Climate change, land and water scarcity pose an increasing challenge to feeding a constantly growing world population. At Umami, we are convinced that food can be produced sustainably even in unfavorable or extreme environments. To this end, we have built a vertical aquaponics 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 utilizing 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 that is so rich in nutrients that we do not need to use external resources such as fertilizers, artificial pesticides or antibiotics. Our first products, microgreens, are available on the B2B2C market in the main Swiss retail outlets and B2B for the food service industry via Bianchi, Marinello and other intermediaries.
We design and build biospheres in which several foods can be produced at the same time to optimize the use of resources and space. We then scale our biospheres to achieve operational excellence and have a constant and reliable production that can meet industry demand.
Umami’s broad-based team has expertise in a variety of areas such as business administration, marketing, product development, mechanical engineering, food science and environmental engineering.