Key Takeaways:
- Samuel Bertram, CEO and Co-Founder of OnePointOne and Willo, emphasizes nutrition as the most urgent global challenge.
- OnePointOne’s Opollo Farm system offers a patented automated vertical farming solution focused on large-scale output.
- Willo, the consumer-facing brand, aims to drive personalized nutrition through direct-to-consumer produce delivery.
- Bertram views scale, not speed, as the key success metric in vertical farming hardware.
- The company’s growth plans include five new facilities this year and 100 in the next, setting the foundation for long-term impact.
Samuel Bertram Discusses Scale, Health, and Purpose in Vertical Farming
In a recent appearance on the Vertical Farming Podcast, Samuel Bertram, CEO and Co-Founder of OnePointOne and Willo, outlined his company’s mission to address global malnutrition through scalable vertical farming. His companies operate with a dual focus: OnePointOne develops and deploys automated vertical farms, while Willo serves as the consumer-facing platform delivering fresh produce directly to households.
“Poor nutrition of humanity is the number one problem that faces humanity quite clearly,” said Samuel Bertram. “The problem’s got to be big, and the solution’s got to be big.”
Building for Scale Over Speed
Bertram emphasized that large-scale vertical farming hardware demands long-term thinking. He drew a distinction between the expectations of speed in software and the slower—but equally ambitious—requirements of building complex farming infrastructure.
“Big and fast can exist in software. Big and fast cannot exist in hardware,” Samuel Bertram said. “Fast is less important to us. Big is important to us.”
OnePointOne’s core technology, known as Opollo Farm, represents a patented and fully automated vertical farming platform. The company aims to open five new facilities in 2025, scaling to 100 sites the following year.
The Role of Willo in Personalized Nutrition
Willo is positioned to take advantage of growing trends in personalized health and diet. According to Bertram, the long-term goal is to align personalized produce with evolving consumer health needs.
“Health is going to become personalized. It’s just flat out inevitable,” Samuel Bertram said. “Willo is going to participate in the personalization of health, the personalization of diet.”
Measuring Impact by Production, Not Promotion
Bertram encouraged other players in the vertical farming space to prioritize meaningful scale. “I reckon the best thing any vertical farming business can do for this industry and for the Earth is to demonstrate large-scale production,” he noted.
He also shared insights into his personal mindset as a founder, highlighting the importance of self-awareness, clarity, and continuous improvement.
“I think it’s just so fundamentally important to your improvement as a human and your ability to be efficient as an operator,” Samuel Bertram said. “To be able to look at yourself and see where you have flaws and deficiencies.”
