Laramie Company at World’s Fair

A Laramie-based company has created the world’s largest food-producing wall for the USA Pavilion at Expo Milano 2015.  Bright Agrotech used its ZipGrow vertical farming towers that can be strapped, hung, or set onto any surface to create a wall that boasts more than 7,200 square feet.

The wall in Milan, Italy, is comprised of vertical farming towers which include peppers, Thai basil, kale, and 39 other crops that will be used in American dishes cooked in food trucks outside the pavilion.  Customers can harvest crops directly from the towers, which are designed for high-density production in both aquaponic and hydroponic applications.

According to the Bright Agrotech website, tower housings are made using “100% virgin USA-made, food-safe PVC.”  The company uses Matrix Media in their Zipgrow towers, in part because of its “insanely high BSA,” or Biological Surface Area.  BSA is the amount of surface area that microbes can live on; an extremely high BSA assists in keeping the system healthy.

Bright Agrotech got its start in the Wyoming Technology Business Center, an incubator that assists fledgling companies and Wyoming entrepreneurs.  Bright Agrotech CEO Nate Storey received executive coaching and professional business counseling services geared toward increasing the company’s rate of growth.

“The incubator has helped us to take our product to market and be successful,” said Storey. “This is UW’s technology that we are developing and leveraging, and trying to turn into gold.”