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First Clarke Freight Farm Harvest in Massachusetts Exemplifies the Importance of Fresh Food and Superior Food Preservation
May 7, 2019
MILFORD, MASS. (PRWEB) MAY 06, 2019
Clarke, New England's Official Sub-Zero/Wolf/Cove Showroom and Test Kitchen, innovates again by investing in a 40-foot Freight Farm to grow produce year-round in Massachusetts.
Clarke's Culinary Team will use the produce for cooking demonstrations, events and daily tastings to exemplify the importance of fresh, healthy food and the fact that Sub-Zero refrigeration provides superior food preservation.
Every showroom visitor will enjoy a gift of fresh lettuce and the entire effort is powered by solar atop the Clarke headquarters complex in Milford, MA.
Clarke's 40-foot solar-powered Freight Farm will harvest produce year-round in Massachusetts.
Clarke, New England’s Official Sub-Zero/Wolf/Cove Showroom and Test Kitchen, once again exemplifies kitchen industry innovation with its investment in a 40-foot self-contained hydroponic farm to exemplify the importance of fresh food as part of a healthy lifestyle. “Our farm was delivered outside our Milford, Massachusetts showroom eight weeks ago and our farmer Francesca Mazzilli has been planting and tending to our crops inside the corrugated shipping container ever since,” said Sean Clarke, president of the family-owned company. “We are really excited about our first harvest happening on May 7th.”
“When I learned about Freight Farm I could think of no better way to exemplify Sub-Zero's superior food preservation.”
Built by Freight Farms, an innovative Boston-based company launched in 2010, Clarke’s exciting initiative will allow every showroom visitor to go home with a gift of fresh butter bibb lettuce. The farm will also supply fresh produce (delicately preserved in Sub-Zero refrigerators) to be used by the Clarke Culinary Team for cooking demonstrations, events and daily tastings in all three of its showroom locations (Boston Seaport, Milford, MA and South Norwalk, CT.) In addition, every Clarke employee will enjoy a weekly share of the produce to take home for their own families.
Farmer Francesca’s first harvest will include a lettuce mix, mint, parsley, thyme, swiss chard, mixed radishes, red veined sorrel, sorbet mix viola and arugula. She will continue to add new crops to the mix and harvest fresh vegetables every week throughout the year.
“When I learned about Freight Farms, I could think of no better way to exemplify the Sub-Zero and Wolf mission of superior food preservation and preparation than launching a year-round Freight Farm right here,” said Clarke. “As New Englanders, we crave fresh food year-round and many of our own employees can’t wait to get back into their gardens each year. Now we will have fresh produce all year round to cook with in our showrooms and share with customers and employees.”
The arrival of Clarke’s Freight Farm launched their “Live Deliciously” initiative to encourage all members of the design community and the homeowners they serve to remember that kitchens are about gathering to enjoy fresh, delicious meals. As the icing on the cake, Clarke is powering the farm with the solar panels that provide electricity for their entire Milford complex.
“We achieved net zero electrical consumption in Milford when we installed 2304 solar panels on our Milford headquarters in 2011,” said Clarke. “It makes it all the more satisfying that we are now also able to power a hydroponic farm from this source.”
For more information on Clarke’s “Live Deliciously” campaign featuring Sub-Zero, Wolf and Cove appliances, visit clarkeliving.com.
About Clarke
Clarke is New England's Official Sub-Zero & Wolf Showroom and Test Kitchen, with locations in Milford, MA, Boston Seaport and South Norwalk. Clarke's hallmark is an exclusive Appliance Test Drive, where homeowners can actually cook on Wolf appliances to best select the models that will enhance their lives.
Visitors can see more models of Sub-Zero and Wolf at Clarke than anywhere else in New England. Clarke sells its brands through a network of authorized retail dealers in all six New England states. In addition, the company also offers Clarke Customer Care, a dedicated Sub-Zero, Wolf, Cove and ASKO repair service that has earned them top customer satisfaction ratings in the U.S. For more information, visit clarkeliving.com.
Freight Farms Webinar - Enlightened Crops
WEBINAR | ENLIGHTENED CROPS
SKIP TO YOUR FAVORITE PART!
2m35s Introduction to Freight Farms
5m47s Steve’s Freight Farms Discovery
10m09s Business Planning
15m16s Finding Customers
22m10s Crops, Yields & Pricing
26m34s Marketing
28m49s Site & Operations
40m08s Community & Farming Lifestyle
47m11s Live Q&A
INTERVIEW WITH STEVE HUNTLEY
After 18 years in a successful career, Steve decided it was time to pursue something new. His new career? Hydroponic farmer!
