Recently, Plant Factory, a Turkish vertical farm supplier, opened a 1500m2 vertical farm inside İstinyePark, a popular shopping mall based in İstanbul, located on the -5 floor.
“It’s the first industrial-scale vertical farm in Turkey established inside a shopping mall and we’re super proud to play such a big part in it,” says Halil Beşkardeşler, Co-founder and CEO of Plant Factory.
Inside the new farm
The farm will produce about 900,000 products per year and is expected to have a daily harvest of 2,500 products. These products comprise various types of lettuces, kale, purple kale, pak choi, basil, purple basil, type of parsley, and coriander.
Inside the farm, Plant Factory’s technology is applied that has been developed in-house for the past seven years, together with their solution partners. Taking about eight months to finish the farm, its products are now used by restaurants that are based inside the shopping mall. Besides B2B, products are available at Macro Center branches, a high-end retail chain and Taze Direkt, an e-commerce platform for fresh produce.
The Minister of Agriculture of Turkey was present, as well as Plant Factory’s consultants, chefs, industry experts, influencers, the senior management of the shopping center, and restaurant owners.
Halil Beşkardeşler speaking at the event
New projects in the pipeline
A second farm is planned on the Anatolian side of Istanbul and is set for opening in the 2nd half of 2024. “We’ll continue research efforts in our two R&D centers to commercialize more products eventually. On top of that, sales have been ramped up via various channels to increase our network day by day,” says Halil Beşkardeşler, Co-founder and CEO of Plant Factory.