How Stacked Farm began

When Stacked Farm began, Australia was swinging between drought and flood, and fresh greens swung with it. A good week could be followed by a poor one, and chefs who cared about what went on the plate had no way of knowing which they’d get. That isn’t a failing of the people who grow our food, it’s what happens when a crop depends on the weather. Liz and Daniel wanted to know whether greens could be grown so the season stopped mattering.

“Really, we were just trying to solve the issues around consistent product quality.”

Daniel Tzvetkoff, CEO and Founder

Consistency on its own was never the goal. The backyard greens had set the bar, and Liz and Daniel wanted every bag to taste as good, or as Daniel puts it, “more European in style.” Controlling the conditions every plant grows in lets us grow for flavour and leaf quality, and we keep testing new varieties to make them better.

The Burleigh Heads pilot proved we could grow the greens we wanted. It also showed how much it cost to grow them by hand, because Australian labour costs made that model unsustainable. Automation became the answer. It was never about removing people from farming, it was about making premium greens viable at a price that works on a supermarket shelf. We were strict about it, too, and nothing was scaled until every part of it had been proven.

“We didn’t scale anything until the technology was perfected. We didn’t scale anything until we could show that every part of it worked, that we were putting out the highest quality product at the right prices and at the right production cost.”

Daniel Tzvetkoff, CEO and Founder