Our market research was that we knew from the year of experience from the farmers that there were a need and a wish from the farmers to be able to control weeds, fungi and nematodes in the soil by other solutions than chemicals. From the trials the farmers did with the first prototype we knew that the farmers also might get a bigger harvest and longer storage time on different vegetables. We got in contact with Mr. Ulric Osterloh which is one of the biggest strawberry growers in Germany which had big problems with fungi such as Phytium. Kåre Jan and Hans Kristian went to Germany to visit him and Mr. Osterloh was clear that as soon as SSI were ready to deliver machines that could steam his soil in a timely manner, he would invest in our equipment.
Kåre Jan and Hans Kristian returned from Germany on a Friday, and on Saturday morning they started to prepare to build the first full-scale machine. This was in January 2016. The goal was to have the machine ready in May 2016 so that they could test the machine in Norway before they shipped it to Germany for demonstration for Mr. Osterloh. For a company with no employees and no money, this might sound a little too ambitious. That is correct. But with 7 active and ambitious owners, NOK 500.000 funding from Innovation Norway (extremely important) and a workshop, we started to plan and to build our machine.
