Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Uhlig.
Hi Christopher, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Chris Uhlig, CEO, Ceres Greenhouses
Growing up in Germany, Chris started his career in finance in the CPG sector before joining the software side. There his focus was on data, business intelligence, and the Internet of Things. He spent 20 years working on 3 continents in sales, consulting and management functions before finding his passion at Ceres. After two years in an external advisory role, he took on the full time responsibilities of the CEO role in 2018. During his tenure, Ceres has grown from 4 employees to 30 in three countries. Ceres is now an international entity that is leading the greenhouse sector with energy efficient solutions, including completely sealed structures, aka the SunChamber™, a house with a greenhouse attached, aka the Vesta™, and multiple solutions for climate control, including the GAHT®system, the EcoLoop™ and the SunSense™ controller. On top of that Ceres is providing consulting, design and engineering and even construction for commercial greenhouse structures of any shape and application. That makes them one of the only end to end solution providers in the world for greenhouse spaces, creating a focussed solution around the customer’s location, crop specifications and business plan.
In his free time you’ll find him playing soccer, mountain biking or skiing. In his younger years, Chris played American football in Germany and coached as well, leading the U19 national team to a championship win.
Chris is supported by his wife, Karin, who is from the US. They have 3 sons, one born in Germany, on born in Hong Kong and one born in the US. Their middle son died by suicide in 2021 at age 16, Chris and his family are passionate about raising awareness around mental health and volunteer in spaces to support this cause.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Ceres has been on a trajectory going from a $250k USDA grant for the first greenhouse, to 10’x12′ small structures in people’s backyards with wood from your local building supply store, to steel structures. In 2015, we built the first sealed greenhouse for a Cannabis client and then started to develop our own HVAC systems and controller. its was up and up until 2021, when the whole CEAG (controlled environment agritecture) industry started to slow. There was a collapse in teh vertical farming space, Cannabis CAPEX investments stopped, greenhouse manufacturers in Europe went out of business and a phase of M&A (mergers and acquisitions) started. The investments into new agriculture projects slowed significantly and Ceres was affected by that the same way as everyone else. We took what we learned and started to broaden our customer base to include schools, research facilities, tribal communities and custom commercial solutions, that are otherwise hard to find or need multiple parties involved to stitch them together. Our all in one in-house approach helped us to get to where we are today: againa growing company with projects as far away as Saudi Arabia and as close as Boulder, CO.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Ceres Greenhouse Solutions, LLC?
Our Vision – Efficient Greenhouse Design
Ceres was founded in 2011 with the goal of designing the most energy efficient greenhouse design solutions.
Fast forward 12 years and Ceres has expanded its commitments to designing sustainable systems for growing food to bring technology, data, and well resourced partnerships together in order to offer “whole solutions” to our clients.
We recognize that beyond providing a well designed facility, we must bring together appropriate technologies, natural solutions and focused data in order to maintain systems that both consider the environment and make financial sense.
Beyond the best engineering we must make sure that our solutions land in the hands of those who need access to them. Access to fresh and healthy food is a basic right, and no matter how well designed a system is, it is only as good as it is useful.
Proprietary Technology and Data
We use our own technologies to optimize renewable energy solutions. It is our goal as an efficient greenhouse design company to leverage appropriate technologies in order to increase our greenhouse yields, our clients profits, and keep energy costs at a minimum.
Every project is unique, therefore every project requires a unique solution.
We partner with our clients from conception through operations, delivering customized greenhouse systems tailored to meet specific performance objectives. Rather than engaging in manufacturing, we leverage our extensive global supplier network to source materials locally, ensuring adaptability and cost-efficiency for our clients. Our industry expertise, combined with proprietary greenhouse technologies, empowers us to design and construct optimal growing environments and enhance existing facilities.
We care about the success of our clients. We are designing for a better future.
Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
As a child/teenager we used to go on a family holiday to Croatia (back then it was Yugoslavia) every summer for 3 weeks. In the US, such a long vacation period might seem odd, but growing up in Germany, this was common.
My parents and my younger brother went to the same fishing village in Žuljana every year and rented rooms from a local family. They family we rented from lived in the same house and provided breakfast for us. While there we swam, snorkeled, jumped from rocks into the beautiful Adriatic Sea, and played soccer, cards or boccia every day.
Those memories remained an important part of my childhood, so much so, that I have taken my own family there twice and created those same memories with them. Believe it or not, that part of the Croatia did not change between the 80’s and the early part of 2020. My children fell in love with special place as well. My oldest son visited the same place last year, bringing his girlfriend to see the magical area, and for the first time said that the idyllic 250 people fishing village is changing now, becoming busier and more touristy. I guess his children “the next generation” will not have this experience to share.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ceresgreenhouses/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CeresGreenhouses
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ceres-greenhouse-solutions
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@CeresGreenhouseSolutions
