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"We’re Retrofitting With The Variables We Have In Place"
Planted Detroit introduces new 20.000 sq. ft. growing facility
“The Square Room is a big block of pink lights with eight levels, where all our growing is done. Everything after germination is done in the same room, both harvesting of our baby greens and microgreens. Because we’re almost done with our PARS (Planted Automated Racking System), which is the big automation,” says Megan Burritt, Managing partner at Planted Detroit.
From a mix-fused downtown neighborhood in Detroit, daily deliveries of ready-to-eat salads and fresh greens are transported to local retailers and restaurants. Planted Detroit makes a large contribution to the city’s share of fresh produce.
New facility
Planted Detroit has been in the middle of the construction of its new 20.000 sq. ft growing facility. The growing space has been a massive update to the company compared to its previous 6-level growing facility which was between 1500-2000 sq. ft. The same room was used for processing, packaging, harvesting, and so on. “It was rather crowded, says Megan, but the main goal was to keep everything tight for the construction to continue in the near surrounding. We’re very serious about biosecurity and we have a daily procedure for everyone who sets foot in our grow room to go through. Making sure our greens don’t come into contact with pathogens is our top priority.
The new growing room
The Square Room, one of our growing rooms, is highly automated, including an automatic harvester to ensure work-efficiency. Once everything is big enough to be transplanted out of their plug trays, PARS (Planted Automated Racking System) will be transplanted with gutters and then go into harvesting. On the other side of PARS, the gutters are taken down and harvested through Planted’s new automatic harvester.
Delivering directly to consumers
The company wants to reach a higher volume of customers as it’s aiming to obtain a consumer brand status. Next to that, the company is always on the lookout for finding more customers through other venues. “We want to go directly to consumers via our web-store to shorten food miles as much as possible, delivering the freshest and most delicious greens,” Megan says. In order to do that the company needed to have a bit more scale, trying to maximize the space they already had.
She adds: “Our farm maybe isn’t the square footage which we could have built from scratch, but we’re retrofitting with the variables we have in place. That is why we have done a combination of a microgreen vertical nursery and PARS for baby greens. Our direct customers wanted meal solutions and we’ve been able to deliver them that. We’ve been doing everything from seed to plate basically.”
Megan Burritt, Managing partner
New projects coming up
On the same campus, 10 meters away, a new farm will be constructed, under the company's office space. In this farm herbs and edible flowers will be grown in response to different customers' demands. Megan says that Planted Detroit’s wholesale customers got them to this point as they were very interested in herbs and edible flowers. “However we weren’t able to perfect these as well in the systems that our baby greens were in perfectly. That’s why we’ve been leaning into R&D lately because once finishing the construction of Farm 2 it will have excellent growing conditions that are better than they have been for those crops.”
Edible flowers are an interesting thing, says Megan, but the company has gotten so much interest in it. According to Megan there aren’t many farms in the US that are growing them. “They’re high priced at this point. It sort of sticks to our original innovation, namely what exists here in the food system and what does not. Where can we fill the ‘does not exist niche’ and satisfy the needs of our customers.”
The company is rolling out a subscription program sometime this year and figuring out where it fits into the fresh food subscription system and how they can partner with other parties in order to get produce closer to society. “It’s great to have this ag job, applied science to be able to do. In all the things we’ve been doing is hiring these Detroiters and showing that we can really create a really great culture of work. It’s really great to see we’re contributing to a better Detroit and a better tomorrow,” Megan states.
Team expansion
During 2020 most of the team stayed on by moving around working hours, so the farm could come back in full force. By the time all equipment was in place, 10 to 12 people were added to the team to have them fully trained before the system would be functioning. “It has been really wonderful to expand the team to see what our capacity is,” says Megan.
“Luckily we’ve been able to develop systems that have been resilient. We’ve seen so many different patterns in consumer behavior but they seem to have fallen in our favor. People are eating more at home, shopping for groceries more, and that triggered our pivot focusing on direct consumers. But now, it’s perfectly in line with our strategy on how we go to market. As long as we can supply our customer needs we’ll be on the right path. Nothing but bright hopes for the future right now,” Megan affirms.
For more information:
Planted Detroit
Megan Burritt, Managing partner
megan@planteddetroit.com
www.planteddetroit.com
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© VerticalFarmDaily.com
USA: GEORGIA - Fresh Vegetables From UNG's Garden Feed Lumpkin County Students
A portion of the summer produce was frozen for future use, which helped the school's finances this academic year. Knight-Brown explained the school nutrition program's budget has suffered because of the COVID-19 pandemic
September 16, 2020 by J.K. Devine
Dr. David Patterson, associate professor of biology at UNG, and Julie Knight-Brown, school nutrition director at Lumpkin County Schools, harvested vegetables from the gardens at the Vickery House on UNG's Dahlonega Campus. The fresh radishes, tomatoes, onions, and an assortment of herbs from UNG's gardens were delivered to Lumpkin County Schools and were integrated into school lunches.
