Shownotes
Episode Summary
Founder and CEO of CityCrop, Christos Raftogiannis, joins the show to share his passion for agriculture, how the Indoor AgTech industry has evolved in Greece, and the challenge of assembling a team to take on the complexities of vertical farming. Today, Harry and Christos engage in a discussion on what inspired Christos to launch CityCrop, how Christos has grown as a founder and the work CityCrop is doing to modernize and democratize farming as key to a healthier and greener living.
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Key Takeaways
07:13 – Harry welcomes to the show, Christos Raftogiannis, who talks about his passion for agriculture and how he got involved in hydroponics and vertical farming
14:09 – The inspiration to launch CityCrop and customer feedback on early prototypes
18:52 – How Christos approaches building a team to tackle a myriad of problems
20:22 – How Christos has grown as a founder and leader and how he decides what products CityCrop offers
24:29 – Challenges of growing tobacco indoors
25:50 – Christos reflects on his experience with The Hellenic Initiative and The Venture Impact Awards
27:28 – The evolution of indoor farming in Greece
29:57 – Christos’ plans for expansion
33:20 – The importance of educating younger generations on the possibilities of vertical farming
37:26 – What motivates and drives Christos
39:28 – A specific ask Christos has for the audience
41:39 – Harry thanks Christos for joining the show and lets listeners know wher they can connect with him and learn more about CityCrop
Tweetable Quotes
“In Greece, the universities don’t encourage the entrepreneurial mindset in their students. To study something and then go out alone to work on something is not viewed as a good thing.” (11:46) (Christos)
“I think I’ve grown through my mistakes because it was my first venture where I didn’t know a lot about manufacturing, software, field work, how you can combine everything. I think I learned a lot [as a new founder].” (20:42) (Christos)
“In every competition with a lot of different companies in different sectors...you start realizing that you’re creating something that has value and that you’ve done something right this time.” (26:53) (Christos)
“When you are young you learn and you accept things easier than an older person.” (33:55) (Christos)
“One of the biggest things [that keeps me motivated] is the climate crisis. We need to keep growing and grow closer to our cities. I strongly believe that our technology can help people to start growing closer to their homes. This is the main thing that pushes us to work harder and harder every day.” (37:52) (Christos)
Resources Mentioned
Christos’ Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisraftogiannis/?originalSubdomain=gr
CityCrop – https://www.citycrop.io/
CityCrop Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/citycrop
CityCrop Twitter – https://twitter.com/citycrop
CityCrop Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/citycrop/
CityCrop LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/citycrop/
CityCrop YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_wECFeSwvQRhxTeag2ndbA
The Hellenic Initiative – https://www.thehellenicinitiative.org/
The Venture Impact Awards – https://ventureimpactaward.com/
Sponsor Info
Cultivatd’s Website – https://cultivatd.com/
Cultivatd’s Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/cultivatdco/
Cultivatd’s Twitter – https://twitter.com/cultivatd
Cultivatd’s Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/cultivatd/
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Mentioned in this episode:
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
Transcripts
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Speaker:Best of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners.
Speaker:Visit cultivated.com to learn more. And that's spelled
Speaker:C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com,
Speaker:or click the link in the show notes. Day by day and facing
Speaker:different problems. And when you look at the big
Speaker:picture behind the device, you realize that you need
Speaker:these roles on your team. But the most
Speaker:difficult was that we didn't have a fund behind us.
Speaker:hire senior people in each position. And we
Speaker:tried to solve the vision, my vision, let's say,
Speaker:I had for the company, to give some equity of the company
Speaker:where the value of equity was very low. And when you come to
Speaker:work in a company that you have no salary for the
Speaker:first months, but you have a vision to make something very big,
Speaker:very unique.
Speaker:Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations with
Speaker:fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech visionaries.
Speaker:Join us every week as we dive deep into the world of vertical
Speaker:farming with your host, Harry Duran.
Speaker:Vertical Farming Podcast, Season 6. Welcome back. If this is your first time listening,
Speaker:you are in the right place. If you're looking for a show where we interview
Speaker:fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming companies from
Speaker:around the world. I'm your host, Harry Duran. In case you
Speaker:missed last week's episode, we launched Season 6 with
Speaker:2 episodes, in case you weren't noticing or might have
Speaker:missed it. We had a great conversation with Ines Sagrario
Speaker:from Ekanoke and Amy Wu, the Chief Content Officer of
Speaker:From Farms to Incubators. Great conversations, 2
Speaker:powerhouses in the world of vertical farming. So please make sure you
Speaker:go check those out if you haven't already. This week we have a
Speaker:conversation with founder and CEO of CityCrop, Christos Raftogiannis.
