HomeGrown Farms, a student startup with affiliations to George Washington University has reengineered the traditional farm, packing an acre’s worth of growing into a 320-square-foot shipping container. With layers of plants stacked up, watered by a hydroponic system and lit by the dull magenta glow of LEDs, the startup’s technology hopes to revolutionize how, and where, farming can occur.
“We have a vertical component. A lot of other hydroponics facilities just use sunlight and one layer of farming,” CEO Parth Chauhan told DC Inno. “For us, we have six layers, so we are able to magnify the amount we can grow in a single space.” The tech configuration is comparable to the products of a Boston-based company, Freight Farms.
Chauhan says that the HomeGrown Farms model has value thanks to its efficiency, plus the ability to grow crops year round. Because the system uses 90% less water than in traditional farming, the startup could have traction in Californian markets, given the West Coast state’s recent drought. Additionally, the hydroponics technology means growing happens with 80% less fertilizer than a field requires.
Homegrown Farms has a tight delivery range which ensures the fresh veggies travel no more than 30 miles to reach their clients, in contrast to shipping across the country from warmer states.
“On average, your lettuce is going to come fifteen hundred miles,” says Chauhan.
The local delivery process provides jobs to a community, one part of the startup’s multifaceted “social component,” which also has them donating 10–15% of produce to nearby food banks and the nonprofit sector.
The first (and currently only) HomeGrown Farms location is in New Jersey, feeding Camden County. In August, Chauhan says, the University of Pennsylvania will get added to the client list.
“That’s the big-ticket for us.”
He hopes to expand to other college campuses with new shipping containers, such as his alma mater George Washington University(GWU), which is already engaged in early talks.
Two of the founders of HomeGrown Farms are alumni of GWU; CEO Chauhan graduated from the Elliott School of International Affairs in 2013, and Expansion Manager and resident scientist, Pranav Kaul, attended the same program, class of 2016.
This past spring the farming startup won the New Venture Competition at GWU, beating out nine other finalists to win a total of $60,000 in cash, and almost another $15,000 of in-kind prizes, ranging from graphic design to legal services.
Through the New Venture Competition students, alumni and teachers develop and launch entrepreneurial ventures with the help of GWU workshops and mentors. The competition is the 5th largest of its kind in the country, according to the GWU website.
HomeGrown Farms hopes to spend the prize money on retrofitting a new shipping container, to be set up by the end of July.
Currently their menu is limited to herbs, such as parsley and mint, and leafy greens such as spinach and kale. The team can grow bigger and heavier vegetable like squash and tomatoes once they a have bigger facility like a warehouse, a business phase they wish to enter within six to nine months.
CFO Raghav Garg says that the mentors and workshops at the New Venture Competition were “extremely helpful and crucial to [the team’s] success thus far,” and he praised the chance to develop their business plan.
“When we entered we had a lot of ideas on potential directions, but going through a formal process and focusing our efforts in certain areas really allowed us to move forward as a business,” Garg says. “We did have our first location when we entered the competition, but now we have a much better idea of the direction we'd like to expand in.”
