Research and development

Columbi Farms aims to take a leading position in sustainable food production

Columbi Farms seeks to play an important role within sustainable food production and to help address humanity’s biggest challenge to date: climate change.

When establishing the food production company in 2020, the goal was to produce healthy and sustainable food for a growing population. Innovative environmental technologies help clean the water from onshore fish farming operations and optimize it for reuse in vegetable farms. These technologies are known for their efficient production of quality food and their ability to scale up annual production capacity through indoor vertical farming.

The synergies within our sustainable food platform

In combination, vegetable production and fish farming (aquaponics) enable us to make more out of less. When giving fish their feed, the protein content of this feed provides the plants with the nitrogen and phosphorus they need for growing. Columbi Farms produces healthy human food by reusing wastewater from the fish farms. From 1 kg fish feed, our solution produces 10 kg of food: 1 kg of fish and 9 kg of vegetables.

The process works in the following way: Water from the fingerlings/smolt phase is taken out and cleaned for particles (sludge), and the remaining nutritious water is transferred to our vegetable farm, where conditions are optimized for plant growth through artificial growth light, temperature, CO2 and nutrient-rich water. This effective cultivation of vegetables allows Columbi Farms to produce several tonnes of vegetables annually, while minimizing the use of soil.

Seeds and seedling department

Columbi Farms will offer a wide range of vegetable types and varieties, and purchases its seeds from professional seed dealers. The seed will typically be an F1 seed, which means that every seed is developing in the same way every time. This allows us to offer the same quality all year round to our customers.

The seed is given its required conditions to sprout, and the seedlings grow for another 2-4 weeks before being transferred into the vegetable farm.

The vegetable farm

When the small seedlings are ready to be transferred into the vegetable farm, they are labelled and put in the right place by robots. Here, the plants enjoy an optimal environment until they are ready for sale and hopefully end up at your table.