Speaker:Hopefully I've pronounced that correctly. He joins the show to share his
Speaker:passion for agriculture and talks about how the indoor
Speaker:agtech industry has been evolving in Greece and the challenge of assembling a
Speaker:team to take on the complexities of building a company there. We engage in
Speaker:discussion about what inspired him to launch CityCrop and how he's grown
Speaker:as a founder and the work they're doing to modernize and democratize farming
Speaker:as a key to healthier and greener living, which is something that's top of mind
Speaker:and really a passion for me on this show as I have these conversations.
Speaker:I think you'll really enjoy this conversation with Christos. His energy
Speaker:is infectious, and I know you'll be able to get a feeling for his
Speaker:passion for this field and how excited he is. If you've enjoyed this
Speaker:episode or past episodes, I'd love it if you leave a rating and review at
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp. I'd love to read yours
Speaker:out on a future episode. One quick production note, my
Speaker:mic was definitely a little hot, so if it sounds like it's
Speaker:clipping a little bit, I apologize ahead of time. Hopefully that doesn't take
Speaker:away from this fantastic conversation. Okay, before we jump into this
Speaker:uninterrupted conversation with Christos, here are a few words from the
Speaker:folks that support this show. This episode is brought to you by Vertical Farming Weekly.
Speaker:Each week, our team member Noah brings you the latest and greatest in the world
Speaker:of vertical farming, including updates when episodes go live.
Speaker:Sign up today at verticalfarmingweekly.com. This podcast is
Speaker:produced by Fullcast, our full-service done-for-you podcast agency.
Speaker:If you are interested in learning how a podcast would be beneficial for your brand,
Speaker:learn more at fullcast.co. So Christos
Speaker:Raftogiannis, founder and CEO of CityCrop, thank you for joining me on the Vertical
Speaker:Farming Podcast. Thank you, Fari. Thank you all
Speaker:for having me. It's my great pleasure.
Speaker:So for the benefit of the listener, where is home for you right now?
Speaker:I'm in my home country in Greece and I'm in
Speaker:Athens, Greece right now. Okay. Where did you grow up?
Speaker:I born here in Athens, but I grew up in a small
Speaker:city near Athens called, uh, Levadia.
Speaker:It is a city about 25,000 people.
Speaker:Then I went to Crete, in Heraklion,
Speaker:Crete, to study, to study agricultural
Speaker:engineering. And then I went to the army
Speaker:because here you need to go for 9 months. It's not an option.
Speaker:Okay. You need to go. I went in a in
Speaker:another island in Rhodes. I don't know if you
Speaker:know it. I don't think so. No. There is the same name with Rhodes
Speaker:near New York, again in an island.
Speaker:Yeah. I was there for 9 months and then I came again to
Speaker:Athens to finalize my thesis. And I started
Speaker:working in a company for garden
Speaker:designing, landscaping, Et cetera.
Speaker:After that, I created my own company for garden
Speaker:design, but it was in a period we had the crisis
Speaker:here in Greece and the garden was a luxury thing
Speaker:and didn't go very well. And after
Speaker:that, I came up with CityCrop in
Speaker:middle 2014. Okay. So
Speaker:just a couple of questions because I'm curious because you went to
Speaker:study at the School of Agriculture, Agriculture in
Speaker:Crete. And I'm wondering if that was just a
Speaker:very early passion for you, agriculture, where,
Speaker:where that came from, if that's something that maybe came through family, or I'm just
Speaker:curious how that started, that passion for you. My family,
Speaker:my father is a mechanical engineer, nothing close to
Speaker:agriculture, but from my grandpa We have some
Speaker:fields with olive trees.
Speaker:Maybe it's very common in Greece. Everyone has an olive tree in their
Speaker:village. Yeah, I go to
Speaker:harvest, let's say, the olive trees when I was young, but it was
Speaker:like a game, a playground for me, the fields. I
Speaker:didn't go for actual work.
Speaker:I really love the forest, the
Speaker:agricultural things, the environment. And that
Speaker:was the reason I went to study agriculture.
Speaker:And then as you were in your studies, what was it that you were
Speaker:learning about the processes of agriculture?
Speaker:And you were— I know you were working on your thesis, and you've also—
Speaker:you've had a TED Talk about indoor farming. So I'm curious,
Speaker:what is it you were learning about this world of agriculture
Speaker:and When did you decide it was more interesting to pursue what was happening with
Speaker:indoor farming as opposed to traditional agriculture?
Speaker:Yeah, I went to the university in
Speaker:2005. The indoor farming wasn't something
Speaker:special. Maybe we didn't hear that,
Speaker:but also the first 1.5 years
Speaker:was very general in order to go deeper in
Speaker:the agriculture thing and botany and et cetera and et cetera.
