Growing the future of fresh food.
Grown indoors in Australia, all year round. Never sprayed and ready to eat.
Liz and Daniel Tzvetkoff started Stacked Farm to fix something farming has never quite solved: produce is only ever as good as the season it grew in.
They set out to grow greens that are just as good in the middle of winter as in the middle of summer, and that are clean enough to eat straight from the bag. Australia grows its own salad, and grows it well, right up until the weather has other ideas. Floods, heatwaves and droughts are what empty the shelf and send the price up. Growing indoors takes the weather out of it, so what we harvest in January is the same as what we harvest in July.
Grown under lights and picked at its best.
Most of how a leaf tastes comes down to two things: how evenly it grew, and what happens after it's picked. We control both.
Plants only use a fraction of the light the sun throws at them, so we give them the part they use, at the same strength, every day. No cloudy weeks, no heatwaves, nothing for the plant to fight against. A leaf that grows evenly is sweeter and crisper than one that has been stressed, which is why lettuce that has been through a hot spell tastes bitter.
The second part is the bit between the farm and your fridge. Ours is picked, packed and chilled in the same building, and it never gets washed, so it goes into the pack clean and dry rather than bruised and waterlogged. A lot of salad spends its best days in a truck.
Stacked layers. No seasons.
Vertical farming is growing crops indoors in stacked layers, inside a controlled environment where light, water, temperature and nutrients are managed rather than left to the weather.
It means a crop can be grown at any time of year, in any weather, without soil and without pesticides. No seasons, no droughts, no floods, and no waiting for conditions to come good.
Sealed rooms and the same conditions, every day.
Our greens and herbs grow in sealed rooms stacked from floor to ceiling, kept at a steady 17 to 24°C all year. LED lighting replaces the sun, delivering the part of the spectrum plants actually use, at the same strength every day. Water carrying a measured blend of nutrients circulates past the roots and is recirculated rather than drained away.
Sensors track light, temperature, humidity and nutrient levels around the clock, and automated systems plant, tend and harvest the crop. Grown this way, our greens are ready in about half the time a field takes, then harvested, packed and chilled to 4°C on the same site.
No soil, only exactly what the plant needs.
Hydroponics is growing plants without soil. The roots sit in water carrying a measured blend of nutrients, so the plant gets what it needs, when it needs it. Soil is really just a delivery system, and not a very precise one.
We use a custom blend of macro and micro nutrients, tailored to each crop and adjusted through its growing cycle. Automated systems manage water quality, nutrient levels and growing conditions twenty four hours a day.
Why grow without soil?
Plants don't need soil. They need water, nutrients, light and oxygen, and soil is simply the usual way of delivering them. Take it out and a few things change.
No soil means no soil-borne pests or diseases, which is one of the reasons outdoor crops need spraying.
Water is recirculated rather than drained away. Across our farms we recycle around 90% of the water our plants grow in.
Every plant gets the same conditions, so one batch is like the last one.
Crops are ready in about half the time a field takes.
There are no seasons and no gaps, so supply doesn't wobble with the weather.
"Plants still determine success. Technology simply helps create ideal conditions."
Daniel Tzvetkoff, CEO & Founder
Nothing sprayed on.
Nothing to rinse off.
Our leafy greens and herbs are grown in a sealed, high-care environment designed to keep unwanted contaminants out and let plants thrive.
Because we control the growing environment, there's no need for pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. Independent testing by NATA-accredited laboratories found no detectable pesticide residues, with approximately 300 pesticide analytes tested and all returning non-detect results.
By creating the ideal conditions for plants to grow, we can focus on producing fresh, flavorful greens and herbs without the need for pesticide sprays—resulting in cleaner produce from the very beginning.
That means greens you can enjoy straight from the bag, with nothing to rinse off and nothing unnecessary added.
No detectable pesticide residues. Independently tested.
Built with technology.
Judged on taste.
Behind every harvest is a team of horticulturalists, plant biologists, engineers and a chef. The farm is almost entirely automated, but automation doesn't decide anything. Our horticulturalists read the crop and set the conditions, and the machines carry them out precisely, every day, without getting tired or distracted.
We design and build our own farms, which is what lets us keep changing them. Twelve of our grow rooms are set aside for research, where we test new varieties, new growing recipes, and crops most people assume can't be grown indoors at all. There is always a next version in progress, and there always will be.
For all of that, everyone here is working towards the same thing. Not the cleverest farm, or the most automated one, but produce that tastes good on a plate. A leaf can be perfectly grown, perfectly consistent and perfectly clean, and still be dull to eat.
Growing it well is the method. Making it worth eating is the point.
A farm with the roof on.
It doesn't look like a farm and it isn't meant to.
Our first farm has been growing on the Gold Coast since 2024. It's three things at once: a working farm, our head office and our innovation an research centre, with twelve grow rooms where we trial what to grow next.
Near Melbourne Airport is our biggest yet, six grow rooms stacked into a single site. And we're about to break ground on our first farm in the United States, in Menifee, California.
More greens on the grid.
Follow for recipes, farm tours and a very close look at some lettuce.
FAQs
No, and it can't be. Organic certification in Australia requires soil, and we grow without it. Worth knowing though: organic rules still allow some approved sprays. We don't use pesticides, herbicides or fungicides at all, and we've had that independently lab-tested.
Really. There's nothing to rinse off, because nothing was ever sprayed on. Our greens grow in sealed rooms, they're never touched by hand, and they go into the bag clean and dry. Washing them again would only add water and bruising, which is what makes salad go slimy in the first place.
Plants don't take nutrients from soil itself, they take them from water passing through it. We deliver the same nutrients directly, in the right amounts, which is why our crops come out consistent every time. Our kale, rocket and spinach are stacked with vitamins A and K1.
It tastes like it was picked yesterday, because it nearly was. Steady growing conditions mean the plant is never stressed, and going from farm to fridge without a long trip or a wash means the flavour hasn't had time to fade.
Our greens go into the bag clean, dry and never washed, so they stay fresh more than twice as long as a regular bunch. Keep them sealed in the fridge and they'll hold.
Herbs are a bit different. Basil is the one to watch: it doesn't like the cold and will go dark and limp in the fridge. Keep basil on the bench, out of direct sun, and use it while it's bright.
No. Real seeds, real plants, real food. We use conventional seed and conventional plant nutrition. Nothing is modified. We just control the conditions the plants grow in.
Our seed comes from specialist seed growers in the Netherlands, the same seed houses that supply conventional farms around the world.
Yes. We're SQF certified and we grow and pack to HACCP food safety standards, and we're HARPS certified for retail supply. We also run independent lab testing, most recently against around 300 pesticides and residues, with none detected.
Every day of the year. Growing indoors means no seasons, no droughts, no floods and no gaps. The greens you buy in July are grown the same way as the ones you buy in January.
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