Frankfurt — Berlin-based urban farming start-up Infarm has raised $25m to expand its indoor growing system — a soil-less technology better known for furtively growing marijuana — into major supermarket chains and restaurants across Europe. The company, founded by three Israeli filmmakers-turned-entrepreneurs, plans to use the funds to roll out mini, in-store farms with Edeka, Germany’s largest supermarket chain. It is also working with Metro, the country’s No 2 grocer. Infarm wants to help cities become self-sufficient in food production, lowering farming’s environmental footprint. A single, two-square-metre unit can be located in stores or dining rooms, or the same units can be chained together in central distribution centres to grow hundreds of different varieties of plants, each with its own micro-climate. "We decided it would be more effective to distribute the farms themselves and farm directly where people live and eat," co-founder and CE Erez Galonska said. Industrial-scale U...
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