Speaker:I was a bit boring regarding agriculture, but
Speaker:then we had the, uh, how can I
Speaker:call it? Uh, sorry. We had a lesson,
Speaker:let's say, for hydroponics, where was a spike
Speaker:for me. We started learning NFT raft
Speaker:systems in indoor environment, but
Speaker:not with vertical skeptics behind that. After that
Speaker:lesson, yeah, it was very interesting for me. And then
Speaker:I take a subject for my thesis on the same
Speaker:theme about hydroponics, indoor farming, et
Speaker:cetera. And did you know of
Speaker:any other people in the space? Were you
Speaker:connected to other entrepreneurs? Is this the first time you were thinking about doing
Speaker:something on your own? Not exactly. In
Speaker:Greece, we have a bad thing. The universities don't
Speaker:have the entrepreneurial mindset to the student.
Speaker:You go study something and then you're alone and known
Speaker:to go out and find something to work. And this is not a good
Speaker:thing because they don't grow your mindset to that.
Speaker:Okay, you do a thesis and this should be a product
Speaker:or something close to a product, not just a product. Or
Speaker:you do your PhD. And you need to sell it
Speaker:somewhere or someone, other people to use it or to
Speaker:benefit from this thing. But this is not in the
Speaker:mindset of our universities. Maybe these
Speaker:things have changed year by year, but then
Speaker:it wasn't. So where were you looking for
Speaker:inspiration? And if it's not something that was common when you
Speaker:were doing your studies and when you were thinking of starting a company, Where do
Speaker:you go to get inspired and to get ideas for what to build?
Speaker:Yeah, from my school, uh, aids and the
Speaker:business. Also, my father had a store regarding the
Speaker:mechanical engineering things. Okay. I was there
Speaker:like to sell things, to speak with customers, et cetera.
Speaker:And then I searched a lot to the internet. I had an idea
Speaker:when I did my thesis. When it was to
Speaker:grow things in a indoor, in a greenhouse
Speaker:that worked with hydroponic method, not fully
Speaker:automated, but without the NFT. So on the—
Speaker:The climate control was zero. But
Speaker:then I started thinking that, okay, we're growing
Speaker:things here, but everyone, mainly in Greece,
Speaker:when go to buy something in the know that is
Speaker:produced through a method like hydroponics or in a
Speaker:greenhouse have concerns. Maybe has a lot of
Speaker:pesticides and this, uh, kind of things. And
Speaker:then start thinking, what if I scale down a
Speaker:greenhouse to making like a home device
Speaker:and everyone can grow their own fresh food
Speaker:that you know the seeds from the beginning.
Speaker:That was the first thing. Did you
Speaker:look to partner with or for inspiration when you
Speaker:started CityCrop? And is the
Speaker:version that you have now what you had in your
Speaker:mind when you started it, the first prototypes? The vision
Speaker:is almost the same, which is good.
Speaker:Right vision in 2004. My
Speaker:co-founder, I met my co-founder through another job.
Speaker:She did for us the num for a gardening company, and
Speaker:then we keep speaking, et cetera, and we started together,
Speaker:uh, Citygroup, but quickly
Speaker:realized that we need more people. We're going to
Speaker:create a hardware product and we know
Speaker:nothing about hardware. And we try to
Speaker:find people in mechanical engineering,
Speaker:electronics, in programming, in
Speaker:software, firmware, a lot of things.
Speaker:And as we are saying, hardware is hard and
Speaker:software is soft. It's not exactly
Speaker:that, but we say also good people
Speaker:in software, great people in hardware.
Speaker:But okay, we starting growing our team
Speaker:just to create the first prototype where we
Speaker:looked to create a very fancy prototype, but we didn't have
Speaker:in our mind that this needs to manufacture in order
Speaker:to be in a supply chain. And this changed a lot of
Speaker:things. The product we have now,
Speaker:it's the 7 designs
Speaker:from the first one. And so when you are
Speaker:thinking about the different prototypes and the different versions,
Speaker:what type of feedback were you getting from customers? Because I imagine the early
Speaker:prototypes, you were putting them in the hands, you're putting them in homes probably,
Speaker:and you're getting feedback. And obviously you're testing the software, you're testing the
Speaker:hardware, but you're also testing the crops themselves and seeing if they are growing and
Speaker:people are enjoying them as well. So what type of feedback were you getting
Speaker:with those first Yeah, I think the
Speaker:crop was the most easy thing from all the others.
Speaker:The first thing we would test was, is this, is the shape
Speaker:or the dimension of the device good for a house? Because
Speaker:in the whole Europe, the houses are pretty small.
