In the innovative Agrotopia research and demonstration greenhouse in Roeselare, Inagro vzw provides for the development, construction and commissioning of a vertical demonstration multilayer plant for leaf or fruiting vegetables.

Vertical cultivation plants are already found in so-called plant factories, these are highly conditioned environments without daylight. Today, apart from some experiments, the use in greenhouses is virtually non-existent and imposes new requirements on these systems in terms of climate conditioning (temperature, light, humidity), irrigation, inspection and control of planting stock and ease of use (planting, harvesting, cleaning). In turn, the economic return is strongly related to the cost of these vertical systems. In this area too, there is a need for innovation to make these systems common to the market.

In order to realise such a demonstration installation, a competitive procedure with negotiations has been launched (the announcement can be found here). In the first step of the procedure, candidates will be selected on the basis of exclusion criteria and the selection criteria included in the selection guidance.

Applications must be submitted via e-tendering by 7 April 2023 at the latest. An online information session about the tender was organised on 16 March 2023 at 10 AM (pre-registration for the online inofrmation session is mandatory on the following e-mail maarten.ameye@inagro.be).

Presentations given during the information session can be found at the bottom of this page. 

Once the selection has been completed, the candidates selected (maximum 5) will receive the tender specifications and be requested to submit an offer.