Our 1 hour live webinar with Steve talked all about how he discovered his passion for farming, how he finds customers, and what he grows. Don’t have time for the full recording?
Check out our complete summary (under 10 minute read!).
DelFrescoPure Introduces The LivingCube
Our exciting partnership between DelFrescoPure and CubicFarms has resulted in the LivingCube -- a system of automated vertical farming growing machines that continuously produces living lettuce, living basil and microgreens all year long
Our exciting partnership between DelFrescoPure and CubicFarms has resulted in the LivingCube -- a system of automated vertical farming growing machines that continuously produces living lettuce, living basil and microgreens all year long.
LivingCube - Vertical Growing System
LivingCube is powered by DelFrescoPure, which produces power by using an off-the-grid electrical cogeneration system. The growing chambers are all individually climate controlled to optimize the environment for each crop to create an independent growing facility.
"We wanted to offer our retail partners innovative and local commodities and the ideal solution was to partner with CubicFarms," stated Carl Mastronardi, President of DelFrescoPure.
The LivingCube living lettuce, living basil and microgreens are always fresh, nutritious and flavor-filled. LivingCube finally offers you the freshness you love without sacrificing nutrition and flavor!
Living Lettuce
Who says you need to compromise quality for flavor? Our LivingCube allows our living lettuce to be vertically grown without pesticides in multiple varieties. Available in a 3-count lettuce bag, our living lettuce is convenient and delicious; you can grow it in your fridge or on your counter. Lettuce grow for you!
Basil Microgreens
With 12x the nutrients of mature leaves, LivingCube microgreens are a small way you can add health benefits to food! We offer multiple varieties and customized packaging combinations. Our LivingCube machines are flexible -- allowing quick crop changes that adjust seasonally. It's convenience with flavor!
"Our LivingCube microgreens allow you to add flavor, quality and fresh health benefits to your food without having to put in hard work to get it," stated Fiona McLean, Marketing Manager of DelFrescoPure.
Our packaging is made from 100% post-consumer recycled PET and comes in 50g and 100g, making our microgreens versatile and easy to buy, store and use. No need to chop, just sprinkle!
Swedish Grocery Store Reveals Line of Produce Grown On-site
Posted By: Harriet Jachec
April 16, 2019
Located in Halmstad, Sweden, Maxi Högskolan has harvested a range of hydroponically-grown produce for shoppers from Freight Farms’, a manufacturer of container farming technology, flagship container farm, the Leafy Green Machine.
By reducing the length of distribution time between food source and consumers, the produce grown by Maxi Högskolan is more nutrient dense and retains freshness for longer. This then impacts on the amount of food waste produced by retailers and consumers.
Technological developments have aided in the process, as Freight Farms’ containerised farming technology creates and maintains the optimal growing conditions to harvest produce year-round using less than five gallons of water per day. This also expands on the production capabilities of produce that is not native to the Swedish region, and allows producers to harvest crops without concerns about climatic limitations.
Rikard Hillarp, owner of Maxi Högskolan, said: “We’re excited to be the first ICA Maxi store to implement an onsite farm. By growing crops just steps from our shelves, we’re able to offer our customers what are truly the freshest greens possible.”
He continued: “Freight Farms’ technology is especially helpful in Sweden, where our short growing seasons can limit crop availability throughout the year and increase our reliance on imported produce. We’re now able to shorten the distance food travels to get to our customers from 2,000 kilometers to just 30 meters.”
In: Agriculture, Food, Innovation, Logistics, Technology
Ikea Now Grows Lettuce In Shipping Containers At Its Stores
04.11.19
The salad with your meatballs will now be ultra local.
[Photo: Ikea]
Outside its stores in Malmö and Helsingborg, Sweden, Ikea is now growing lettuce in shipping containers. The company soon plans to begin serving the greens to customers at its onsite restaurants.
[Photo: Ikea]
For the company, it’s a step toward more environmental sustainability. “There is a need to find better solutions to produce more healthy food using less land and water and at the same time decrease food waste,” says Catarina Englund, innovation and development leader for the Ingka Group, the company that runs most Ikea stores globally. “Urban farming has the potential to transform the global food value chain, as it aims to produce local fresh food within close proximity to meet demand, all while using less natural resources.”
[Photo: Ikea]
Inside each shipping container, a hydroponic growing system holds four levels of plants, or up to 3,600 heads of lettuce. There’s no soil, no pesticides or herbicides, and, like other indoor farming, the system uses up to 90% less water than growing crops in a field. LED lights, running on renewable energy like the rest of the Ikea store, are tuned to help the plants grow as quickly as possible. The lettuce also gets nutrients from food waste.
