A Turn-Key Urban Farm Solution With Agritech Startup, Archisen

Monday, February 21st, 2022 | 1017 Views

Archisen is a homegrown agritech company that designs, builds, and operates solutions to grow ultra-fresh, ultra-local produce in cities.

Agriculture has been a crucible of evolutionary change over the years. The Singapore Food Agency reports that the country imports over 90% of the food consumed, leaving the bulk of our food supply dependent on unpredictable factors such as climate change, political unrest or economic shifts. Like many urban nations, this is largely due to the scarcity of farming land. Today, the confluence of technology, engineering, design and farming has set the stage for a transformation in urban farming.

Hidden in the Commonwealth Capital Building at Buroh Lane is one of Singapore’s highest yielding farms – Archisen. In just a short span of six years, this 7,000 sqft farm has grown to account for the production of about 1% of leafy vegetables grown locally by producing up to 100 tonnes of vegetables a year. With the goal of building the largest network of urban farms in Asia, Archisen focuses on cultivating a food resilient future and enabling urban landscapes to produce sustainable, affordable as well as accessible local produce with three simple solutions – Cropdom, Just Harvest and Just Produce.

A Turn-Key Urban Farm Solution – Cropdom

Utilising cutting-edge IoT technology and data analytics, Cropdom has redefined the traditional physical barriers of farming. Powered by Archisen’s proprietary software, Croptron, it consists of many innovative functions such as farm design, market analysis, crop selection, sale of produce and financial modelling to optimise the usage of precious resources. Founders Sven Yeo and Vincent Wei shared, “We didn’t just build a solution to help solve farmers’ problems. We created one that will benefit Singapore’s food ecosystem, whereby fresh, flavourful and nutritious vegetables are made available to consumers at an affordable price.” With the integration of Cropdom, Archisen has been able to retain a strong focus on sustainability, and their closed-loop farming system is estimated to use a remarkable 90% less water compared to traditional farming methods.

Unique farm-to-table solution – Just Harvest

Not to be confined to industrial spaces, Archisen has developed Just Harvest which provides retail storefronts with the freshest, house-grown plants. By installing vertical towers on their premises, Archisen enables restaurants, cafes and hotels to harvest the vegetables fresh and serve them to their customers, all within the day. With Just Harvest, Archisen has demonstrated how technological innovations can provide an ease of convenience and higher yield to businesses in urban farming.

Nutritious, Flavourful Produce for All – Just Produce

Archisen’s flagship brand, Just Produce, carries a variety of salads and specialty herbs, free of chemical pesticides or GMOs. Using Controlled-Environment Agriculture (CEA), every aspect of the climate can be controlled and monitored – including temperature, humidity, light intensity and air composition. This enabled Archisen to configure environments that organically enhance the natural, rich flavours of each plant, while retaining its nutritional value. Archisen has pursued bold flavour palettes, growing salad leaves bursting with unique flavours like Wasabi, Lemon and Himalayan Pink Salt. Who said salads had to be boring? Leveraging their optimised agriculture techniques, Archisen is able to generate premium produce at a price-point that is accessible to all! Just Produce retails at a variety of online and in-person stores, including RedMart and FairPrice.

Archisen’s Just Produce offerings ($4.50/100g)