Speaker:Even in US, in big cities, the houses are also
Speaker:small, the apartments mainly. Then we started
Speaker:thinking, we had it clear. How can I say this? The whole
Speaker:device was from a clear, from polycarbonate. Okay. And then
Speaker:we've had the feedback about that, that, uh, it is very
Speaker:bright in night because we've had the lights open
Speaker:14 to 16 hours. And there was a feedback, and a very
Speaker:valid feedback was that the device is very bright and it
Speaker:is very difficult to stay in the same room, in the same room with the
Speaker:device. Another thing was the noise. Because we have a
Speaker:thing like air conditioning in order to cool and heat the
Speaker:device. Also, we have a pump, a water pump, air
Speaker:pump, and everything should be very, very, very
Speaker:quiet. And this was 2 difficult things.
Speaker:Also, we tried to keep the consumption very low,
Speaker:like a green device. Next difficult thing was
Speaker:regarding the app. The first time setup, like to be
Speaker:a very easy setup with you place it, you connect it to your
Speaker:Wi-Fi, you fill the tank with water, you add the
Speaker:nutrients, and then you add the seeds and that's
Speaker:it. But in real life wasn't, uh, too
Speaker:easy because our device was the first, uh,
Speaker:totally modular where you can buy the first module, then you
Speaker:can add another one, another one, another one. Mm-hmm. And in order to work,
Speaker:you need to connect pipes in the back of the device. You need to
Speaker:connect the cable to communicate when the device
Speaker:communicates. And this was the
Speaker:things that we needed the money from, the feedback from our customers
Speaker:and helped us a lot in order to— the final
Speaker:device has a lot of changes regarding this feedback.
Speaker:So was the device connected to the internet as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:We work like Alexa. You push a button, the device
Speaker:is a hotspot now, and then through our application, through our
Speaker:app, you connect it on the device and then
Speaker:you give the credentials about the Wi-Fi you want to connect. It
Speaker:sounds like, Christos, there's so many moving parts because what you just
Speaker:described sounds like very complicated when you have to get everything working together.
Speaker:So I'm curious. Your biggest company in terms of you leading it
Speaker:as a CEO, how do you think about building a
Speaker:team with so many different skill sets? Because you've
Speaker:described software, you described hardware, and then that's just
Speaker:the mechanics that you have to just create and grow something that's
Speaker:going to taste good as well. And where do you start to look when you—
Speaker:as you start to think about building a team that can help you with all
Speaker:these challenges? Yep. Day by day and facing
Speaker:different problems. And when you look at the big
Speaker:picture behind the device, you realize that you need
Speaker:these roles on your team. But the most
Speaker:difficult was that we didn't have a fund behind us,
Speaker:just quite senior people in each position. And
Speaker:we tried to solve the vision, my vision. Let's say
Speaker:I had for the company to give some equity of the company
Speaker:where the value of equity was very low. And when you come to
Speaker:work in a company that you have no salary for the
Speaker:first months, but you have a vision to make something very
Speaker:big, very unique. And now we
Speaker:are 9 with, say, 2 co-founders. And
Speaker:I think we did it well in those difficult times for Luiz.
Speaker:What has been most— when you think about your journey as
Speaker:a leader and as a CEO, how have you grown
Speaker:from being yourself to a co-founder and then hiring and
Speaker:now managing and leading people? What has been
Speaker:some of that growth since starting the company for you personally?
Speaker:I think I've grown through my mistakes
Speaker:because It was my first venture, bigger
Speaker:company than, uh, a very common company in Greece, like
Speaker:industrial design, where I didn't know a lot of
Speaker:things about manufacturing, injection molding,
Speaker:software, firmware, how you can combine everything.
Speaker:And I think I learned a lot of things. First, lose
Speaker:money. And second, made mistakes. Or you go to pay for an
Speaker:MBA. Or you pay your mistakes.
Speaker:And so now that the company is growing, I see that you have a
Speaker:wide variety of leafy greens, microgreens,
Speaker:lettuces, herbs, exotic. How do you decide what
Speaker:to offer in the container and how did that
Speaker:happen over time? I imagine you probably started with
Speaker:leafy green and then are you working with seed developers or how do you
Speaker:figure out which produce you're making available in the CityCrop device?
Speaker:Uh, the driver about that was to have
Speaker:things that the people want to grow and also
Speaker:to have things that grow very fast. Every plant we
Speaker:decide to add in our device, we want to have a growing time
Speaker:about 20 to 30, 32 days.
Speaker:Also, our device works like Nespresso, we have a subscription
Speaker:model, like every month we send you The
Speaker:seed mats, let's say, with the seeds are already
Speaker:included on the seed mats and you just, you
Speaker:put the seeds on the seed mats on the device and the device starts
Speaker:growing. The main thing was to have leafy greens
Speaker:grow very fast or micronutrients and
Speaker:a good value on the diet of the people. And also
Speaker:have a value when you go to a
Speaker:competitive value when you go to buy it from a grocery
Speaker:store, because it is a Fresher, has
Speaker:more vitamins, and have no
Speaker:pesticides. And the development, we did the
Speaker:development with the same developers, of course.
