Singapore’s very own modern farmer, grocer, and start-up founder, Jolene runs Urban Tiller with a big passion and always with an even bigger smile!
Why did you start Urban Tiller?
I got into the food and agricultural industry after organising a series of hackathons centered around Singapore Food Agency’s “30-By-30” initiative. It was then that I saw the need to effectively buffer Singapore’s food industry from supply disruptions. I realised that I wanted to play a part in helping Singapore produce 30% of her nutritional needs by 2030, and to do it my way. Back then, I was working in a semi-corporate job that I didn’t enjoy, so I made the decision to leave and begin Urban Tiller instead.
What does Urban Tiller do?
Urban Tiller leverages technology to help both local farmers lower potential additional expenses that are not put into growing crops, increasing their profit margins and also health and environmentally-conscious Singaporeans source for fresh local produce. Our farming methods also reduce up to 90% of water use compared to conventional commercial farming methods, introducing more pesticide-free vegetables into the market and reducing food miles which often leads to food waste. With consumer benefits as our priority, we provide the freshest farm-to-table vegetables within 6-8 hours of harvest.
How is Urban Tiller able to accomplish these goals and be sustainable?
We believe in more than just buying and reselling and we take pride in establishing a strong relationship with farmers and consumers so that we can best provide support for them.
We do this by implementing a feedback cycle that ensures farmer security in comparison to selling to big supermarkets where unsold products just get discarded or their supply relationship may be abruptly cut. This helps reduce food waste which is another significant problem Singapore faces.
We also try to understand consumer behaviour with data analytics. Understanding what people buy and when they buy allows us to better provide as per demand and not in excess. We have also crowdsourced sweet/spicy salad dressings and share community recipes on our website.
What does Urban Tiller want to achieve in the future?
We plan to launch in 30 cities over the next 6 years — Asia, South Asia — where farming is fragmented and not large enough to supply commercial and also not small enough for self-sustenance. We want to help communities there achieve food security as well.
We are also potentially looking at vending machines where people can access fresh vegetables easily and we can also gather data on consumer habits and trends that allow us to optimise our business strategy.
We also encourage young farmers to go into agriculture and we want to be able to provide support and lower the barrier for entry into farming. I specifically provide farming expertise and the infrastructure for women in agriculture through GrowHer.
Earth School’s favourites:
VEGAN CHILLI SAUCE. We will never shut up about how good their Chilify Pineapple Hot Sauce ($10.80) is, we eat it with everything.
Their cherry tomatoes ($4.00/ 200g) are really big and super crunchy! We devoured half of them as an afternoon snack and then used the rest of them to make the TikTok pasta… (so good, you should try it!)
We also had their baby spinach ($6.00/125g) on pizza and as a salad!
They also sell little potted plants (mostly herbs) that can be repotted to grow better and bigger. We got the peppermint plant which we made into mint tea! (Boil mint leaves for 5 minutes and add honey for a calming and homely tea.)
Final comments: Honestly, we’re so impressed by how fresh everything is! We’d suggest that you don’t buy too much at one go because they don’t keep for very long (exactly because of how fresh they are) so buy what you need and enjoy!
The whole shopping process is super easy from buying everything you need off the Urban Tiller app to the items being delivered right to your doorstep.
Thanks Urban Tiller & Jolene for keeping us green inside and out!