CitySkyFarms
We run farms that grow sustainable, local fresh vegetables, fruit and fish on urban rooftops.
About You
Background Information
First Name
Kate
Last Name
Hofman
Twitter URL
https://twitter.com/#!/brassk
Facebook URL
The competition is only open to people between 18-34 years-old and resident in UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark or the Netherlands. Does this apply to you
Yes.
Country of residence of entrepreneur
UK
Tell us about your personal background. Why are you passionate about this issue? Making an idea a reality takes innovation, dedication and strong leadership. Do you have the necessary entrepreneurial skills to realize your vision?
After spending 4 years working as an Organisational Change Consultant for a big corporate helping change other businesses, I realised I wanted to work in an industry that created value for local communities and had a positive environmental impact. Food has always been a hobby and a source of huge enjoyment for me. Making the links between sustainable production, ethical consumption and preventing food waste for people living in urban environments is a challenge that needs a huge amount of work, and has the potential to provide employment, improvements to an urban landscape and a commercially viable source of fresh produce.
My MSc in Environmental Technology and Business, as well as meeting and connecting with some inspirational people in the field of urban farming have convinced me that urban farms are the future for supplying London with healthy, local and fresh food.
I spend last summer on an EU-funded programme for innovation and entrepreneurship for climate change, where I worked in a team to develop a business concept which went on to secure €15,000 of greenhouse funding to take the idea to the next stage of development. This experience gave me the skills to pitch and excite about my ideas, as well as manage a budget and deliver against a plan.
Whilst on this programme I also met Roman Gaus, the founder of UrbanFarmers, a company in Switzerland producing aquaponics technology allowing you to farm fish and vegetables in a closed loop system. Inspired by the company's attitude and success I am determined to bring their innovation to London as part of wider network of technology enabling farming in London.
About Your Organization
Organization Name
CitySkyFarms
Organization Website
Organization Country
United Kingdom, LND
Country where this project is creating social impact
United Kingdom, LND
Is your organization a
For‐profit
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Innovation
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Like almost all urban conurbations, London needs locally produced vegetables and fruit as well as a sustainable source of fish. With over 30,000 rented allotments, London is a city that already embraces urban farming, and now has the opportunity to support commercial farms providing employment and a cheap source of healthy sustainable food.
Children in urban areas lack basic knowledge about the origin of their food, and many of the fresh vegetables on offer in supermarkets today are imported, incurring a large carbon footprint.
Finally, approximately 50% of food that is produced for the UK market ends up in the bin - extended supply chains and human behaviour mean that there are huge opportunities to reduce the amount of food waste in cities.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
CitySkyFarms operate roof-top farms which use the latest aquaponic and 'biochar' technology to grow fresh vegetables, fruit and fish on unutilised real estate. We lease the roof space from the building owners, allowing them to realise the full potential of their properties. We then set up a farm on the roof and sell the produce through London's network of over 20 farmers' markets, to cafes and restaurants or even to the canteens in the buildings themselves. Our freshly harvested, local food:
• Has a longer shelf life
• Reaches consumers in better condition than fruit and vegetables which have been grown overseas and shipped into our supermarkets
• Doesn’t require the extensive packaging or refrigeration that air freighted produce needs.
Integral to the operation of our farms is an education programme for local schools to teach children about the way food is produced and how their eating habits can have an environmental impact.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
Using aquaponics technology we can grow over 3 kg/m2 of fish and 16kg/m2 of vegetables. So with just 50m2 we could produce approximately 170kg fish and 840kg vegetables per year. Our farms use a combination of methods to grow a variety of produce. This makes the best use of space and encourages biodiversity. Throughout the year we continually harvest seasonal produce and sell direct to the public or to restaurants and cafes.
We provide:
• A low-carbon alternative to imported produce
• Make use of currently unexploited property space in a city where property prices are at a premium.
• A potential to reduce food waste by shortening the journey from "field to fork"
• Encourage healthy eating.
You could be in Elephant and Castle eating a tomato and basil salad, served with a freshly smoked trout fillet which had all been picked in Peckham that morning!