Speaker:And also we found some servings for our customers.
Speaker:Where, what do you want, what would you like to grow? Okay, strawberry
Speaker:is a very easy thing, but strawberries needs about
Speaker:40, 45 days or tomatoes sell near the
Speaker:same days, almost. This was the way we built the
Speaker:database for our plant showroom, but we
Speaker:adding nowadays. Today we have the 65
Speaker:plant, about 65 different varieties. We will reach
Speaker:about 80, 85 by the end of year.
Speaker:What's been the feedback from
Speaker:clients and what's the distribution? Do you have CityCrops
Speaker:In just homes, or is it a combination of businesses and homes,
Speaker:or is it restaurants? What's the business model in terms of the people that you
Speaker:serve with the device? Mainly our customers
Speaker:are B2C customers. As we built the device, it was
Speaker:for consumers, but we have as well B2B
Speaker:customers like labs or hotels.
Speaker:We have 3 hotels here in Greece that are growing
Speaker:microgreens for their restaurants. A very interesting collaboration
Speaker:is with a lab that's growing a specific plant of
Speaker:tobacco where they take the leaves to
Speaker:extrude them in like an oil
Speaker:thing. And so we have a collaboration to testing the
Speaker:first plant they will launch to their productions,
Speaker:to their production. Is that the first time you're working
Speaker:with a tobacco plant in this environment? Yep. We
Speaker:started development the tobacco plant just for this lab.
Speaker:That's interesting. And I think that's the first time I've heard people, someone
Speaker:growing specifically tobacco in this environment. Were there any
Speaker:challenges with that plant? Obviously it's not something that's normally grown indoors. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. It's not something that normally growing indoors. Uh,
Speaker:wasn't too difficult. We tested some temperature and the
Speaker:humidity. We took the recipe from
Speaker:Nature regarding the hydroponic solution, and then
Speaker:we keep testing the environment in the lab. Every month
Speaker:we change a bit the temperature on the plants till we find the perfect
Speaker:recipe. That's interesting. And I feel like if you can
Speaker:get that model right, there's probably an opportunity, a bigger
Speaker:opportunity to work with laboratories and research facilities
Speaker:who need access to those plants very close
Speaker:so they can continuously do testing on them for the projects they're
Speaker:working on as well. Yeah, indeed. Indeed. Indeed. Even
Speaker:for plants that it isn't easy to find it down or to
Speaker:outsource these plants. Maybe you can outsource the plants
Speaker:of tobacco, but maybe have pesticides or other
Speaker:stuff on it. I noticed that you had some,
Speaker:you did some work with the Hellenic Initiative and that you also were
Speaker:part of the Venture Impact Awards. Can you talk a little bit about that experience?
Speaker:As a startup, we had chosen the competitions just to
Speaker:stay alive. It is an initiative from Greeks
Speaker:that were born in the US and created this
Speaker:initiative to share Greek entrepreneurs and Greek people.
Speaker:And there was a call for that competition.
Speaker:We have applied for many competitions and it was
Speaker:another one. We had the criteria for the competition
Speaker:and we took the first position. First place? Yeah,
Speaker:first place. What was that like? And did you feel it was a
Speaker:validation of the work you had put up until that point?
Speaker:Because I don't know how many people were, you were competing against,
Speaker:but to take first place in an initiative like that. I would
Speaker:imagine is demonstrating that you're doing something that's getting people's
Speaker:attention. Yeah, yeah, sure. In every
Speaker:competition, mainly in the competition, there are a lot of
Speaker:different companies in different sectors and in
Speaker:different growth of the companies that are in stage or
Speaker:seed stage, Series A, et cetera. But
Speaker:yeah, it is a thing that you start knowing that you're creating
Speaker:something that has value for some people. You have
Speaker:done something right at this time, which is
Speaker:a very good push to go forward, to work
Speaker:better. Yeah. I'm curious, Christos, what does
Speaker:the indoor farming landscape look
Speaker:like in Greece and what was it like when you started and what does it
Speaker:look like now and how is it growing? When I started,
Speaker:we have a lot of indoor farming in Greece. Mainly
Speaker:in big greenhouses. Also in Crete, there are
Speaker:huge things that are covered with
Speaker:greenhouses. It is, when you look from
Speaker:above, it is everything with the greenhouse, like the
Speaker:total area, it's covered. But everything is
Speaker:not connected with less
Speaker:automation. Even are not hydroponic.
