Capriolo: the first Future Farming District

one of the Future Farming District grow rooms in a regenerated industrial warehouse

ZERO announces the start of construction in Capriolo, Brescia, of the Future Farming District, one of the largest vertical farming projects in the world: an original formula that combines industrial regeneration and prefabricated buildings with clean energy production.

It’s a total initial investment of over 60 million euros for the first phase, with a potential scale to double the production.

“The Capriolo project is the first instance of a Format we aim to replicate in Italy and abroad.”

The area chosen to host the first Future Farming District is that of the Oglio Park, a few minutes from the A4 motorway exit in Palazzolo, a strategic position that allows to reach all of Northern Italy, Switzerland, the South of Germany and Austria with short-range logistics.

The vertical farm cultivation plants, which use ZERO's proprietary technology to cultivate completely eliminating substrate, will be set up both inside the historic building and in a greenfield development adjacent to the industrial site: the farms will be powered directly by clean energy from a system of three hydroelectric plants located on the Oglio river.

"Creating the first Future Farming District in Italy is a challenge: Italy is the Country of agricultural and gastronomic Tradition, so our hi-tech agriculture, with artificial light instead of the sun, may sound heretical.

Italy is the worst possible place to start a project like this, and this is precisely the reason we choose it.

We have been working for years to build the tools that allow us today to plan an ambitious industrial project and to execute it quickly, in a way that is sustainable for the environment and for investors. We found in this splendid natural setting the ideal place to lay the foundations for a project that represents our manifesto and a new interpretation of Made in Italy to be exported around the world.

The Capriolo production site will be dedicated to a partnership strategy with national Retailers aimed at launching private label programs. This synergy with Retailers will allow us to focus our efforts on operating the technology, in a virtuous circle that creates value for the project, for the territory, for the distribution and for the final consumer. "

Daniele Modesto, CEO of ZERO