Rethinking the Root: How GyroPlant Is Eliminating Single-Use Growing Media from Global Food Supply Chains

Host: Tom Angus, Director of Conferences, Decarb Connect

Guest: Oskar Schortz, Co-Founder & CCO, GyroPlant

In partnership with Urban Future Lab

Every hydroponic farm in the world depends on growing substrates - the rockwool, coco coir, or peat that plants grow in and almost all of it ends up in landfill after a single use. It’s a supply chain problem hiding in plain sight, embedded in one of the world’s most critical industrial sectors.

In this episode of our mini-series in collaboration with Urban Future Lab, Tom is joined by Oskar Schortz is the Co-Founder and CCO of GyroPlant. They discuss how a small UK deep tech company is engineering its way out of that problem entirely, and what it means for the carbon footprint of controlled environment agriculture at commercial scale.

GyroPlant, a materials and systems innovation company that has developed the GyroCup — a reusable, food-grade silicone growing vessel designed to last up to 10 years and replace disposable substrates across hydroponic and vertical farming operations. They're working with over 200 companies across multiple continents, including a formal Innovate UK project with Dole plc, and has participated in trade missions to Singapore and the UAE through Innovate UK’s Global Incubator Programme.

What you’ll take away:

• Understand what controlled environment agriculture actually is, and why GyroPlant is best understood as a materials and systems company rather than a farming or food business
• Why GyroPlant pivoted from designing whole growing systems to focusing specifically on the substrate problem and what they saw on farms that made that the priority
• What substrates are, why every hydroponic farm currently depends on them, and why they represent a major sustainability liability in the food production supply chain
• How the GyroCup works in practice and what the switchover from single-use growing media actually looks like for a commercial farm
• Where the claimed 90% carbon saving versus the next best substrate option actually comes from - manufacturing, shipping, waste disposal, or all three
• How aware large food businesses are of the carbon footprint inside their growing media and whether they’re being asked to account for it
• Whether the indoor farming sector’s recent high-profile collapses create headwinds for GyroPlant or whether they actually accelerate demand as farms look to cut costs
• The single most important environmental cost that large-scale growers are probably not measuring right now

Show Links:

• Connect with Oskar Schortz, CCO & Co-Founder of GyroPlant
• Visit the GyroPlant website to find out more
• Follow GyroPlant on LinkedIn
• Our strategic partner, Urban Future Lab at NYU Tandon, is a non-profit innovation hub for best-in-class climatetech startups with a focus on clean energy and sustainable urban infrastructure solutions.
• Check out other episodes of the Decarb Connect podcast and suggest a future guest.
• Connect with Tom Angus, Director of Conferences of Decarb Connect

Learn more about Decarb Connect
Our global membership platform, events and facilitated introductions support leaders driving industrial and energy innovation. Our clients include the most energy-intensive industrials from cement, metals and mining, glass, ceramics, chemicals, O&G and many more along with technology disruptors, investors and advisors. We have summits coming up in Houston, London, Hamburg, Boston and Toronto and the opportunity to find the biggest brains in energy and carbon management – your future collaborators. For year-round introductions and meaningful insights, get in touch about your membership of the Decarbonisation Leaders Network – so many benefits, hundreds of people equally focused on decarbonisation – find out more and talk with Jack Figg, Community Director.