Speaker:Because the— to create a hydroponic greenhouse
Speaker:is expensive. But from 2010-11,
Speaker:we have here about 5, uh, huge
Speaker:hydroponic greenhouses, mainly for tomatoes
Speaker:and peppers. And the whole production is exported,
Speaker:or the 90% of the production. And what does the
Speaker:landscape look like now when it comes to indoor farming? Do you see more and
Speaker:more companies coming in from outside? Do you see
Speaker:more homegrown companies from within Greece
Speaker:starting in indoor agtech as well? And are they focused on
Speaker:more of the big production or some of the consumer products like you are?
Speaker:We are the only company that we have focused on the home
Speaker:growing. The other companies are established companies,
Speaker:major companies that have created something for
Speaker:indoor. Yeah, the hydroponic ornamental sector here in Greece
Speaker:is more mature today than
Speaker:2005 or 2010, but
Speaker:we don't have greenhouses or indoor farms for medical
Speaker:cannabis because here it is not legal
Speaker:yet. No, it's not exactly right, this. It is
Speaker:legal, but you need to have specific
Speaker:things to grow And I think we have 3, 4
Speaker:companies, one from Israel, one from Canada,
Speaker:and which is huge companies and you can't
Speaker:compete them right now, even the growers from Greece.
Speaker:So as you think about the roadmap for CityCrop,
Speaker:3 years is probably a long time, but just a year from now, what do
Speaker:you feel like is the plan for you moving forward in terms
Speaker:of the growth and plans you have for expansion? This
Speaker:is a very good question. Yep. Um,
Speaker:one of the most difficult things was, uh, to train our
Speaker:consumers because, uh, we had a very new
Speaker:product in the market. Now we have, uh, competitors,
Speaker:but competitors that keep working and selling devices
Speaker:are 10, 12 in the whole globally.
Speaker:And that's the reason we created a smaller device. And we call
Speaker:it CitiCrop Micro in order to give a very
Speaker:competitive price and to bring more people in
Speaker:CitiCrop, to bring more, uh, CitiCroppers, just some
Speaker:like an entry-level device to start growing with this
Speaker:small device with less features, but with the same
Speaker:technology. And then if they want, they can
Speaker:jump with a good discount to our, uh, bigger
Speaker:devices. The next step for the '22
Speaker:and, uh, from the beginning of '23 is to push the sales
Speaker:for the micro device and also for
Speaker:4-in-1 and twin, and to be well
Speaker:established in some countries that we have a good
Speaker:presence, like Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway,
Speaker:and also to increase our retail stores in Europe.
Speaker:And then to the service providers. And do you actually have
Speaker:retail stores now? We have one in Netherlands and
Speaker:3 in Greece. Okay. And did you discover with the
Speaker:creation of the Micro device that was a good
Speaker:entryway for people who are, like you said, they need to be educated, they need
Speaker:to be trained on the benefits of something like this, if especially if it's something
Speaker:new for them? And do you find that the Micro, because the price difference is
Speaker:really big between the Micro And the normal device? And is this a good way
Speaker:for people to experiment and to try out CityCrap?
Speaker:Regarding the— mainly is the price
Speaker:because we have worked in a different business model,
Speaker:like a leasing model with a subscription
Speaker:in order to bring a lot of sales and to make a
Speaker:bigger produce in order to reduce the cost and then to reduce the retail
Speaker:price. Of the device. Is that thing the price
Speaker:and the differentiation of the price from the Micro to One
Speaker:and to Twin? It's huge and it is
Speaker:common. And I have heard this from another 2
Speaker:people and I have started thinking that it
Speaker:is good, this, uh, difference, or someone will
Speaker:see, okay, this is not be a good product
Speaker:because it is very cheap. Regarding the other 2,
Speaker:but okay, we believe that we can start
Speaker:educating people with this small device, like to
Speaker:invest a small amount of your money, and then you can
Speaker:go to the bigger, more powerful device, which has a lot of
Speaker:features, et cetera, et cetera. And also this is a reason that we
Speaker:sold about 100 devices in schools from the
Speaker:small one. Yeah. Just to start training the
Speaker:children and the kids in the classroom.
Speaker:I feel like that's a good approach because educating people
Speaker:about what's possible, about what you can grow indoors, and
Speaker:especially when you start with someone at a young age, they
Speaker:grow up knowing that that's possible. And so it sparks
Speaker:their interest, it sparks their curiosity. Some of the majority of them will think it's
Speaker:fun that you can grow lettuce, but it also I think for a small group
Speaker:of students, it could even have them thinking about, this is an
Speaker:industry, this is a career, this is a possible job for me I can
Speaker:consider when I get older. Yeah, yeah, sure. This
Speaker:is when you're young, you learn and you accept
Speaker:things easily than an older guy. I have shared
Speaker:in exhibitions a lot of things that, what is
Speaker:hydroponics? Will you poison me? With this.
