Indoor Ag-Con reflections with Nick Green
Indoor Ag-Con reflections with Nick Green
Our Head of Commercial Nick Green shares his thoughts on the Indoor Ag-Con summit in Las Vegas
Indoor Ag-Con is one of the biggest events in the US and North American market in our industry: bringing together tech providers, growers and investors from across North America and further afield. Think Greentech, but in Las Vegas!
Ben Crowther (co-founder & CTO at LettUs Grow) and I attended to connect with potential partners, after the announcement of our aeroponic partnership programme last month. After positive feedback from turnkey builders both in the greenhouse and vertical farm space, we were able to start conversations with a number of growers interested in the programme whilst at the event.
The keynote speeches were well attended and helped us understand further the dynamics of the industry in North America, the challenges and opportunities facing the industry. In a nutshell, they’re facing the same headwinds in Europe with issues such as brand positioning, production costs, and organic certification being discussed among many others. An interesting difference with the North American market is that proximity to the shelf is a selling point that resonates well with the consumer. We’d find this hard to comprehend here in the UK, but 90% of the produce consumed in the US comes from California and Arizona, which is 5-6 days away by truck from New England, a major consuming area.
The event allowed us to further develop our network and relationships in the North American market and better understand our go to market strategy in the region. In particular we were able to progress negotiations with key manufacturing and sales partners, who are able to supply Aeroponic Rolling Bench systems to the whole of North American and beyond.
Our founders Charlie and Ben will be building on this progress at the World AgriTech Innovation and Future Food summits in San Francisco next week.