Innovation

Developed by a group of friends who had experienced gardening at home, the Blokgarden innovation covers every essential aspect of growing vegetables from scratch. The package is delivered with fresh soil, a well-designed box for urban farming, gardening tools, and seedlings. The Blokgarden box aims to provide buyers with fresh homemade plants that can be grown right on the apartment’s balcony or small courtyard. The boxes are then collected from customers at the end of the season to clean, compost the soil, and reuse for the next season.

Consuming self-growing food improves health and well-being, as home gardeners are responsible for the food they grow. Hence no pesticides nor chemicals are utilized during cultivation. The business also targets people who barely plant but share an interest in indoor agriculture. Thus, the founders built a mobile application to provide weekly instruction and tasks for plants in the Blokgarden kit to educate people about planting hopefully. Because the vegetables harvested from the box are only available in a limited number, people are more responsible with their consumption. Ilander stated that the Blokgarden team wished that sustainability could rekindle the relationship between mankind and nature by rebalancing the demand for food and the turndown of cultivating the land. As a result, the innovation was aligned with the goals of fighting climate change and redirecting lives toward a sustainable lifestyle.

Inspiration

People immigrating to the cities tend to prefer more green space in their homes as a sense of “rootness” (Ramanathan 2017). Likewise, Blokgarden founders have always been fond of growing plants, even though none of them have been professional gardeners. In the summer of 2019, Ilander gathered with the other co-founders to discuss problems of the recent harvest: the zucchini was frost-bitten, the caterpillars attacked cabbages, and the tomatoes were cracked. They were all frustrated with the poor-quality seeds and soil. At that time, the friends wished somebody could have prepared the seedlings and earth for them.

In addition to the preliminary idea of a customized box suitable for urban farming, Ilander, and the other co-founders adopted the notion of generating a mobile application that would provide instructions for cultivation. The Blokgarden idea reached the European Space Agency’s business accelerator, and subsequently, “Blokgarden Oy” was officially registered as a company in 2020. As the business started to operate, Ilander obtained motivation and inspiration from his customers’ feedback. Several buyers reported to Blokgarden that they did not have to buy cucumbers and tomatoes during summer.

Overall impact

Although Blokgarden's story is still at the beginning, it has impacted its customers as well as the founders of the company. Blokgarden has helped approximately 1000-2000 people to get started with gardening. Not everyone has the skills or resources to grow their food from zero, which takes time and effort. The company enables everyone to grow their food with Blokgarden's garden box and guiding mobile app.

"People do get a lot of vegetables out of the boxes" one of the company's co-founders, Tuomas Ilander, says when asked about their innovation's (short-term) impacts. Ilander believes that the customers could be inspired to grow more and more of their food once they get an easy start with Blokgarden's boxes. One of the desired impacts is to increase the sense of community while people garden together, for example, by offering garden boxes to housing associations.

In the long term, the garden box can potentially reduce significant waste. Because it makes growing food easier, people are less likely to fail in their gardening and generate more waste. Moreover, since the summer in Finland is relatively short, when the fall comes, Blokgarden staff comes and picks up the boxes and recycles the soil. After composting the soil, Blokgarden can reuse it in the future. Finally, Ilander says that the Blokgarden team is committed, and the company gives them joy.

Business benefit

Blokgarden was established from the idea of the garden box, so it is fair to say that the innovation has been the ultimate benefit of the business. Because Blokgarden is a new company and the innovation is unique, they are still seeking additional funding. Blokgarden has one full-time employee and a larger team working with their day job, but they hope to provide more full-time employment opportunities in the future.

Blokgarden was recently admitted to an accelerator program called PALO, which provides business support for startups, aiming to get them ready for investment more quickly. During the interview, Ilander said that the team is very excited about being admitted to the accelerator program and looking forward to connecting with mentors. Through the program, Blokgarden will receive an investment to help them develop the business further.

Ilander sees potential for expansion, primarily through the guiding mobile app and eventually even to other countries. Due to the nature of the innovation, Blokgarden’s team will spend the upcoming winter developing further ideas and taking the company forward. Ilander believes that next spring will be their time to bloom.

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Social and environmental benefit

Blokgarden’s garden box and the guiding app promote locally sourced food, which significantly impacts the environment and society. Locally sourced food is always fresh and safer as the consumer is in control of the planting process and aware of the substances used in the process. Locally sourced food is also an act towards preventing climate change because it means a decrease in the transfer of food, which means fewer emissions.

Blokgarden’s app provides quality education to all users. The app guides the user on when and how to take care of the box garden. Using the app, users can also ask questions directly from the company’s experts. On top of teaching the users about gardening, Blokgarden’s innovation may educate people to better understand the value of food by growing their food.

One of the goals of Blokgarden is to bring people together through gardening. Community gardening promotes deeper neighbor relations and creates encounters between people, which are known to be essential aspects of a fulfilling life. The garden box could be especially beneficial in the housing associations for older or disabled people, who often suffer from the lack of natural encounters with other people.

Interview

Tuomas Ilander, Co-founder

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