US: Purdue entrepreneur creates kitchen hydroponics garden

Scott Massey, a senior in Purdue’s mechanical engineering technology program, is the founder and CEO of Hydro Grow. The Hydro Grow hydroponics garden produces food by growing seeds in individual cups which can be purchased via an app and inserted into the system. The consumer can then change the seed cups depending on what they want to grow in their garden at the time. Each cup produces for approximately three weeks and can hold 42 seed cups.

Massey said, “I’ve heard a statistic that 80 percent of the costs of produce in the grocery store just comes from transporting it. Think how much cleaner of a world we could be if people could be that self-sustainable to where the amount of money that they allocate for food could just be put on just one single purchase of this unit.”

Massey said that hydroponics systems use 95 percent less water and grows food 2-3 times more quickly than traditional farming. Massey recently presented Hydro Grow at the Big Idea Pitch competition and won first place, receiving $5000 in prize money. He will be continuing to present his project at other competitions.

“This has the potential to either be a government product going to schools, even like military applications providing food to soldiers, people around the world on bases, or even just an average consumer,” said Massey. “It’s kind of exciting talking about all the possible segmentation of where this could be implemented.”

Read more at The Exponent