What’s the story or inspiration behind the creation of TerraceLab?
Myself and our co-founding team of three met while studying for our MBA in Madrid, and it was an entrepreneurial MBA program where we had flexibility to explore creative startups. I come from a 10-year real estate background. And, while studying for my MBA, it was the peak of the second wave of the pandemic. So working from home was the new normal. The hybrid model was now in full swing. And as a result of that, many commercial spaces in downtown city centres were vacant as tenants were downsizing their need for office space. So, I started looking at creative solutions of how we could leverage urban spaces for sustainable solutions. Why not indoor farming and hydroponic farming?
My two co-founders, they come from Puerto Rico and Chile, respectively from Puerto Rico island, with not a lot of land for food production, so heavily reliant on imports. As a result, he was exploring creative solutions for self-sufficiency. Chile is a super tough country to navigate because of its geography. So again, moving food around is incredibly difficult, so we were looking at ways to connect people to fresh food in an easier way. So once the three of us realised that coincidentally, we were working on similar ideas during our master’s program, we came together and formed TerraceLab.
And It was during this brainstorming of our three minds and our three backgrounds that we realised that, to put it simply, the general population is food illiterate. We have no idea what we’re eating or where it comes from. And that’s largely to do with the fact that we’re disconnected from our source of food. Industrialisation and urbanisation has removed people further and further away from their source of food. So, how do we reconnect them with fresh food? And that’s when we came up with our farming as a service concept. To connect people to fresh food directly inside the spaces they use the most, so that we’re targeting the spaces where people work, learn and live.
Can you elaborate on the main sustainability benefits of your indoor farming solutions?
I’ll start with zero food miles to begin with. So, as I mentioned previously, we’re connecting fresh food to people directly inside the spaces they use. So this means we’re growing fresh leafy greens without relying on any sort of transportation and the carbon emissions that come with that. This is a genuine farm-to-table experience. Next, because this is a self-contained hydroponic technology, it uses 98% less water than traditional agriculture. And finally, because we don’t use soil, this is entirely a chemical-free growth cycle. So no pesticides, no added chemicals required. All of this is being done in a controlled environment to optimise the growth cycle in the freshest way possible.
Can you share any success stories from hotels using your solutions?
We are currently installed in two social hub locations. The social hub is a large pan-European operator of hotels, student housing and co-working spaces. So three in one. After successfully installing at their location in Madrid, we were organically referred to their location in Barcelona. Expanding to a new city faster than our startup had anticipated. So far, they are our success story in the hotel, student housing and co-working environment.
How do you see the hospitality industry evolving in terms of sustainable food options?
Well, I feel like I’m an avid traveler. My dad used to be a pilot, so I’ve flown quite a lot and I’ve stayed at a lot of hotels around the world. I feel like sustainability right now in the hotel industry is really pushed in terms of the standard communication you get in your hotel room about towels and water preservation. I know there’s a commitment towards it, and a lot of hotels want to achieve that, but, at least in my experience, it’s not marketed as well as it could be. In this case, we’re talking about fresh food grown in public access directly in plain sight of all guests. So imagine you had a little vertical tower right next to the bar of the hotel lobby. And, when guests checked in and they had their welcoming drink, it was literally mixed and infused with the herbs that were being grown right next to the bar. This adds an emotional connection to the experience and it truly elicits the fact that the hotel is doing something different and it’s approaching sustainability in a more marketable way, by connecting people to nature directly in the actual lobby and guest experience.
Do you have any upcoming projects or developments that you’d like to share with us?
We’re close to wrapping up an RND project that is combining the natural growth environment, with the digital world. We’re developing a hardware and software solution that uses IOT sensors to monitor the growth environment of our hydroponic towers, more specifically the water. In a hydroponic device, water is everything, in terms of the nutrients that are added in the water and the pH of the water itself. So these will monitor that water accordingly. And, based on the data recorded, we are developing an automation system that will balance the water. Right now, this is done manually by us on a weekly basis. But by automating this and being able to remotely manage it, it will allow us to scale. It should be an exciting next step in our chapter of expanding farming as a service to more and more locations.
