vertical farming innovations, pioneering tech, and solar power, Tristan is set to achieve his ambition of delivering a scalable and more sustainable food production industry.
Throughout his career, Tristan has been involved in several large-scale clean energy infrastructure projects, and has worked with some of the world’s leading companies, such as Citigroup and Shell renewables. He has also supported some of the most promising SMEs, including Camco, which he listed on AIM, increasing shareholder value 6-fold.
Tristan was previously Chairman of University of Leeds spin-out, C-Capture, and Chairman and CEO of Lumicity, which developed over £145m of infrastructure assets in the UK agricultural sector, including solar projects and 179 biomass package plant rooms worth £25m for the poultry sector. He was board director of Dukosi Ltd, a smart battery company.
With a highly respected background in Agritech, other commercial interests have included FishFrom Ltd, a land-based salmon company; and Great British Prawns Ltd, a land-based shrimp company, both of which use Recirculating Aquaculture Systems (RAS) technology.
Tristan speaks passionately about resource depletion and climate change, the global balance of power, and the economic and societal challenges that face the world. His personal website, History Future Now explores these overlapping themes, looking at current events from a historical perspective, and contemplating the future.
As a sustainable farming evangelist, Tristan can provide thought leadership and commentary on topics including green energy, vertical farming and sustainable food production.
Rick Vanzura
Chief Executive Officer of Freight Farms, United States
Rick Vanzura is the CEO of Freight Farms, the pioneer and global leader in hydroponic vertical container farming technology.
Peter Bachmann
Managing Director – Sustainable Infrastructure Fund at Gresham House, United Kingdom
Peter is Managing Director of Gresham House’s Sustainable Infrastructure division and Fund Manager for our British Sustainable Infrastructure Fund (BSIF) strategy.
Prior to Gresham House, Peter led the investment and exit of the Sustainable Infrastructure-focused Environmental Capital Fund (ECF) for SEP, one of Europe’s most successful VC firms.
With over 21 years of public and private equity investment, development and fund management experience, including two top-decile infrastructure fund exits, he has invested into and exited over 200 infrastructure and technology companies across all sectors with an equity value of over £1.7bn and capital value of c.£5.5bn.
Peter has had board member roles on over 60 investee companies and is a Senior Associate of the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL). Peter is also an active investor in early-stage sustainability companies.
He holds a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) with honours and two further Bachelor degrees in Finance (BFin) and Commerce (BCom), all from the University of Adelaide, and is a proud graduate of CISL’s Business Sustainability Management programme.
Erez Galonska
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Infarm
Erez is co-founder and CEO of Infarm, the world’s largest cloud-connected farming network.
Today, the Infarm network produces millions of plants a month for 50% of the world’s largest retailers in Asia, Europe and North America. Infarm’s tech-driven, modular approach tailors production to customer demand, uses 95% less land and 95% less water, and travels 90% less than industrial farming.
Under Erez’s leadership, Infarm has recruited an industry-leading team and developed cutting-edge R&D to help cities become self-sufficient in their food production, while significantly improving the quality and environmental footprint of food.
Erez has been recognized by the European Commission as one of Europe’s top innovators in agriculture and technology.
Tisha Livingston
Chief Executive Officer of Infinite Acres and President of 80 Acres, United States
Tisha Livingston began her career in the food industry over twenty years ago. Since then, her roles have introduced her to every aspect of the industry—from finance to logistics and operations to engineering to research and development.
James Lloyd-Jones
Chief Executive Officer of Jones Food Company, United Kingdom
James founded Jones Food Company in October 2016 having been introduced to technology via a feature on ‘Tomorrow’s World’.
The JFC growing estate continues to expand as the company broke ground last year on what will become the world’s largest vertical farm.
James does not have a traditional horticultural background, allowing him to come to the field with a pragmatic business mind, priding himself on trying lots of things very quickly and scaling on a phenomenal level. He predicts that vertical farming could provide 70% of the UK’s fresh produce within the next 10 years.
