Key takeaways
- Charlie Guy, CEO of LettUs Grow joins the Vertical Farming Podcast to discuss the recent changes in the industry as well as new development the company had.
- LettUs Grow is prioritizing greenhouse deployments with partner-led delivery while maintaining vertical farming offerings.
- The firm spun out its Ostara control platform into a separate mid-tech systems business.
- Charlie Guy cites energy costs and resilience as drivers; trials show yield uplift vs. ebb-and-flow hydroponics.
- Active projects span Europe, India, and the Middle East; North America is targeted next via a small “dev kit” pathway.
Industry context — Charlie Guy On Market Shifts
“The biggest shift” since 2021 has been “consolidation and a real change in investor activity,” said Charlie Guy, CEO of LettUs Grow, in a new Vertical Farming Podcast interview. He described the sector’s movement along the hype cycle and the company’s decision to widen its focus beyond a “small, nascent” vertical-farming niche.
Business Model Update & Software Spin-Out
“At our core we are an aeroponics company,” Charlie Guy noted, highlighting an advanced aeroponics rolling-bench platform integrated with greenhouse builders. To stay agile, the company spun out its Ostara control and monitoring platform into a separate business aimed at polytunnels and glasshouses. “Decisions like that have enabled us to evolve and survive as a business.”
Why Greenhouses — Energy & Scalability
Explaining the move toward glasshouses, Charlie Guy said, “There is no point burning fossil fuels to convert fossil fuels into electrons to power lights to grow plants.” Vertical farms helped prove the agronomy, he added, but greenhouses harness free sunlight while benefiting from aeroponics’ oxygenation and root health.
Trials, Disease Pressure, And Substrates
LettUs Grow reports ~20% yield uplift versus ebb-and-flow hydroponics (all else equal) in side-by-side trials with academic and commercial partners. The system is peat-free and media-agnostic (e.g., coir, hemp, jute), and the firm says higher root oxygenation can reduce disease pressure in crops such as spinach. “Seeing is believing,” said Charlie Guy, referencing trials with Wageningen University and growers.
LettUs Grow Pipeline & Partnerships
LettUs Grow collaborates with established Dutch partners to deliver systems and is active in Italy, India, Kuwait, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the UK. North America is next: “We’ve got… a dev kit… we can get delivered within a month” to help growers validate before scaling. Community efforts such as the Bristol Basil Company supply local outlets and serve as a live testbed.