Speaker:And then you start trying to explain that already you have
Speaker:consumed something that has produced through hydroponics
Speaker:methods. And then start thinking wider and
Speaker:better when you tell that you are eating tomatoes or
Speaker:canned tomatoes. Yeah, most of the canned tomatoes are produced
Speaker:through hydroponics. Then we can keep discussing. But
Speaker:that to train and educate people is one of the
Speaker:most difficult things, and you need the money and the
Speaker:time and people to do it right.
Speaker:One idea that I can offer is to reach
Speaker:that demographic of the children. Maybe you can create a children's
Speaker:book on hydroponics produced by
Speaker:CityCrop, a coloring book or just a children's book
Speaker:illustrator to just draw some beautiful pictures, but in the form of
Speaker:like something that would get their eye, like a children's book or a children's story.
Speaker:And then you could introduce the story of hydroponics. Yeah. Produced by,
Speaker:provided, promoted by CityCrop. This is a very good
Speaker:idea to create the new generation of city croppers.
Speaker:Yes. Yeah, of course. And then you can get
Speaker:creative. And then if maybe if people see it as
Speaker:a design, maybe if you could create it in a way where you could
Speaker:replace the panels and so you could have the CityCrop Micro but in
Speaker:different colors, like neon colors or something like that. So people can now
Speaker:add their own, their own creativity and design to it as well.
Speaker:So also to create some NFTs. Yeah,
Speaker:yeah, you mentioned NFTs a couple of times. Do you mean
Speaker:specifically like NFTs like we're talking about now, crypto
Speaker:NFTs, or is this something different? Yeah, it was for a joke right
Speaker:now, and regarding NFTs, but yeah, it was a non-fungible
Speaker:token. Have you had support or have you
Speaker:gotten the attention of the state or any of the government
Speaker:organizations? Do they see this as an opportunity to help
Speaker:grow and support entrepreneurs who are
Speaker:doing something that are based in Greece and growing in a new industry?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, we have support from the government, even if
Speaker:maybe we wouldn't have better support if we create something
Speaker:brilliant to solve a problem in some areas that is
Speaker:difficult to grow. Like if you create a container, a
Speaker:vertical farming container, which is very common, and we
Speaker:can do it to use our technology to have
Speaker:the right climate, the pH, the EC levels, et cetera.
Speaker:But the thing is that we're losing our scope for the
Speaker:company. We believe in the B2C market, in the consumers.
Speaker:That in some years from now, the devices like
Speaker:CityCloud will be mainstream for the house.
Speaker:And we don't looking very seriously to create a
Speaker:bigger device, like a container device. Maybe
Speaker:closer for us in order to have support is to
Speaker:create a closet where a bigger CityCloud,
Speaker:like a closet where we can place it in, in a
Speaker:supermarket or in schools again for the loans,
Speaker:for the loan. For the dinner of the kids
Speaker:and this kind of devices.
Speaker:So as we come to the close of our conversation, just had a couple more
Speaker:questions. Obviously this is something that has— is a passion
Speaker:for you. Sounds like it's obviously been a challenge and
Speaker:exciting, and I'm sure every day you have new adventures and new
Speaker:challenges. So when you look at the future and how
Speaker:this industry is growing, I'm curious for you personally, Christos,
Speaker:what continues to keep you motivated? One of
Speaker:the biggest things is the climate change and also is
Speaker:the urbanization. We need to keep growing,
Speaker:to growing more closer to our cities.
Speaker:And I strongly believe that our technology can
Speaker:change people to start growing closer
Speaker:to their housing, to their needs, near to growing
Speaker:next in the next doors. This is the main thing that pushes
Speaker:us to work harder and harder every day.
Speaker:That's very motivational because it's definitely a challenge that's obviously
Speaker:not something that's specific to Greece. It's a challenge that's
Speaker:happening across this globe. And I think to see more and more
Speaker:people coming up with ideas to support our need to have local access to
Speaker:fresh food, educating people that come from the cities— because I grew up in New
Speaker:York, lived in New York City, and some— there's people that have never even visited
Speaker:a farm and You don't have any idea where fresh
Speaker:produce comes from. You know, here in the, in the States, they fly it in
Speaker:from California, 3,000 miles to get to your plate in New York. And
Speaker:I think even if just educating people that you can have fresh food
Speaker:locally if you know where to look, I think is really important.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, also here in Greece, some of the children, they
Speaker:don't come see how is fruit starting
Speaker:growing. Which is crazy. And it's
Speaker:the thing that you can take a small device and you have it in your
Speaker:countertop and you can see how the things
Speaker:are growing. Yeah.