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Jack Farmer
Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of LettUs Grow, United Kingdom
Jack Farmer is the Co-Founder and Operational Lead of LettUs Grow, a start-up using innovative aeroponic technology to design the next generation of indoor farms.
Associate Professor Caitlin Byrt
Science Adviser to Lunaria One, Australia
Tal Lutzky
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pigmentum
Geraldo Maia
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pink Farms, Brazil
Meet Geraldo Maia, an industrial engineer who is passionate about innovation, sustainability, and food.
Daniele Benatoff
Founder of Planet Farms, Italy
Born and raised in Milan, Daniele achieved a BSc in Economics cum laude at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Derek Smith
Executive Director of the Resource Innovation Institute, United States
Derek Smith is Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute (RII), a non-profit organization whose mission is to measure, verify and celebrate the world’s most efficient agricultural ideas.
Tom Könisser
Business Development Manager at Philips Horticulture LED Solutions
Tom Könisser is Business Development Manager at Signify (Philips), specializing in Indoor Farming (City Farming).
Tom is a guest lecturer at HAS University and WUR University, the Netherlands, on the topic of Indoor Farming.
Conrad Smith
Chief Executive Officer or Stacked Farm, Australia
Conrad has over 30 years experience in the food service sector.
Daniel Tzvetkoff
Founder and Chief Architect of Stacked Farm, Australia
With over 20 years in business and software development, Daniel has extensive experience in strategy, technical architecture, data analytics and process design.
Stacked Farm is working to create the future's harvest, a legacy for sustainability.
Professor Francesco Orsini
Department of Agricultural and Food Sciences at Bologna University, Italy and Convenor of VertiFarm 2024
Dr. Francesco Orsini is a full professor at the Dept. of Agricultural and Food Sciences (DISTAL), University of Bologna, Italy.
Jamie Burrows
Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vertical Future
Jamie Burrows is the Founder & CEO of Vertical Future (VF), a global vertical farming technology and research company, founded in 2016.
Jesper Hansen
Chief Commercial Officer of YesHealth Group, Taiwan
YesHealth Group, based in Taiwan, is a mission-driven company with the goal to transform agriculture and create sustainable practices that do not harm the environment.
Further speakers to be announced
Further speakers to be announced
Location and accommodation
Location
The Vertical Farming World Congress 2023 will be hosted at the Leonardo Royal Hotel London City, located in the heart of London, just a stone's throw from the Tower of London and Tower Bridge.
The 4-star venue offers panoramic views of the city, a smart, modern interior and unbeatable transport connections, along with two contemporary-style bars, two restaurants, a fully equipped gym and spa facilities, a 25m swimming pool, and a virtual golf simulator.
For delegates wishing to book accommodation, an allocation of rooms is available at a negotiated rate of £229 per night on a strictly first come, first served basis. Accommodation can be booked here, by selecting the hotel from the drop-down list or by calling +44 (0)207 863 3700. Please quote the block code LHZENI081023 to access discounted rates.
Leonardo Royal Hotel London City, 8-14 Cooper's Row, London EC3N 2BQ
Visas may be required from source countries. Zenith will be happy to help with visa support documentation where possible.
| Pay by 9 Jun Super saver | Pay by 11 Aug Early booking rate | Pay by 9 Oct Standard booking rate | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full Congress | Each delegate | £890.00 | £990.00 | £1,090.00 |
| Concession* | £490.00 | £540.00 | £590.00 | |
| Separate elements | 9 Oct tour, reception | £340.00 | £390.00 | |
| 10 Oct conference | £590.00 | £690.00 | ||
| 10 Oct awards dinner | £150.00 | £200.00 | ||
| 11 Oct conference | £440.00 | £540.00 |
*A concession rate is offered to start-ups and early-stage entrepreneurs. To be eligible, you must have annual sales below £1 million. For more information and to book at this rate, please contact events@zenithglobal.com
Substitutions will be accepted at any time. Cancellations will be subject to £150 + VAT administration charge per delegate and cannot be made after 11 August. Bookings are subject to Zenith Global Event Terms and Conditions, available here.
