Melbourne’s $150m High-Tech Airport Farm Breaks Ground

In 1985, Isaac Asimov, one of the fathers of modern science fiction, envisioned a time when farming across the galaxy was carried out by autonomous robots. It seemed a distant dream. But Queensland-based Stacked Farm is bringing the reality of automated farming to Australia. The $150-million project that has just broken ground at Melbourne Airport is the largest indoor vertical farm in the world by output, Stacked Farm says. Farming with robots Specialist commercial builders Total Construction began work on the 10,000sq m climate-controlled facility last month. Stacked Farm says it will be fully automated “from seed to bag” using 25 proprietary robots, requiring just 15 staff members to operate. Crops will be harvested in under 31 days, compared to 45 to 80 days on a traditional farm. And its location at Melbourne Airport, backed by the airport itself, has made the difference, Stacked Farm chief operating officer Sam Canavan says. ▲ A rendering of the Stacked Farm project at Melbourne Airport. “Melbourne Airport didn’t want a ‘copy and paste’ industrial precinct, with warehouse on top of warehouse,” Canavan says. “This is only the second vertical farm globally based at an airport, the other is in the United Arab Emirates at a secondary airport.” Melbourne Airport head of property development and asset management Stuart Verrier says the farming solution aligns with its property strategy. “[Our strategy] focuses on maximising the value of our available land as it becomes increasingly scarce,” Verrier says. “As developable land opportunities diminish, the airport is committed to pursuing higher and better uses that provide long-term value beyond traditional industrial warehousing.” Stacked Farm’s vertical project is not without Australian precedent; the company has been refining its processes at its smaller Gold Coast farm. Adaptability, flexibility According to Total Construction managing director Steve Taylor, the Melbourne build is four times bigger than the prototype. “The good thing about Stacked is they haven’t gone to market too early and have learned lessons from failures across the world,” Taylor says. The Melbourne Airport-owned site will create a blueprint for Stacked Farm sites, according to Total Construction general manager for food and beverage Rob Blythman. ▲ The farm will produce 3400 tonnes of herbs and leafy greens a year, Stacked Farm says. “Design works started in August, 2023 and our remit for that was to make a cookie-cutter building, in that Stacked Farm wanted a building which, even if ground conditions varied, they could replicate anywhere,” Blythman says. “It was a longer process to get that locked in so we were 70 per cent finished with the solution before early engagement with Melbourne Airport and that really streamlined the entire approvals process through Melbourne Airport.” The project was not an entirely novel undertaking for Total Construction, which this year marked 30 years in business. “We have in-house process engineers to help them design a better layout and ensure a more efficient building,” Taylor says. ▲ Stacked Farm executive director Conrad Smith, founder Daniel Tzvetkoff, Melbourne Airport chief ground transport, property and retail Jai McDermott and Total Construction’s Steve Taylor. The building has also been designed with contingencies in mind. “What was interesting was that Melbourne Airport wasn’t 100 per cent committed ... before we came on board,” Taylor says. “They wanted to know, if it did fail, how to convert it into a standard building and we [showed] how that could be done, given that it might not be easily adaptable to other uses at first glance,” he says. So the Stacked Farm site is being built to be adaptable. “Stacked Farm could convert it into freezer or coolroom storage ... that took away that risk and the airport became more engaged,” Blythman says. Funding hurdles Vertical farming, as an almost unknown in Australia, was a major gamble as a real estate play, but it made sense for the airport, Canavan says. “Being at the airport means we have been able to position close to distribution centres and freight, cutting down on the ancillary drawbacks of managing a supply chain,” he says. But as novel out-of-the-box projects, such as the Black Rock Motor Resort, have found, attracting funding to new ideas is tricky. However, Stacked Farm has attracted capital from at home and abroad. ▲ A rendering of the completed farm now under construction at Melbourne Airport. As well as a Big Four bank, it has landed funding from the Chicago-based asset management firm Magnetar Capital, as well as Australian investors Tribeca Investment Partners, the family office of Rick Smith—the entrepreneur behind PFD Food Services, a majority stake of which was sold to Woolworths in 2020 for $552 million. “Magnetar has had hundreds of vertical farms and businesses come across their desk but have invested in only two, one of which is Stacked,” Canavan says. “That’s because in terms of automation and robotics Stacked is five to eight years ahead of other vertical farmers but also from a technical and process point of view. “We’ve streamlined systems and processes so you can be agnostic to the location, with some local nuances. This is our second farm, the next won’t look diametrically opposite.” The future of farming Developer interest in agriculture and community gardens is on the rise, but plans have often needed to be altered in the face of zoning, design and building challenges . Stacked Farm’s $150-million airport site will provide a prototype for the future of farming across the world, according to Canavan. “We are the food bowl for much of Asia with an amazing agricultural culture, the sunlight and space, and have 90 per cent of fresh produce sold here,” Canavan says. ▲ The farm, expected to complete in mid 2026, will produce cos and mixed leaf lettuces, spinach, rocket, basil, coriander and parsley. These are often the arguments against vertical farming in Australia, given its already strong agricultural industry. But its proximity to its supply chain is hard to beat. “In Australia, we also have among the highest energy and wage costs,” Canavan says. “It is one of the most difficult places in the world to get vertical farming to work, but if we can do this here, then we can roll it out to genuine deserts in places like Nevada and the Middle East, where they have constrained farming footprints and growing populations. “If we can make this fly in Australia, we can take this everywhere in the world.”

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