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
Existing urban farming operations currently operate on a localised scale. There is just one aquaponics installation in London (in the Dalston FARM:shop), and a pioneering project “Food from the sky” runs above the Thorntons Budgens’ supermarket in Crouch End, growing fresh produce to sell in the store. We believe these operators have started a trend that we can take even further, and we see them as collaborators in the journey towards a more sustainable fresh food supply chain. We also see the potential to work cooperatively with London community faming groups. Our biggest challenge will be integrating as a credible part of the fresh produce supply chain in London so that our customers know they can rely on us to provide a consistent and dependable source of vegetables and fish.
Select the stage that best applies to your business
Operating for less than a year
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
What is the social impact you have had to date and how you measure it?
As forerunners in an emerging market, we have focused on starting the dialogues to mainstream urban farming. Our café project with MAD in London in Kings Cross will be the first of many projects to raise awareness and bring together people who share passion and vision for urban farming.
Our production of food for local communities generates employment and contributes to social regeneration. Additional outcomes include opportunities to connect with local schools. Improved understanding about food growing technology in urban environments is important in changing consumer behaviour. Money spent in London on fresh food will go directly back into the local economy, and we can measure this using the LM3 methodology to continuously improve our performance
Sustainability
How does your model address financial, social, and environmental sustainability?
Financial: We want to demonstrate that urban agriculture can be commercially viable, and so our farms do not rely on donor funding, but instead generate revenue from the sale of produce to be self-sufficient. Corporate sponsorship is an option that could be explored if businesses were interested in directly purchasing fresh produce for use in their staff canteens. With the ethos of a social enterprise, Good Food from the Roof will only search for external funding if an outside partner can be found who shares our vision. We envisage MAD in London Ltd to be a key partner, as their vision of roof-top community cafés fits perfectly with our desire to be a trusted supplier of local fresh produce.
Social: Strong community connections are crucial for this business to be a success. We want the local community to be devoted customers and we want to develop strong community links to ensure our business is delivering a service that is needed and welcomed. By providing employment and education opportunities we hope to act as a model for other urban farming businesses.
Environmental: Whilst increasing food security by reducing our reliance on imported produce, we can also produce food in a way that has a lower carbon footprint and minimises the use of pesticides and fertilizers. As a nascent industry, there are opportunities for us to research and develop the continuous improvement of urban agricultural methods.
Awareness & learning
How do you see social entrepreneurship contributing to the improvement of developing countries?
Issues like food security continue to worsen in both developed and developing countries. Social entrepreneurship has the potential to create transferable innovation to be shared between countries. In developing countries social entrepreneurship offers a way of doing business and creating social change which doesn’t rely on foreign aid, government subsidies or local government initiative. Social entrepreneurs are best placed to develop innovative solutions to local environmental challenges. The emergence of globally connected social entrepreneur communities means that best practice can be shared and solutions can be tailored to individual circumstances in other communities. Developing countries have suffered as a result of a reliance on corrupt governments and the distribution of foreign aid. Both these things prevent local accountability and sustainable businesses. I see social entrepreneurship as a big part of the solution.
What aspects of your stay in Uganda as part of the competition do you think you will find most challenging and rewarding?
Having spent 4 months teaching in a primary school in Nairobi in Kenya, I know that East Africa can be a culture shock. Comparing the way in which we understand and treat food in the UK to a country like Uganda will provide me with a level of insight which working in London alone could not. It would be hugely rewarding and provide a unique perspective for my work to learn about how Uganda and the UK need to change in order to move towards sustainable economies. Living and working with local farmers is a once in a lifetime opportunity to learn and experience sustainable agriculture in a developing country. This experience would be directly relevant to Good Food from the Roof and add another dimension to our drive to produce sustainable food in urban environments. The sustainability issues related to food production are not only globally interconnected, they are issues for which all countries, both developed and developing, need to find solutions.
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| Imagine growing fish up here!.jpeg | 62.51 KB |
| Growing in an aquaponics system.jpg | 1.03 MB |
 | 6 weeks agoKate Hofman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 14 weeks agoKate Hofman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 14 weeks agoKate Hofman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 15 weeks agoKate Hofman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 15 weeks agoKate Hofman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 16 weeks agoKate Hofman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 16 weeks agoKate Hofman submitted this idea. |