Visas may be required from some countries. Zenith Global will be happy to help with visa support and documents where possible.
e events@zenithglobal.com t +44 (0)1225 327900
Sponsorship
Our event and awards sponsorship packages offer a unique and effective opportunity to showcase your brand and services to a highly relevant audience.
You can choose from our Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze sponsorship packages, or we can create a custom sponsorship package to suit your specific needs and budgetary requirements.
Sponsorship opportunities include:
- Presentation within the main event programme
- Opportunity to host a workshop, roundtable or drinks reception
- Exhibit display in the networking area
- Distribution of marketing material / product samples
- Delegate passes
- Discounted delegate access for your clients
- Branding across event collateral, including stage backdrop, lectern and programme
- Logo on event webpage hyperlinked to your website
- Sponsored email communication to all attendees
- Sponsored social media posts
- Regular mentions in Zenith Global's event marketing and press releases
For information and pricing, please contact Francesca Hall, Events Director
e fhall@zenithglobal.com t +44 (0)1225 327900
Testimonials
"Not just another 'conference' but a diverse curation of cutting edge thinking and hard hitting ideas. This is THE industry event." Jay Desan, BoomGrow
“A great event with an excellent organization team behind and a good choice of topics. Outstanding moderator in the Q+A sessions.” Christine Zimmermann-Loessl, Association for Vertical Farming
“A great gathering of industry leaders to discuss innovation, challenges and future steps. Excellent opportunity for networking and identifying market opportunities.” Pavlos Poullaidis, Viscon Group
“Insightful. Pertinent. Will definitely be back! Great job to the organising team.” Pierre Swaelas, Yasai
“A must for anyone in the vertical farming space” Ron Mitchell, Clayco
"Great conference for high levels of information, as well as, detailed information on CEA.” Melanie Corey-Ferrini, 3.14DC
“I found the conference very valuable and the level of speaker’s world class. Great work.” Fotis Fotiadis, Better Origin
“A truly excellent and well organised event, with a great line up of speakers and topics, not to be missed.” Harriet Duncalfe, Berrygardens Ltd
“Excellent service delivery. Focused on achieving more with less.” Akan Ukwak, EnvisioGlobal
“I attended this event for gaining knowledge on CEA for my automation company serving the auto and fulfilment industry. Should we peruse this opportunity? Yes.” Robert Rodriguez, Alternative Engineering
“The organisation of the Congress was spotless. Richard is an outstanding MC, keeping the discussion engaging and interesting.”
"A great incite to the vast differences between the world of vertical farming and how each company has a lot of differences and at the same time a lot of similarities. Good to network with other people. Can't wait for it to be in person." Linzi Naisbitt, Light Science Technologies
“I've attended the Congress as an external operator (not currently involved in VF) and found it extremely informative. Excellent platform to establish connections and networking too.” Martino Picotti, Proriented
"It was an amazing experience to meet the industry leaders and understand the current trends of the industry."
“The host from Zenith asked clear and concise questions and it was enlightening to see vertical farmers of all business sizes and technologies bring experience, expertise and skills to the screen.” Innovation Agri Tech.
"We got sound feedback from the speakers, fund managers as well as industry leaders and start ups of their challenges and the information guided by Richard Hall's unique way of brining the best out of everyone. It simply works." Leo Lobato Kelly, Karma Verde Fresh
"It was my first time at Vertical Farming World Congress and it was amazing. A well planned event and good panellists/presenters. Lots of great takeaways. Thank you very much!"
“The congress was well organized -everything went smoothly. Topics were diverse and engaging, and they managed to conduct virtual tours of the farms which I found fascinating." Semillar Translations
"Great line-up of speakers and topics"
"Richard is a great panel leader. He knows his subject, lets panellists talk without disruption and allows them to exchange opinions without overlapping the subject or allocated time. Very impressed.” Josephine Favre, The African Association for Vertical Farming (AAVF)
"An excellent platform to interface with the leading companies globally in this new industry." Porohita Projects Ltd