Elfsys is an agritech startup focusing on building indoor growing automation technologies. I founded Elfsys on a mission to build a digitized, automated, and decentralized food production network for fresh vegetables and fruits.
I have lived in NYC for the past 10 years, and finding freshly harvested vegetables from regular grocery stores was difficult. The bok choy sold at Chinese supermarkets both look and taste pathetic. The best thing I could find was those organic labeled vegetables stored in a pretty open refrigerator with lighting and a tap water misting system. It shows me how inefficient it is to sell these $5 per lb “organic” vegetables far from where they were grown. A head of broccoli might travel thousands of miles in a refrigerated supply chain for an entire week before being displayed on those inefficient open refrigerators before your purchase. The excessive packaging required today to shop fresh vegetables through online delivery grocery services is insane. I have to spend hours every month sorting and storing just to recycle them to feel less guilty. You need to immediately put them in the refrigerator to occupy the most space to slow down the rotting. Imagining how many refrigerators a head of lettuce needs to survive through not being thrown away and successfully landing on a plate is hilarious. That is the vegetables today we are eating in an urban city. Most of them are still produced in a centralized way in which pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and other “humancides” are inherent. The stupidity of the “organic” concept around fresh produce amazes me. Aren’t fruits and vegetables already the most “unprocessed” should be organic by default? However, our food supply network is so broken that we need to market the most natural thing “organic” to sell them and justify the insane price tag. Today a box of 20 oz (1.25lb) Oreo cookies will cost less than 1lb (90% water) of “organic” vegetables. We are comparing the modern food industry miracle (more addictive than heroin!) to the most rudimentary thing humans can produce since the beginning of humanity here.
Using electricity to power the light to grow food at home may sound wasteful. Compared to the premium everyone is paying for those inferior vegetables sold on the market, it is not very challenging for us to tackle this economic equation.
If the investment cost + production cost + the knowledge cost < retail vegetable price, then we have a real financial incentive for everyone to start home growing.
We are developing technologies to reinvent the entire growing experience into a digitized and automated interface. The infrastructure utilizes electricity, water, and internet available to every household. Data and knowledge are shared and understood between the growers through the Elfsys Grow Cloud. Eventually, it will make growing into an enjoyable, predictable, and rewarding experience.
Only 12% of adults in the US meet the vegetable dietary recommendation value of 2~3 cups per day. Because we simply don’t have a choice. There are hundreds of different breeds of tomato seeds you can easily buy on a retail seed website, but most grocery store only sells three. Elfsys wants to give you the freedom to grow.
The name “Elfsys” originated from my memory of the WarCraft III game, in which an illuminating sphere elf wisp spins around a tree to harvest woods without cutting them down like other races. They also beam back woods like some teleporting magic/technology to gain an advantage in the game with a decentralized farming network. The elf race in the game resembles a magical resonance with nature. And that is my wish for our team to build technologies to resonate with nature. I designed this typography logo with my friend Yangbo. Hoping for the best in our future.