[Photo: Olle Nordell/courtesy Bonbio]
“What we feed the plants is actually [made] out of food waste,” says Fredrik Olrog, the cofounder and managing director of Bonbio, the company providing the indoor farming system to Ikea. “That’s our uniqueness: We’re actually trying to make the future of farming circular.”
Bonbio is a part of a larger group, OX2, that makes fuel from food waste, and discovered a way to capture critical nutrients for farming–like nitrogen and phosphorus–as a by-product of making that fuel. It means that food waste from Ikea’s own restaurants can be used to help more food grow. “At these two sites, we’re doing a fully closed loop system–we’re actually taking their own food waste,” Olrog says.
[Image: Ikea]
For Ikea, food is a relatively small part of its overall carbon footprint (despite the popularity of its restaurants). But as it works to improve sustainability across the company, moving to a circular model and experimenting with renting the furniture that it sells, food is a piece of the solution. Globally, more than 30% of climate emissions are connected to food. At its restaurants, the company has started moving to more plant-based food–from veggie meatballs to veggie hot dogs–and is working to cut food waste in half. Growing food itself is the next step. Ultimately, the company aims to become “climate positive,” meaning that it reduces more emissions than it creates.
[Photo: Ikea]
As it works with Bonbio, “we will explore how to become self-sufficient in growing our own local fresh, healthy, and sustainable salad greens in vertical farms–at the same or lower cost levels as conventionally grown food,” says Englund. As with most indoor farming projects, it’s starting with greens. “For the time being, it’s easiest to grow vegetables with short growth cycles that can generate high yields per surface area, for instance, lettuce and kale,” she says.
The cold, dark winters in Sweden make it a particularly good place to test the system, since lettuce is imported for much of the year. Greens grown on-site can be better tasting (having lived in Sweden as a Californian, I can attest to the sadness of Swedish produce departments at grocery stores) and avoid the emissions of transportation. In tests that will last for a year, the partners are studying how much lettuce the system can grow, and how the unique nutrients that the system is using can improve the nutrition of the final food.
“The aim is to learn to be able to optimize and establish best practices and proof of concepts for vertical farming within Ikea operations,” says Englund. At the pilot stores, Ikea plans to initially serve the lettuce in its cafes for its own employees, and once it is satisfied with the production routines, will begin serving the lettuce to customers in its restaurants.
“In the long term, Ingka Group hopes to be self-sufficient with locally grown, circular lettuce and other leafy greens,” she says.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adele Peters is a staff writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to some of the world's largest problems, from climate change to homelessness. Previously, she worked with GOOD, BioLite, and the Sustainable Products and Solutions program at UC Berkeley.
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Ikea Harvests First Hydroponically-Grown Lettuce
Courtesy of Ikea & Bonbio
4th April 2019
Ikea has harvested and served its first “home-grown” lettuce as part of a year-long trial exploring how food can be served more sustainability.
The Swedish furniture giant is growing lettuces in containers outside its department stores in Malmö and Helsingborg, Sweden, working alongside circular farming expert, Bonbio.
Each container conceals a high-tech growing operation comprising 3,600 lettuce plants in an area of 30 m2.
The container has four levels and is full of different sizes of lettuce. The seeds are sown in batches, so there is always lettuce available for harvesting.
No pesticides are needed during the growing process because the farming takes place in a closed system.
The lettuce is grown hydroponically in water containing liquid plant nutrients extract from organic waste – including food waste from Ikea’s restaurants.
This, Ikea said, means the lettuces require 90% less water and less than half the area than those that have been conventionally growth.
“It is not every day that we have a harvest celebration at Ikea and it is really fun for us to finally be able to serve our own lettuce. It is fresh, crisp and has a bit more taste than regular lettuce,” said Ann Holster, responsible for Ikea Sweden’s restaurant operations
“We will start serving the lettuce in our staff canteens, but hope to soon be able to offer it to our customers.”
Are Container Farms The Future of The Industry?
The trend for local food has risen over the last few years and as a result, the demand for local produce is showing no signs of slowing down
29 March 2019
Could Shipping Containers Be The Future of
Farming? According To Cleveland Containers,
They Can.
In the UK alone, over half a million people still rely on food parcels, and overall around 3 billion people in the world live below the poverty line, according to Cleveland Containers.
The company states that shipping containers could be the future of farming and could provide an answer to the rapid demand for local produce.