Speaker:So we, this audience is a large group of
Speaker:indoor farmers, company owners, CEOs, and people who are
Speaker:interested in the space. With this audience, is there anything that
Speaker:you have that you have as an ask or you have as a request? to
Speaker:the listeners? Yeah, maybe as we are
Speaker:all in the same sector, okay, in a different
Speaker:scale, like bigger indoor farms and B2C
Speaker:products too, we could create collaborations
Speaker:in order to draw more things closer to the
Speaker:cities too. This is difficult to change
Speaker:technologies because there is a lot of IP
Speaker:in the middle. But yeah, good collaborations
Speaker:will be the best thing that all of us
Speaker:go forward because the scope is one, to bring the
Speaker:food closer to the people. Yeah, it seems
Speaker:like everyone is on the same mission. And I think sometimes people
Speaker:think that there's, if people are doing similar things, that
Speaker:it's competition, but I think to your point, And then what
Speaker:I'm hearing from you is that I think if we think about it creatively, there's
Speaker:always going to be an opportunity to find ways we can work together,
Speaker:collaborate. Maybe it's open source, maybe it's sharing
Speaker:ideas, best practices. I think everyone so far that I've spoken
Speaker:to has that mindset of this is something that's needed, and the more
Speaker:companies that are working on this problem, the better. And so for right now,
Speaker:it's a good thing, and I think there should be an ability to find ways
Speaker:to work together. Which I think is positive. It's, yeah, sure.
Speaker:We are in the same sector, but if one from large indoor farm
Speaker:come to me and ask me to introduce, uh, him to a
Speaker:greenhouse in Greece, it's not something competitive
Speaker:for me. It's okay. We are in the same
Speaker:sector, but we're doing different things and maybe the
Speaker:opposite for me. What would be the opposite for you?
Speaker:Yeah. To have some introductions somewhere, like not something, uh,
Speaker:I don't have something specific in my mind right now. Just thinking
Speaker:cloud nodes. Yeah. Okay. So the
Speaker:website is citycrop.io. Is there any other place
Speaker:you want to send listeners to, to connect with you or the company?
Speaker:Through our social media, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube.
Speaker:And we don't have that many presenters, but we want to create more
Speaker:videos. But mainly in Instagram and Facebook.
Speaker:Okay, so I'll make sure that we have all the links in the show
Speaker:notes so when people listen to this episode they can see all the links and
Speaker:the details in the description of this episode. Christos, I want to thank you for
Speaker:connecting with me and to reaching out. And there's so much interesting
Speaker:things happening in this space, it's hard to keep on top of everything. So sometimes
Speaker:people come to me and like you did, and we had a nice conversation, and
Speaker:I'm just excited your story and to see what's happening in Greece when it comes
Speaker:to indoor farming. Yeah, thank you too for coming. We've
Speaker:had a very, very nice talk. And when you come to
Speaker:Greece, you can send me, of course. Yeah,
Speaker:thanks. Yeah, it's on the list of beautiful places I want to see
Speaker:and visit, so I'll definitely keep you in mind. I appreciate the offer.
Speaker:Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks again to Christos for coming on the show and
Speaker:sharing his story. As always, full show notes available at verticalfarmingpodcast.com.
Speaker:We go out of our way to make sure those are fully detailed and
Speaker:reflect the conversation so you can focus on listening and not so
Speaker:much as taking notes. So please check those out. We have a summary,
Speaker:key takeaways, timestamps, quotes, any resources mentioned in there as
Speaker:well. verticalfarmingpodcast.com. Special thanks to our Season 6
Speaker:title sponsor, Cultivated. If you are looking into a vertical farm and don't know where
Speaker:to start or which technology would suit your needs, reach out to them today.
Speaker:Best of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners.
Speaker:Learn more at cultivated.com, and that's spelled C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-E-D.com.
Speaker:Just leave out that last E. For those that are listening and are in
Speaker:the Middle East, I will be at the AgraME conference in Dubai
Speaker:on October 26th and 27th. I'm partnering with Cultivated. We'll be
Speaker:interviewing some of the CEOs on site, and I'll actually have a booth there as
Speaker:well. So it'll be a very exciting time, my first time in that area.
Speaker:If you are in the Dubai region and you want to connect with me, reach
Speaker:out to me directly, [email protected].
Speaker:Podcast production and marketing provided by Fullcast. Learn more at
Speaker:fullcast.co about how a podcast could be helpful for your
Speaker:business or brand. And as a reminder, if you are enjoying the show, please
Speaker:leave a rating and a review at
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp. I get really excited
Speaker:when I see those, and I'm really happy to read those out on a future
Speaker:episode. Tune in next episode for my conversation with
Speaker:Eric Izel of GrowFlux. Until we meet again, here's to your
Speaker:health. Thanks for listening. To read the full show notes for this
Speaker:episode, which includes any links mentioned in the episode, as well as
Speaker:a full show transcription, visit
Speaker:verticalfarmingpodcast.com. There, you can sign
Speaker:up for our email list to be notified when new episodes are published.
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