2021 will be a pivotal year for Agri'tech Jungle.
The major player in vertical culture has just announced a fundraising of 42 million euros.
Objective of the start-up chaired by Gilles Dreyfus, which he launched in 2016 in Portugal, together with Nicolas Seguy: to achieve his ambition to go from 200 m2 of vertical cultivation, to 1000 m2 in the coming days and then to 5500 m2 , on its site in Château-Thierry (Aisne).
It will then be the largest vertical farm in France.
Jungle grows aromatic herbs, salads, fruits and flowers without pesticides or herbicides in a controlled environment.
As the plants do not touch the earth, they cannot obtain the organic label.
But this fundraising will allow him to develop his activity.
The first customer was the Monoprix banner, for which Jungle will begin to increase its network to deliver 60 stores in the fall.
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In particular, Agri'Tech has just put Intermarché in its pocket, with two stores for the moment in the Paris region.
The plants are marketed in their substrate, responding to an increasingly strong demand from individuals: "All are alive, that's where our success lies," boasts Gilles Dreyfus.
The conservation, taste and smell appeal to consumers who are increasingly turning to natural.
They realize that what we have promised is the truth.
"
Everything is starting from Château-Thierry for the moment.
In 2020, more than 50,000 plants were produced.
Jungle has been installed since the end of 2019 on part of William Saurin's logistics platform in the Omois industrial zone.
It employs around twenty people, around thirty are planned for the end of the year.
Recruitments are underway: "Cofigeo, owner of William Saurin, is also a shareholder of Jungle," explains Gilles Dreyfus.
We benefit from a ceiling height of 12 m which optimizes the price per square meter.
The building is less than ten years old.
It is up to standard.
We are ideally located near Paris.
"
Two other projects in the South and the West
Still, the concept even questions agricultural professionals and asks to prove itself in the coming months.
Organic market gardener in Essômes-sur-Marne, Eddy Vray asks himself: “How are the inputs made?
Are there really no chemicals?
It would be nice to be able to visit.
For the moment, with the works, no visit is planned.
Even at the Aisne Chamber of Agriculture, nobody wants to speak about the project, "for lack of information".
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Jungle, plans to open two other vertical farms: one in the South, which will be double that of Aisne, and a second in the West.
More than 10 million plants are expected to grow there in 2022. Jungle is targeting more than 2000 points of sale over the next twenty-four months, wants to position itself in the perfume sector and aims to become the European leader in Tech for Good (
Editor's note: technological innovations at the service of a sustainable and united society
).
For the moment, it has only one direct competitor in Germany, with a totally different economic strategy.