Yes! Growing plants without soil. My family has a background in everything business orientated and I found myself interested in being apart of this.
So, I decided to work for my sisters printing and marketing company as a digital printer. After some time we decided to start a small coffee shop within our print shop for clients to sit and wait for express printing or just for a quick coffee etc. They gave me the opportunity to run this coffee shop after it became quite busy and high in demand for the surrounding companies. We expanded the coffee shop to the floor above our shop and decided to create a food menu and things kicked off. – Aaron Cullis
This Is Where The Inspiration Sparked For Urban Organics And I Didn’t Know It.
I decided to try growing a few of our own herbs for meals on our shop balcony and this “grew” on me. I felt the need to expand this small garden patch and this took me to Pinterest. This is where I saw a lot of people posting pictures of “Vertical Gardening”. Long story short I thought this was so simple to create.
Thus, with my father, we began building our own hydroponic system for the balcony. The system was nothing like the systems we manufacture today as it had leaks everywhere and was built roughly. However, it worked like a charm. We began building more and fine-tuning them to be more aesthetically pleasing. And, once we had created our first proper system we put it up at home and played around with plants.
Family and friends all saw the system and wanted one. He decided to create a company that manufactures these systems locally and Urban Organics was born. The initial step to the business taking off was entering ourselves into the Cape Talk/Sage Small Business of the Year Awards. After multiple panel interviews, they crowned us finalists amongst well established small businesses and us being first timers with our product that had not even gone to market yet.
Since then, we have created bespoke setups for restaurants and client homes. Some of the sponsors are Intaka Island (Century City) and The Little Pink Chef, installed systems for Jenny Morris, Reuben Riffel. Also, ex-agricultural minister Dr Kraai Van Niekerk.
We Designed And Now Manufacture A Range Of 7 Different Hydroponic Systems That Have Been Designed Registered.
We design each system for different spaces and abilities. Our Magnolia being the most popular for homes and the Cayenne being our latest edition. Our systems are water-wise and only use 90-95% water used in conventional methods. The yield is exceptionally better and is often twice the rate of conventional methods and this is possible because plants receive rich-nutrient water which is essentially all they need with the addition of light of course.
Our visions or goal going forward with the company are MOST importantly implementing hydroponics into schools and having kids learn about the ease and advantages in our ever growing water-scarce country / continent. Furthermore, placing a hydroponic system in every household which is very ambitious but we feel that this is the FUTURE of farming.
Fresh Garden Kale Smoothie
For More Details On Hydroponic Systems
Visit www.urbanorganics.co.za
Or call Aaron on 071 235 4445 or 021 910 4783
8 Milner Road, Fineline House (1st floor) Maitland, Cape Town
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