Climate change, land and water scarcity pose an increasing challenge to feeding an ever-growing world population. At Umami, we believe that food can be produced sustainably even in adverse or extreme environments. To this end, we have built a vertical aquaponic farm in the heart of Zurich. Based on permaculture thinking, we have created an ecosystem with a variety of organisms living in synergy with each other, while taking advantage of all the benefits of traditional vertical farming. Each of these organisms contributes to the nutrient cycle by converting waste products into a resource for other species. In this way, we have created a balanced environment so rich in nutrients that we do not need to use external resources such as fertilisers, artificial pesticides or antibiotics. Our first products, microgreens, are available on the market B2B2C in the main Swiss retail outlets and B2B for the catering industry through Bianchi, Marinello and other intermediaries.
We design and build biospheres where multiple foods can be produced simultaneously to optimise the use of resources and space. We then scale our biospheres to achieve operational excellence and have consistent and reliable production to meet industry demand. Umami’s broad-based team has expertise in a variety of fields including business administration, marketing, product development, mechanical engineering, food science and environmental engineering.