Mechanical Moon, Inc.

SUMMARY: Our objective is to provide fresh, flavorful, nutritious produce in all venues and environments, especially urban areas, at reasonable cost. GrowCubes – a new, highly-scalable indoor farming system – is the solution. With numerous benefits, unused industrial, commercial, and retail facilities in populated areas can be adapted for this purpose.

PROBLEM SPACE: The systemic problem we are aiming to solve is both hyper-local and global. There are 795 million undernourished people in the world today; feeding a city the size of New York requires a landmass the size of the State of Virginia; and research indicates that by 2050, feeding the expected global population through traditional agricultural methods would require an area the size of South America. We simply don’t have this much available land. Globally, it is nearly impossible to regularly access food that is local, responsibly sourced, pesticide-free, and affordable. People live farther and farther from farms and are increasingly disconnected from their food. Rising populations and growing wealth disparities have driven up the cost of safe and healthy food. Climate change, arid environments and unavailability of land make it impossible to grow food locally in many areas. Right here in NYC there are “food deserts” where healthy food is non-existent, and diabetes and obesity are rampant. GrowCubes seeks to make fresh and healthy food available to everyone, no matter where they live. Highly scalable, GrowCubes are modular aeroponic farms that supply produce to urban populations as well as sparsely populated areas, notwithstanding difficult and/or adverse climates and settings.

SOLUTION: “Building on the promise of vertical farming, GrowCubes is a modular and highly scalable appliance that can be used at home or in urban farms to grow plants of all types. The cube-based design allows for maximum scalability and simplifies manufacturing (e.g., a cube is equal on all sides). We researched and developed our own unique aeroponic misting technology, reducing the water requirements by 98% as compared with traditional agriculture, and greatly improving the delivery of nutrients to plants. Utilizing a rotating wheel, this encased rotary garden increases the overall arable space by 30%, and facilitates nutrient delivery, auto-pollination, self-cleaning, and other benefits.
After more than two years of iterating on the design, GrowCubes are now ready for widespread use and distribution. With our modular design and highly-scalable approach, GrowCubes can be used in a single home or mass-installed in vacant industrial or retail space, e.g., shopping centers (of which there is increasing supply in urban areas). The time and expense of distribution to the consumer, as well as dependency on unreliable climate conditions, are substantially reduced. GrowCubes also provide restaurants and grocery stores the ability to control their supply chain and eliminate commodity pricing volatility.”