Indoor farming has captured global attention in recent years, with billions invested and countless facilities built. Yet many of those sites are now shuttered, often because they were never designed to operate efficiently or to scale profitably.
At Growy, headquartered in Amsterdam, a different approach is taking shape. Rather than building one-off showcase projects, Growy focuses on operational simplicity and modular design. Every decision is tested against a single question: does this work as a repeatable model that can be deployed anywhere in the world?
Growy partnered with Airlux to develop custom-made modular lighting and climate systems. The result is a facility that is efficient, scalable, and ready for replication. For farm builders and system integrators, it represents a blueprint for how to design controlled environment facilities that operate reliably.
Ard and Laura van de Kreeke, founders of Growy, emphasize the importance of this collaboration:
From organic roots to a modular vision
Ard van de Kreeke is Founder and CEO of Growy. After running an organic farm in Zeeland, a southern province of the Netherlands, for ten years, he founded Growy to create an affordable, scalable model for food production. Combining his experience in agriculture, technology, and entrepreneurship, Ard drives Growy’s international growth and mission to transform the global food system.
Laura van de Kreeke is Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer at Growy. She leads the company’s commercial strategy, branding, and communications. With a background in marketing and sustainability, Laura is dedicated to making indoor farming accessible and competitive for mainstream markets.
Their shared mission: to make indoor farming accessible and affordable, not a premium niche, but a robust addition to global food systems.
“From the very beginning,we wanted to prove that vertical farming can be both sustainable and economically viable,”
says Ard van de Kreeke.
Many early indoor farms were designed as technology showcases. The outcome was predictable: high costs and little room for operational improvement.
Growy’s farms reverse that approach. Instead of pursuing high-tech complexity, they are built for operational efficiency. At the Amsterdam site, energy use is only a fraction of that in conventional facilities, the result of optimized climate control and custom water-cooled LED lighting developed together with Airlux.
In this sector, efficiency is not just a sustainability metric; it is a direct competitive advantage. In markets where leafy greens retail for only a few euros per bag, cost control determines survival. Laura van de Kreeke underlines the point:
“Sustainability is a given, but without a solid business case it has no future. Efficiency is what makes the model scalable.”
This efficiency mindset runs through every aspect of the facility. From automated harvest lines to software that optimizes growth cycles, the farm is engineered to keep operating costs predictable and low.
Modular by design
Efficiency alone does not guarantee impact. To change food production at scale, farms must be designed for replication, therefore Growy’s solution is modular. The Amsterdam facility is built from 100 m² “cells.” A farm can start with a handful of cells and expand simply by adding more. At scale, the optimal facility size is around 100 cells, a hectare of productive indoor farming.
For farm builders, this modular structure means new sites can be deployed quickly and reliably, using proven modules adapted only to local conditions.
“From the start, we designed our farms so they can be copy–pasted worldwide, It’s not about building one impressive farm; it’s about building many efficient ones,”
says Ard van de Kreeke.
Partnership in practice
Making this model work required more than standard technology.
In the early stage of the partnership, the companies developed a custom-made climate system. Airlux combined its expertise in advanced cooling and heating with Growy’s in-house engineering to design climate units optimized for low energy consumption and stable growing conditions. The next step in this collaboration was the development of customized water-cooled LED lighting solutions. While other lighting suppliers offered only standard product portfolios, Airlux continued to innovate and co-develop.
“The only way this works is in partnership, a standard supplier–customer relationship falls short; you need to build solutions together,”
Ard notes.
For Airlux, this collaboration demonstrates how tailored climate and lighting systems unlock efficiency at scale. For Growy, it ensures every new module comes equipped with technology that is tested, efficient, and reliable.
From Amsterdam to the world
The modular setup makes international growth straightforward. Growy is already active in Europe and Asia, with projects in preparation in Switzerland, Denmark, and Canada, markets where high food prices create strong business cases for local indoor production.
By replicating the Amsterdam model, new sites can be launched rapidly. Each facility benefits from the same operational logic, while Airlux systems ensure consistent climate and lighting performance across geographies.
For system integrators and farm builders, this approach reduces project risk. Instead of reinventing designs and debugging on site, they can deploy a standard module that has already proven itself in practice. The benefits are clear: faster development, lower capital costs, predictable operations, and a clearer path to profitability.
Lessons for builders and integrators
The relevance of Growy’s model lies not just in its success, but in the principles behind it. Three stand out:
- Operational efficiency is non-negotiable. Energy and labor costs decide whether a farm survives. Systems must be designed for cost control from the outset
- Modularity enables scale. A replicable unit allows facilities to expand predictably and adapt to new markets
- Partnership drives performance. Tailored solutions developed with technology partners deliver better results than off-the-shelf systems
These principles also shape Airlux’s development philosophy: designing climate and lighting systems that are efficient, modular, and scalable.
Innovation through data
Efficiency and modularity create the foundation, but data unlocks the next level. Each Growy farm generates a constant stream of information on plant growth, climate stability, and system performance. Aggregated across multiple sites, this data refines growing recipes, reduces energy use, and improves yields.
With every new facility, the dataset expands, creating a feedback loop. Artificial intelligence optimizes processes, while Airlux’s systems provide the stability and control that make data comparable across sites.
For builders and integrators, this means that modular farms are not only efficient today but improve with every deployment as more data becomes available.
A blueprint for farms that last
The future of indoor farming will not be defined by futuristic promises, but by practical design. Facilities must be efficient, modular, and scalable.
Growy and Airlux are proving what that looks like in reality. By combining modular farm architecture with tailored climate and lighting systems, they have created a model that is profitable, repeatable, and ready for global deployment.
Watch our projectvideo:
Spotlight in Amsterdam
This October, the Vertical Farming World Congress comes to Amsterdam, bringing together vertical farming operators, investors, suppliers and customers.
Attendees will have the unique opportunity to visit Growy’s facility and see modular design in practice. For farm builders and system integrators, it is a chance to see how efficiency and modularity translate into projects that deliver real business value.
Discover the future
Read on to discover what the Vertical Farming World Congress has in store, the insights attendees will gain, and how Growy – together with us as a proud partner and Bronze Sponsor – will share our vision for the future of sustainable farming.