25 November, 2015 – Grow your own start up brand Urbotanica™ has gone to Kickstarter, a crowd funding platform, to help fund the launch of its 1st product, its stylish herb & salad growing kitchen appliance – the Urbipod.
After years of design and consultation with consumers, the Urbipod, as pictured, combines a contemporary & stylish design with simple and easy to use functionality that ensures success for the experienced home grower, the novice and the brown thumb alike. Our consumers overwhelmingly wanted a solution that was Natural and Simple – and something to help them learn more about growing their own fresh healthy produce.
In short, it looks good, can sit on your kitchen benchtop proudly alongside your other appliances and it works – it grows fresh herbs and salads all year round. So no more expensive packets of soggy herbs in the bottom of the refrigerator! Our home made video explains more: https://youtu.be/ljsdqBgCml0. Enjoy the bloopers at the end.
Plug and Play
The Urbipod is designed to make it easy and fun for you to grow your own herbs, flowers and or salads right there in your kitchen – easy to hand and all year round. Its LED efficient lighting fosters faster growth, whilst its design and clever wicking system keeps the natural growing media perfectly irrigated. Unlike other systems our larger grow Pods are also easily mobile so you can place them on the dining table, move them around the kitchen while preparing dinner or simply put them anywhere in the house where they’ll look great.
“Open Source” Indoor Gardening
As important, and again different to other solutions, we encourage people to choose what they want to grow. We will make suggestions and supply specialty varieties best suited to growing indoors – but we don’t inhibit consumers by locking down choice – half the fun is in experimenting.
Sabrina Hahn, one of Australia’s foremost horticulturalists, ABC radio commentator and gardening writer for the West Australian, and who has been applying her horticultural expertise to the development of the Urbipod stated: “Urbotanica is all about reconnecting people with food, giving everyone the opportunity to use fresh, safe produce in their cooking. Indoor plants benefit our state of mental health and reconnect us with nature.” Sabrina believes everyone should experience using fresh produce straight from the garden to the plate “once you do you will be hooked.”
Tapping into Global Trends
Urbotanica™ is seeking to tap into the rich vein of opportunity available by trends such as: increasing urbanisation, smaller households & apartment living, organic food focus, food & nutritional awareness, food security, cooking trends (MKR, Master Chef) and the increasing socialisation of food and food preparation. In Australia 4.7m households (52%) grow their own food and 35% of home gardeners in Australia are growing herbs – that’s 1.64m households.*
These trends are leading to growth in the demand for products that enable consumers to grow herbs, salads & vegetables in their own home.
Creating a Community – Learn. Grow. Share.
Urbotanica™ is about fostering a growing community of like-minded people who are interested in healthier, more intelligent and naturally sustainable solutions for better food quality in urban environments. We provide smart solutions and shared knowledge to help you grow your own food in any home situation. We’ll have an online community of consumers and experts to share experiences, learn from others and grow successfully.
Supporting Primary Schools – Learn.
And as part of our Learn Grow and Share philosophy, if we reach our Kickstarter target, for every 50 Urbipods we sell on Kickstarter, we’ll donate one to a deserving primary school – so that our children can learn about growing your own.
When will it be available?
The Urbipod – complete with starter kit of seeds, coir (soil) and natural nutrient so that its ready to plug and play – will be available by mid-2016.
The Kickstarter campaign runs until 22 December 2015. The funds raised will be used to commence tooling for the Urbipod, thus enabling full scale production in 2016.
Our Crowdfunding campaign page
Find us on Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/urbotanica/urbipod-a-stylish-indoor-herb-and-salad-growing-ap/description
More information?
Contact Neale Anderson on neale.anderson@urbotanica.com or +61(0)401522468 or go to our Facebook page and website – www.urbotanica.com
* (Source – The Australia Institute – Grow Your Own, The potential value and impacts of residential and community food gardening, March 2014. Poppy Wise.)
Distributed by CROWDFUND NEWSWIRE
Media Contact
Company Name: Urbotanica
Contact Person: Neale Anderson
Email: neale.anderson@urbotanica.com
Phone: +61 (0) 401522468
Country: Australia
Website: www.urbotanica.com
