South Korea's food and beverage giant Nongshim Co. announced on Tuesday that it was selected as a participant in the Smart Farm Export Promotion Project, hosted by the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs and organized by the Korea Agriculture Technology Promotion Agency (KOAT).
The project aims to introduce Korean-style smart farm models to Saudi Arabia, promoting the domestic smart farm industry's entry into the Middle Eastern market.
Nongshim plans to establish and operate a smart farm on a 4,000-square-meter site in Riyadh by the end of next year.
The facility will be a hybrid model combining vertical farms and glass greenhouses.
Leafy vegetables like frilled ice and kale will be grown in the vertical farms, while cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and paprika will be cultivated in the glass greenhouses.
To cater to Middle Eastern preferences for sweeter tastes, the production will focus on leafy vegetables with less bitterness and sweeter fruit vegetables.
Nongshim will carry out the project through a consortium with three small and medium-sized enterprises.
The consortium includes S'farm, responsible for greenhouse operation and crop cultivation technology transfer; ioCrops, a smart farm management AI robotics company; and Pomit, a smart farm plant IT company.
The crops produced by Nongshim will be primarily sold through the existing distribution network of a local Saudi partner.
There are also plans to supply Carrefour, Lulu Hypermarket, and e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Noon in the future.