„We sell innovation, that’s our ambition“, a tech professional said over dinner in Seoul. Mark Zuckerberg comes to Seoul to discuss the next gen XR device technology and seeking partnerships with the local tech powerhouses. And when walking through the streets of Seoul, you can see it everywhere, futuristic facades and architecture, entire video walls in buildings and offices, and vertical farming cafes / restaurants. Now, vertical farming is not a new thing and has been around for a decade and New York being an early hotspot for it, but the combination of restaurant and vertical farm such as Livfarm in Seoul-Gangnam makes the vertical farming technology tangible and accessible to consumers in their daily life. The concept allows customers to witness the processes involved in operating a vertical farm, from seeing the vegetables being grown to cooking and eating, all in one place. Another example is Sik Mul Sung which serves food to diners via a conveyor belt that circulates the cultivation room and runs along a curved bar. And the interior design and architecture of those restaurants and cafes is remarkable. The advanced LED technology and a drop in prices for LED makes it possible to move farming indoors at scale. The global vertical farming market is expected to grow by another 3x over the next 5 years, mostly driven by countries with either limited space such as Singapore or countries with tougher climate conditions such as the Middle East where the vertical farming technology makes a difference that really matters.
