Agroz aims to build Malaysia’s largest indoor vertical farms

BY ALEXANDER WONG

Agroz Group Sdn Bhd has announced that it’s building 100,000 square feet of indoor vertical farms in Malaysia throughout 2021, making it the largest of its kind in the country. When completed, the vertical farms can produce 3 tons of clean and fresh vegetables daily.

The Malaysian-based agriculture technology (agritech) company was founded by serial technopreneuer, Gerard Lim Kim Meng, who has experience in the Malaysian technology and digital industry. The group aims to address the issue of Food Safety, Food Security and Sustainability in Malaysia with its commercial large scale and industrial grade indoor vertical farms.

Vertical farms are an efficient way of producing fresh vegetables as it uses less space and water compared to traditional farming on open land. The environment can be controlled accurately which include temperature, humidity and lighting. Since the vegetables are farmed in a well-controlled environment, it also eliminates the need for pesticides and additional chemicals.

According to the press statement from Agroz, it claims that most fresh vegetables including organic ones are several days or weeks old and are preserved “fresh” with large amounts of chemicals and preservatives.

It added that these vertical farms can be built within the community so that they are placed closer to where it’s consumed for a “farm to fork” supply chain. As a result, consumers will be able to enjoy clean, fresh, chemical-free and high quality food within hours.

Agroz will be using a myriad of advanced technologies to ensure that its farming process is repeatable, scalable and traceable. This would include IoT, big data analytics, artificial and augmented intelligence, machine learning, blockchain and in the future, 5G, to create a sustainable approach to modern precision agriculture through indoor vertical farming.

The group is seeking to raise RM100 million through issuance of Redeemable Convertible Preference Shares (RCPS), with exit plans in 5 years through a proposed initial public offering (IPO) or via a trade sale to a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC), if applicable.

According to its founder and CEO, Gerard Lim, they currently have over RM5 million worth of contracts in its order books with millions of dollars more in the pipeline to design, build, operate and manage various indoor vertical farms. He shared that they are currently growing 200kg per month and will soon have the capacity to grow 1 ton per day from their various farms that are already committed.

Gerard added that the indoor vertical farms will create hundreds of new high valued jobs and generate income for local communities in the post-COVID-19 era.