AgriFORCE recently announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to build its advanced GrowHouse facility in Barbados, and expects to announce a number of similar agreements in the near future. At full production, each of these facilities is expected to generate approximately $15 million of annualized EBITDA, providing the company long-term and predictable cash flow.
Cultivators are challenged in achieving consistent, high quality, and environmentally friendly product.
- There is a growing need for increased yield per square foot, less energy and water usage, and automation.
- The agriculture industry is facing pressure from commoditization and margin compression as well as high growing costs.
- Current agriculture practices are unable to achieve the genetic potential of the plant or crop, leading to massive investment in Ag-Tech solutions and technology to increase cultivation yields, taste and nutrition.
Consumers are looking for safer, more sustainable, and nutritious food.
- Consumers want to know where their food comes from and how it is grown. Safety, sustainability and the environmental impact have become a priority.
- Consumers want convenience and pesticide-free crops and are prepared to pay for them.
- Despite progress, current challenges continue with legacy systems especially in areas such as the need for pest control, the use of pesticides, herbicide and irradiation, crop drift and reduced arable land.
Governments are increasingly looking at the carbon footprint of agriculture and its massive use of water.
- Existing greenhouses and indoor growing facilities are not generally environmentally friendly and do not provide ideal growing conditions for crops.
AgriFORCE is constructing its first ag-centric facility in Coachella, California. You can see an illustrated example of the campus here.
AgriFORCE brings an entirely new approach to crops, operations, facilities, systems and the growing environment (COFSE). The key to AgriFORCE IP and to success, is understanding how each of the elements work together to produce exceptional results.
Integration via COFSE is the overarching business philosophy and it guides all decisions, which drives an iterative process that results in efficiencies and advancements.
Crops
Focused on food security, AgriFORCE starts with the seed – developing optimized genetics through advanced tissue culture and micropropagation. Among the many benefits are increased yields and lower production costs – but that’s not all. At AgriFORCE, the goal is always to provide the consumer with better tasting, more nutritious and consistently high-quality vegetables, fruits and plant-based products that are grown and produced in a sustainable manner.
Operations
AgriFORCE has a cohesive approach to operations from advanced propagation to cultivation to harvest standard operating procedures to the production process for plant-based foods. AgriFORCE focuses on enhanced automation, ensuring that the plants are touched as little as possible by humans. This results in substantive capital investment, leading to reduced ecological impacts, and resource and operational savings.
Facilities
AgriFORCE’s GrowHouse facility and its specialized building envelope were created to allow for the full light spectrum.
AgriFORCE has designed a specialized facility that includes a high-tech, high-efficiency building envelope and proprietary construction engineering and materials. It creates the ability for natural sunlight indoors with the support of supplemental grow lighting. The facility and its specialized roofing were developed to allow for the full light spectrum to reach the plants.
One of the many challenges for indoor growers is in providing plants with enough of the right kind of light for effective photosynthesis to grow optimally, regardless of the geographical location and climate. The IP was created to provide a solution to this ongoing issue through our hybrid proprietary lighting technology that is designed to integrate biotech elements with advanced supplemental lighting, allowing for the best elements of natural light into the facility. In addition to saving on lighting energy costs, natural light also warms the microclimate, when necessary, reducing heating energy requirements.
Current indoor farming and greenhouse practices are inefficient and rely on substantial use of utilities, infrastructure and operational costs. AgriFORCE’s precision growth method presents an alternative that provides an efficient, controlled, herbicide and pesticide-free environment and method that is designed to yield a higher crop volume.
AgriFORCE’s intellectual property (IP) initially started out with a hydroponics focus to showcase its efficacy in a growing market. Now, AgriFORCE is expanding operations to refine the technology and methodology for vegetables and fruit, as well as in the growing sector of nutraceutical and pharmaceutical therapeutics, including plant-based vaccines. This is expected to add to the solid roster of patents, which are key IP assets for AgriFORCE.