As school nutrition director at Lumpkin County Schools, Julie Knight- Brown learned some surprising news about elementary school children.
"The little kids love radishes," Knight-Brown said. "One of the parents thanked the café manager at Long Branch Elementary for introducing her children to radishes. She said, 'They loved them.'"
Fresh radishes, tomatoes, onions, and an assortment of herbs were a few items the University of North Georgia (UNG) supplied the school system this summer and into the fall. The vegetables and herbs were grown and harvested from the gardens at the Vickery House and Appalachian Studies Center on UNG's Dahlonega Campus. The fresh produce was delivered to Lumpkin County Schools and has been integrated into school lunches.
"We started in July and harvested on a weekly basis," said Dr. David Patterson4, associate professor of biology who spearheaded the project.
Knight-Brown said some of the produce such as cherry tomatoes and radishes have been a "featured" vegetable at a school or offered as a side dish in the cafeteria. Other items such as onions were incorporated into other meals while herbs were used for their flavor.
A portion of the summer produce was frozen for future use, which helped the school's finances this academic year. Knight-Brown explained the school nutrition program's budget has suffered because of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said the donations from UNG's gardens happened at an optimal time.
"All school nutrition programs are facing the same financial dilemma," Knight-Brown said. "We will happily take any donated fresh produce."
Lumpkin County Schools is not the only beneficiary of the Hometown Harvest program. UNG students in need of service-learning hours can get their hands dirty in the gardens. Patterson said between five and 10 students helped harvest the produce this summer.
Two more students, Amelia Arthur and Zach Pilgrim, have been involved in a precision agriculture research project funded by UNG's Center for Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities6 (CURCA). The primary objective was to test the impact of a precision agriculture system in small-scale gardens as a means for increasing food production for students in need.
"They took the garden from seed to production," Patterson said. "They also collected the data, which we are analyzing now."
In the meantime, the gardens have been turned to produce fall vegetables for Lumpkin County Schools. Leafy greens and broccoli seeds have been sown. The only missing element this fall is more volunteers.
Fresh produce from the gardens at the Vickery House and Appalachian Studies Center on UNG's Dahlonega Campus were delivered to Lumpkin County Schools and integrated into school lunches.
"The gardens at the Vickery House have always been viewed as an heirloom garden," Patterson said. "But now we have determined how to integrate consistent food production with seed-saving techniques. Now we need more UNG and community involvement."
He said some volunteer opportunities could be as simple as watering the garden or turning over the compost. Pulling weeds may take a little more effort and knowledge, Patterson said.
"Some students may have trouble knowing the difference between an onion stem and a weed, but we are there to help," he said.
To help with the Hometown Harvest, contact:
Patterson at david.patterson@ung.edu or
Knight-Brown at julie.knightbrown@lumpkinschools.com.
Farming Goes Vertical - The New Supermarket Trend For Growing Herbs In-Store
Marks and Spencer is the latest UK retailer to adapt vertical farming into its stores, with a selection of herbs now freshly grown and harvested in stores across London for shoppers to buy
The new supermarket trend for growing herbs in-store could help the environment - how does it work?
Vertical farming works by growing fruits and veg in vertically stacked layers
Claims it can significantly reduce environmental damage
M&S Simply Food is one of the latest UK retailers to introduce vertical farming
By GRACE GAUSDEN FOR THIS IS MONEY
4 August 2020
Top of the agenda for many big firms across Britain and the world in recent years is to find ways to help reduce their environmental footprint and become more sustainable.
This has been driven by consumer demand for change and warnings over irreversible damage by large companies, who can make small improvements to help that add up.
One such way is vertical farming and it has seen one middle-class supermarket favorite get involved at some stores.
Marks and Spencer is the latest UK retailer to adopt vertical farming into its stores, with a selection of herbs now freshly grown and harvested in stores across London for shoppers to buy.
Vertical farming works by growing fruits and vegetables in vertically stacked layers inside
It has partnered with Infarm, a fast-growing vertical farming firm based in Berlin, that also now operates in other supermarket chains across Europe.
Ocado has also invested £17million in vertical farming while John Lewis plans to grow salads in store in the future in a partnership with LettUs Grow.
Aside from Marks and Spencer, Infarm has recently partnered with the online sustainable supermarket Farmdrop, which stocks a selection of herbs and salad leaves.