By CASEY NEILL
A DEVON Meadows farm is leading an agri-tech revolution and increasing its yields by 75 per cent.
Australian Fresh Leaf unveiled a new greenhouse on Wednesday 2 March, complete with cloud technology.
Television screens guide employees on exactly when and what herbs to plant, pick and pack.
The herbs are growing on Dutch-designed rolling benches that can be pushed together to increase planting space, and rolled into an adjoining shed so employees can harvest the herbs at the one location.
Australian Fresh Leaf co-founder Jan Vydra said the company started out producing 2000 bunches of herbs each week.
Today it produces 150,000 bunches, pots and punnets of 60 different varieties of herbs, edible flowers and Australian natives.
Mr Vydra credited a “persistence to challenge the norm and look for a better way to do things”.
“In 2008, we ducked out of our corporate jobs and took a bit of a risk, and our vision was to be the leader in the horticulture industry, to grow beautiful herbs and to evolve farming practices by using sustainable practices and innovative practices,” he said.
“We have bold plans.
“We want to expand our operations over the next 12 to 18 months to open a new 30,000 square metre new facility, hopefully in the City of Casey, and expand into New South Wales over the next three to five years.”
Mr Vydra said the greenhouse happened with help from a $430,000 interest-free loan through the Coles Nurture Fund.
Coles managing director John Durkan said this was the first Nurture Fund project completed.
“This is really why we started the fund,” he said.
Mr Durkan praised the “new technology and new efficiencies” implemented and said Mr Vydra had to “take a risk, be bold and innovative” to make the project happen.
“This is transformational for our herb business,” he said.
City of Casey Mayor Sam Aziz said the project was a prime example of the innovation that the Casey Cardinia Region actively encouraged.
He said the evolution of “agri-tech” would bring IT professionals, programmers and scientists onto farms.
“This new era of farming welcomes forward-thinking businesses,” he said.