AgriFORCE’s foundational IP combines a uniquely engineered facility design, automated growing system and operational method (COFSE) to provide a clear solution to the biggest problems plaguing most agricultural verticals. It delivers a clean, self-contained, virtually sealed environment that maximizes natural sunlight and offers near ideal supplemental lighting. It also limits human intervention and – crucially – it was designed to provide superior quality control. In addition, the IP and proprietary facility was developed to drastically reduce environmental impact, substantially decrease use of natural resources, including water and electricity. This results in lower production costs, while still delivering daily harvests and an increased crop yield. AgriFORCE provides what others in the industry can’t: a comprehensive and proprietary system that addresses the unique needs of each crop and that runs through the agricultural value chain to the end product.
AgriFORCE’s clean, automated environment maintains what the company believes is the lowest carbon footprint on the market compared to typical indoor growing facilities, while simultaneously producing toxin-free, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) organic equivalent crops.
With ongoing development and acquisition of IP, this is just the start of the AgriFORCE revolution of how crops are grown and how plant-based products are made.
Facility Solutions
- Finalize definitive agreement to deploy AgriFORCE GrowHouse in Barbados Goal Reached (See December 2nd Press Release)
- Sign contracts for 3 GrowHouse facility contracts in California
- Sign contract for a GrowHouse facility in the Northeast US
Consulting Solutions
- Complete acquisition of European agriculture/horticulture and AgTech consulting company
- Acquisitions of additional world-class AgTech consulting companies
AgriFORCE Brands
- Launch first consumer branded products
- Strategic partnerships around MNG’s low-sugar, high-protein, fiber-rich baking flour products
- Additional consumer product/IP acquisitions
- Set up small scale manufacturing and R&D facility
- Establish scalable manufacturing platform for commercialization
M&A Opportunities
- Additional two acquisitions adding substantial revenue and EBITDA
Key Takeaways
- Creating a disruptive, consolidative business model for AgTech 2.0
- IP/Knowledge Driven as a catalyst to superior facilities, services and AgTech solutions provider
- Unlocking Value in Food Systems
- Strong Growth Plan leveraging Organic and M&A model
AgriFORCE recently announced a binding Letter of Intent (LOI) to acquire a leading European AgTech consultancy focused on driving crop optimization, innovation, solutions and operational expertise in the agriculture, horticulture and controlled environment agriculture (CEA) sectors.
With Global operations and over 200 employees, this AgTech Consultancy achieved 2020 annual audited revenues of over US$26 million and EBITDA of US $3 million and it expects to end the year 2021 with revenues of over US$28 million (based on IFRS accounting and FX Rate of approximately 1.14 Euro to 1.19 US dollar).
Transaction Highlights
The planned AgriFORCE acquisition of this leading European AgTech consultancy is expected to provide the following strategic benefits:
- AgriFORCE plans to leverage the Consultancy’s decades of experience, established customer base and deep industry relationships to accelerate deployment of its proprietary AgriFORCE Grow House and related IP, including facility and lighting design, automation and artificial intelligence, fertigation and nutrients, as well as micropropagation and genetics.
- The Consultancy has generated strong historical financial performance and consistent growth across Europe and internationally. AgriFORCE plans to build on this growth through expansion of these consulting operations and the establishment of a Research and Development center in North America, higher penetration of its Asian markets, as well as expanding AgriFORCE’s operations in Europe.
- This planned acquisition will put the combined operations at the forefront of knowledge and IP development and research, which AgriFORCE plans to augment with increased revenue from sustainable cultivation, crop processing and technical solutions in the key CEA verticals.
This planned acquisition is an alliance of the two companies’ complementary expertise and shared values. Both AgriFORCE and this leading European AgTech consultancy are dedicated to making positive change in the lives of farmers and consumers. This is an unprecedented opportunity for exceptional innovation and, through synergies, expanded growth across both North America and Europe for both organizations.
AgriFORCE plans to develop and commercialize new consumer products built on the Company’s proprietary MNG food processing IP, which has the ability to convert grain, pulses and root vegetables, into low-starch, low-sugar, high-protein, fiber-rich baking flour products, as well as a wide range of breakfast cereals, juices, natural sweeteners and baking enhancers.
The Company plans to launch the new branded specialty ingredients and foods business starting in the second half of 2022.
The AgriFORCE Impact
