AEH is a start-up founded in late 2018 by entrepreneur Dr Beenish Siddique, who developed a food-based fully recyclable hydroponic gel. Beenish won initial funding from the Eli and Brit Harari Graphene Enterprise competition. The initial focus on the novel hydrogel growing media is designed to reduce food production costs, improve quality and lower environmental impact. This award winning agri-tech business had a major breakthrough in 2020 when it won a £1m+ grant from Innovate UK to develop a new GelPonic system for vertical farming, offering significantly reduced costs, carbon emissions and water consumption. AEH is based in the University of Manchester’s Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre (GEIC).
Its technical validation is being performed by the UK backed Crop Health And Protection (CHAP) organisation. CHAP brings together scientists, farmers, advisors and pioneers to advance crop productivity and yield around the world.
