A cost-effective and eco-friendly way of growing lettuce

CombaGroup SA, with domicile in Molondin, Vaud, Switzerland, is developing and selling a costeffective and eco-friendly solution for growing high-quality lettuce. The start-up builds its high-tech, mechanized greenhouses right next to its clients – lettuce packagers in a first step, retailers and foodservice at a later stage – and provides them with a much fresher lettuce grown locally all year round.

CombaGroup’s technology is based on a so-called “aeroponic system”, a method for growing the plants in an air or moist environment instead of using soil. The lettuce is not exposed to to climate risks and insects. Combined with much reduced use of pesticides, aeroponics leads to simpler and faster processing including washing and reduces wastage.

In addition CombaGroup has developed a spacing robot moving the lettuce during the growth and thus saving a lot of space: the seeds are planted really close to each other in the beginning, after a few days the plants are spaced by the robot so that they have the place to grow, and on and on several times until the harvest. With this technology a culture needs fifteen times less space than in a normal field. The optimized space allows CombaGroup to grow lettuce directly on the client’s site, thus eliminating transportation and further cutting wastage.

However, CombaGroup’s method not only ensures higher resource efficiency and less wastage, it also guarantees fresher and cleaner lettuce. Consumers are increasingly worried about freshness, the germ-level and traces of pesticides in fresh produce. In the case of lettuce, this is especially important in the bagged and ready-to-use segment, which represents 30% of total lettuce consumption - especially in large markets such as France, UK and Germany. A recent test by Swiss consumer watchdog K-Tipp on packaged lettuce titled “Krankmachende Bakterien im Fertigsalat”, came to the conclusion that only one out of 30 brands is worthy of the grade “good”. The fact that this led to a vivid public debate is not surprising. By producing on site and using fewer pesticides, CombaGroup enables packagers to provide cleaner and fresher products than those tested.

CombaGroup, founded in March 2012, is now a 7 person-team, and agreements are already in place with leading packagers for market launch in Switzerland and France. Having successfully tested their technology, CombaGroup will now set up a 500 m2 pilot farm in collaboration with the Swiss packager Silvain & Co SA to test the viability of their production process on a larger scale. CombaGroup has mandated investiere, the leading Swiss startup investment platform for private investors, to help the company secure new funding for this project in Molondin, Vaud.