Sundrop Farms

Sundrop was established to address the growing need to provide sustainable food production technologies at a commercial scale in climatic conditions that are not normally suitable for typical agriculture. The intent was to do this in a manner that addressed some of the limitations of traditional greenhouses and allow year-round production while utilising the natural resources of sunlight and sea water to provide valuable inputs into the production process.

Sundrop has achieved its intended outcome by utilising world first and IP protected technology. This includes a Solar Energy System using Concentrated Solar Power tower technology , with the primary purpose to convert solar radiation into thermal energy to deliver heat, electricity and water to the greenhouse. Combining this technology with world-leading greenhouse technology has allowed Sundrop to achieve its stated objective of being a world leader in sustainable horticulture and is based by a unique long term take and pay contract with Coles.

The Sundrop site in Port Augusta now has the capacity to produce up to 15m tonnes of truss tomatoes annually in a location that is not a traditional horticultural location. It also provides jobs for up to 250 in a location where the closure of traditional businesses in the area left an employment void. The technology produces heat, water and electricity that is equivalent to $3m of costs that would otherwise been purchased off the grid thus reducing the environmental impact of relying on traditional utility inputs.

The Sundrop model is replicable to any location in the world where there is access to the primary key inputs, sunlight and seawater. This allows for horticultural growth in areas where this would not normally fit with locations such as the Middle East.