A farming revolution: How a UBS Global Visionary is redesigning our food supply system
Written by Yascha Wecker - Photos courtesy of infarm
Osnat Michaeli built her first hydroponic system with her partner Erez Galonska in the living room of their Berlin apartment. “It was February in Berlin, cold and snowing outside, and we had fresh vegetables inside,” she remembers. The outcome of that experiment of cultivating plants indoors without using soil was so promising that she embarked on a journey to explore the challenges behind making urban farming a reality.
Osnat Michaeli, Co-founder of infarm
Less than five years later, she has become the co-founder and Chief Brand Officer at infarm, a company that has established a worldwide presence and wants to revolutionise the global farming supply system.
A FARMING (R)EVOLUTION
By founding infarm, Michaeli and her co-founders set out to address some of the biggest issues facing the global food supply system, like the fact that half of the food produced goes to waste before it even reaches the customer.
“The inconvenient truth is that our
current food system is not capable of feeding the growing urban population sustainably”
Infarm is offering a solution by growing fresh produce in a network of modular, cloud-connected vertical farms that are tailored to urban spaces. Produce is grown close to the consumer’s point of sale and requires 95% less land and less water than traditional agriculture, according to Michaeli.
To date, the company has partnered with over 30 of the world’s top retailers, to produce local, fresh produce in 10 countries worldwide. “The vision was - and remains - to help cities become sustainable in their food production, removing the need to have our food shipped in from thousands of miles away, and ensuring access to fresh, premium produce, at affordable prices, 365 days a year,” says Michaeli.
BECOMING A GLOBAL VISIONARY
In 2020, Osnat Michaeli was named a Global Visionary by the world’s leading global wealth manager UBS, who is present in the Grand Duchy with more than 550 employees and has a long standing tradition and track record in Luxembourg dating back to 1973. The programme aims to showcase and support leading entrepreneurs who are working towards finding innovative solutions to a broad range of global issues and meeting one or several of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
“This programme shows what sustainability in action looks like and what it looks like when you connect people for a better world.”
Grégorie Muhr, Head of UBS Philanthropy and Impact Insights
When selecting candidates for its Global Visionaries Programme, UBS looks for innovative entrepreneurs whose work has a real impact. Their venture also needs to be financially and operationally sustainable, scalable, and compatible with the overall strategy of the programme. UBS supports selected entrepreneurs by providing them with a platform to raise awareness about their engagement, capacity building opportunities, and putting them in touch with clients and potential investors or partners.
For Grégorie Muhr, the passion and drive of the entrepreneurs she meets are inspiring.
“When you meet them, you just want to be part of the adventure, it’s just incredible everything that they are doing.”
ENVISIONING THE FUTURE
Being selected by the Global Visionaries Programme has given Michaeli a platform to talk about how infarm is reshaping the food system. It has also allowed her to draw inspiration from other female founders and leaders. “As one of the unfortunately too rare female leaders of a Unicorn company, I believe it’s essential to expand one’s network and learn how other female leaders balance making a difference,” she says.
Going forward, infarm has some ambitious plans. They have already built the largest distributed, cloud-connected farming network globally, and by 2025 they aim to expand their growing capacity by building up to 100 growing centres worldwide. For Osnat Michaeli, infarm’s food revolution has only just begun:
“This is just the first step in our vision to feed the 7 billion people living in urban centres by 2050 as we expand our operations in markets that will host the megacities of the future.”
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ABOUT UBS IN LUXEMBOURG
With a long standing tradition and track record dating back to 1973, UBS in Luxembourg acts as the main EU hub for cross-bor- der Wealth Management services, as well as the European Hub for Asset Servicing. We are able to serve our clients worldwide through our booking center in Luxembourg with a special focus towards the Benelux countries as well as the Nordic markets where we have our Advisory Offices in Denmark and Sweden. Our focus to deliver best in class service towards our clients shines through in how we excel in the world's #1 Private Banking centre in the Eurozone and the #2 largest Fund Industry, delivering a range of Wealth management products as well as Depository Bank services.