UrbanFarm won the second place of the Make It Lean Contest 2020/21 and with that 3.000€ price money for their startup project.
Their startup is an environmentally friendly, mobile production system for nutrient-rich microgreens that uses the recycling of food waste from restaurants for their own needs on site.
As sustainability gets more and more important, UrbanFarms project is spot on. So we were curious, how did they came up with their idea and what are their plans for the future?
1) How did you find out about the Make It Lean Contest?
We came across the Make It Lean Contest while we were searching for support programs for startups.
Then we thought that this contest would be a great chance to share our idea with a large audience and opportunity to get support by every means.
2) How and when did you get together as a startup team?
We got together around this idea in October 2020. We have already known each other for a while and both of us wanted to create value for the whole society then we started thinking.
3) How did you come across the problem that you wanted to solve with your founding idea?
We have always wished to find a solution for increasing demand for food. With the pandemic, this demand became more significant than ever.
All of us -even in the big cities- felt the fear of not having enough food in the groceries to feed ourselves.
Therefore we wanted to find a way to grow food for people in the cities in another manner creating self-sufficient cities. About recycling food waste, Ecem has seen the big issue how much food goes away everyday.
Since she is a chemist, she proposed to use this food waste as a fertilizer and grow organic food without chemicals.
4) What is your main goal in the next 3 months?
We have already set up our prototype system and in the next three months our goal is to launch our operation and present our products in the market. We are currently working on that step by step.
5) Who would you like to have a coffee or tea with? Why?
Well, that’s a tough one. If he was alive, definitely Henry Ford. He had a great vision and much ahead of his time.
