Verticrop
Ten feet tall, 55 feet long and 23 feet wide , it is the award-winning device which is making a monkey out of feeding time at the zoo.
Called a vertical farm - and just acclaimed by Time magazine as one of the top 50 innovations of the year - it has been installed at Paignton Zoo in South Devon, to help cut a £200,000 a year food bill for the animals.
Instead of buying in vegetables and herbs to satisfy the appetites of many of its inmates, the zoo is now able to grow different crops in a specially designed greenhouse in the grounds.
Curator of Plants and Gardens Kevin Frediani said: 'We are making history here. It means we can grow more plants in less room using less water and less energy. It will help to reduce food miles and bring down our annual bill for animal feed, which is currently in excess of £200,000 a year."
To begin with, the Zoo will grow a whole range of herbs such as parsley and oregano, as well as leaf vegetables like lettuce and spinach, plus a range of fruits such as cherry tomato and strawberry. Reptiles, birds and most of the mammal collection - including primates and big cats - will benefit from the production of year round fresh food.
Paignton Zoo animals crunch their way through about 800 carrots a day and approximately £8,000-worth of fruit per month. Herbs are used as enrichment for many species.
The new system, known as VertiCrop and developed across the county border by a company called Valcent at Launceston in Cornwall, consists of a series of 1,120 plastic trays fitted to an elaborate structure of 70 hangars which snake through the greenhouse on eight different levels. They are capable of producing 11,200 lettuces a month - although the zoo does not concentrate on just one crop.
The system grows plants in rotating rows, one on top of another. The rotation gives the plants the precise amount of light and nutrients they need, while the vertical stacking enables the use of far less water than conventional farming. But best of all, by growing upward instead of outward, vertical farming can expand food supplies without using more land.
Mr Frediani said: "Valcent wanted to promote their technology to the public as well as to growers, and we have over half a million visitors a year. As a botanic garden, Paignton Zoo is keen to educate people about all aspects of horticulture, particularly new, environmentally-friendly inventions like this."
Chris Bradford, Managing Director of Valcent, said vertical farming could be the way forward as the world tries to harvest its potential. He said: "The world population is growing, food supply is shrinking, water supplies are becoming more limited, food production is competing for land with housing and the production of fuel crops. We have to make better use of available land.
"VertiCrop is the latest in plant growing technology, meeting the needs of the human population while reducing the pressure to clear precious habitat to grow crops. This technology could usher in a new era of urban horticulture.
"VertiCrop is a commercial high-density vertical growing system which increases production volume for field crops up to 20 times over but requires as little as 5% of the normal water supply.".