In this blog, I will write about our visit to the Yasai Vertical Farm in Zürich.

First of all, let’s take a look at who Yasai even is:

Yasai is an ETH spin-off launched in 2019. They are currently running a fully automated vertical farm in Niederhasli, near Zürich. Their farm offers a unique approach to different challenges in vertical farming. Most notably, they reuse evaporated water and produce energy from the heat of the LEDs.

Their farm was of particular interest to us, as it is mostly automated. Most vertical farms in Switzerland don’t offer a lift system, which is especially relevant to us because we need to build one for our own farm. So, we reached out to them, and they kindly offered us a tour of their farm, for which we are incredibly grateful.

On July 9th, we took the train to Niederhasli and met with Yasai’s CTO and co-founder, Philip Bosshard. First, we dressed in food production-safe protective gear to ensure the farm remained clean. After that, the tour began. We first saw how the harvesting and packaging of the plants is done—at this stage, it is still a manual process since the plants are delicate and break easily. However, the seeding mechanism for the substrate is already automated through a pneumatic machine, as shown in the video below.

After seeding, the plants are still raised manually in a separate space, where temperature, air mixture, fertilizer, and light conditions are optimized for growth. This specialized plant cultivation facility is shown in the picture below.

Once the plants reach a certain stage of growth, they are transferred to the main farm, where they spend the rest of their time. This main part of the farm is fully automated, meaning light, air, water, and fertilizer are all controlled by a system. Since vertical farming requires a lift, we were especially interested in this part of the farm. Philip Bosshard showed us the lift in detail, which gave us valuable insights into possible lift designs we could use for our farm.

After thoroughly examining the main farm, Philip showed us the systems running in the background. This was particularly fascinating because we could see how everything functions behind the scenes. Yasai has an innovative system that filters humidity from the air, allowing water to be recycled.

Visiting the Yasai Farm in Niederhasli provided our team with an extremely valuable look into a real vertical farm, its systems, and the challenges involved.

We are incredibly grateful for this visit and would like to extend a huge thanks to the entire Yasai team—especially Philip Bosshard!

Thank you for this amazing insight.