Green Collar Foods Bringing Affordable Indoor Farming To Bridgeport, CT With New Partner
Green Collar Foods Bringing Affordable Indoor Farming to Bridgeport, CT with New Partner
Green Collar Foods (GCF) and Pivot Community Development Corporation (CDC) have teamed up to empower inner-city farmers by constructing an indoor farm in Bridgeport, CT to grow kale, arugula and cilantro for sale into local institutions and retailers.
Bridgeport, CT (PRWEB) May 26, 2016
Green Collar Foods (GCF), a Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) business, has officially secured a partner in Bridgeport, Connecticut to construct an indoor farm.
GCF’s mission is to empower inner-city farmers with an affordable CEA business solution that is technologically intuitive and financially profitable. It is also committed to growing high quality, clean food in communities so often overlooked.
Pivot Community Development Corporation (CDC), the commercial arm of Pivot Ministries Inc., an organization assisting men challenged by alcohol and substance abuse, has invested in the construction of a small-scale grow facility in Connecticut by GCF, which is set for unveiling on June 15. Pivot CDC has also committed to raising further funding for a larger-scale grow facility in Bridgeport planned for 2017. The facilities will grow kale, arugula and cilantro for sale into local institutions and retailers keen to find local supply.
Pivot CDC learned about GCF’s strategic plans, their progress in Detroit Michigan, and overall approach in January 2016. Intrigued, they asked GCF for a proposal on the speed and type of CEA implementation possible in Bridgeport.
The founders of GCF, deciding to leverage years of commercial and engineering experience while building on the recent success of its indoor farm in Detroit, Michigan, agreed to establish a small scale, Stage I paid marketing hub so various Pivot CDC stakeholders and future private funders of the full scale GCF Bridgeport location could see their approach and process in real time.
The Bridgeport grow facility is located next to 1190 Pembroke Street, a location that Pivot CDC recently worked with Bank of America and private financial donors to renovate.
Pivot Ministries Inc. and Pivot CDC are committed to showcasing sustainable community impact. More importantly, they are using these projects to showcase what a broader vision can look like to serve the city of Bridgeport. Pivot also sees the GCF partnership and the future 6,000 sq. ft. CEA grow facility as a natural extension of their existing greenhouse in the back of their property at 485 Jane Street.
As noted by Thomas Orr, President, Pivot CDC: “Our engagement and partnership with the team at Green Collar Foods has been truly exceptional to date. Rarely is this type of business execution, professionalism, technology and agricultural skills made available within inner city environments. We are so proud to be a part of this exciting and impactful growth story, and look forward to realizing our collective vision of a full scale GCF Bridgeport grow facility in 2017”.
Unsurprisingly, GCF is keen to ensure that every new partnership represents another blue-print on how their business model can accommodate the various types of future growers who will ultimately carry the GCF brand.
With this success now complete, and with experience navigating elements of local Bridgeport community development, GCF takes one step closer to completing one of five “shovel-ready” inner-city ventures in their pipeline.
Pivots CDC, as well as industry insiders, recognize the unique approach of Green Collar Foods in helping to rejuvenate inner cities, by creating jobs, growing healthy local food and establishing sustainable business enterprises.
GCF was recently added to AgFunder.com, the premier marketplace for the most promising Ag and AgTech start-ups seeking to raise investment capital from accredited investors.
Michael Dean, LLM, Co-Founder and CIO of AgFunder noted: “Green Collar Foods continues to impress with not only their novel approach and insights into the CEA market, but their ability to secure partners and Universities in areas so often overlooked. Their early success in Bridgeport Connecticut is another example of why we are so happy to have them as part of the AgFunder platform and our growing alumni network”.
How To Contact:
GCF contact: Ron Reynolds - 1-800-569-6941
Pivot CDC contact: Thomas Orr - tomorr@optonline.net
About Green Collar Foods:
Green Collar Foods (GCF) is a simple, yet influential controlled environment agriculture (CEA) platform designed for society’s most promising, yet challenged, inner-city environments. GCF is focused on empowering its business owners with the agricultural, commercial & technological tools required to successfully produce specialty crops that yield financial returns. Green Collar Foods leverages its technology platform, which combines Microsoft Azure’s IoT suite with GCF’s centralized machine learning platform and proprietary farm management software to create the GCF AgCloud. This enables continuous learning for GCF, its clients and University partners to extract efficiencies, record plant recipes and improve yields. The GCF AgCloud was built in collaboration with technology partner and investor Shaping Cloud.
If you want to learn more Green Collar Foods, see our website greencollarfoods.com
About Pivot CDC:
Pivot Community Development Corporation seeks to equip those in need with the economic and life skills necessary to become more productive members of the community of Bridgeport, and throughout the State of Connecticut. Pivot CDC will accomplish this mandate by providing jobs training programs, and through offering transitional housing, and social services. All of the training and services offered through our programs will be conducted under the highest standards of moral excellence, with the goal of empowering residents to engage their communities as a positive and sustaining influence.