Trend for local food
According to British Cleveland Containers The trend for local food has risen over the last few years and as a result, the demand for local produce is showing no signs of slowing down.
"Creating your own farming space inside a container enables you to grow crops all year round and once modified, allows you to control growing conditions such as climate, soil quality and heat and light exposure," says Johnathan Bulmer. - Photo: Cleveland Containers
“The problem that farmers have with this rising demand is that they are faced with the challenge of providing seasonal produce all year round, with no control over weather conditions,” says the company.
Farmers forced to be creative
With this in mind, farmers are being forced to get creative in how they can deliver the volume needed for local supermarkets, whilst still keeping hold of the nutritional value in its fruit and veg.
So, how could container farms shape the future of the industry? Johnathan Bulmer, Managing Director of Cleveland Containers, explains.
“Many are unaware that containers can be fitted with heating and water systems, as well as gas and electrics and therefore offer a whole host of benefits for crops and farmers alike.”
Control growing conditions
“Creating your own farming space inside a container enables you to grow crops all year round and once modified, allows you to control growing conditions such as climate, soil quality and heat and light exposure.”
Bulmer claims that container farms can produce up to 4,000 heads of lettuce every 10 days, using no soil and 97% less water than a conventional farm.
Eliminating the need for pesticides
“Shipping container farms also mean that crops are protected from nasty pests, therefore eliminating the need for pesticides which can cause health problems in those who consume them.”
Johnathan Bulmer:
Farmers won’t need to empty their pockets and fork out for extra land to expand
By removing the need for pesticides the produce will be healthier and, according to Bulmer, research shows that UK buyers find products free from pesticides more desirable.
Farm anywhere
Container farms are also easily scalable, as they can be stacked, says Bulmer. “What this means for farmers is they won’t need to empty their pockets and fork out for extra land to expand. You also have the flexibility to be located anywhere you want as containers are designed to be easily relocated, so farmers no longer need to be based out in the sticks.”
A 40 foot container could equate to approximately 5 acres of farming land and can be easily transported almost anywhere with minimal effort, says Bulmer.
Cut down on costs
“We are seeing more and more farmers deciding to opt for container farms in the UK. The flexibility and ability to mass produce fruit and vegetables within a short space of time alongside the savings on water usage means farmers can cut down on costs and produce seasonal fruit and vegetables all year round, and on a much grander scale.”
Also read: Indoor farming technology market to grow to $ 40.25 billion
The Future of Container Farming & Controlled-Environment Agriculture
There are positives and negatives of growing produce far from the end consumer, but most would agree that all else being equal, local is better
Peter Tasgal: The author is a consultant focused on the agriculture space with previous experience as CFO and board member of a $100 million CPG business headquartered in Montreal, Canada prior to which he was an investment banker for over 10 years.
His contact information is as follows: Peter Tasgal, ptasgal1@gmail.com, 617-794-4058.
Over the past two decades many industries including the auto industry and the retail environment have seen drastic evolutions. At first glance, the agricultural space seems to be lagging behind. Produce at your local grocery store largely comes from seasonally favorable climates. For example, tomatoes from Canada during summer and peppers from Mexico during winter. Increasingly, produce is coming from areas of the world in close proximity of the equator to limit seasonality. Today, more than half of the fresh fruit and over one-third of the fresh vegetables that Americans buy is grown outside of the United States. This share has been growing steadily for decades and is expected to continue to grow over the future decade and beyond. 1
There are positives and negatives of growing produce far from the end consumer, but most would agree that all else being equal, local is better. Chilean grapes stored in refrigerated containers for 1 to 5 months at a temperature of 30 to 32 degrees Fahrenheit and which have traveled 5000 miles are not going to taste as good as freshly picked grapes from your local farmers market.
Community desire for local produce, combined with improvements in hydroponic, lighting and other technologies, have attracted participants looking to grow in controlled environments. Controlled environments include greenhouses – both ground level and rooftop, buildings, and 40 to 53-foot shipping containers re-purposed for growing.
The table below provides a high-level comparison of some prominent forms of farming today:
Please click on the above to enlarge
The fundamental reliance on rain and sun makes traditional farming the most efficient and environmentally friendly form of agriculture. However, generally it is furthest from the end consumer. Shipping containers on the other hand can be located at or are very close to the consumer but are the least efficient in terms of cost per delivered pound. Greenhouses and contained structures are in the middle of the two. Depending on their locations, greenhouses and other contained structures can be close to the consumer. Also, they can deliver produce at a competitive price for certain items.
1 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/dining/fruit-vegetables-imports.html
Technological innovation is happening in all areas of agriculture. The biggest evolutions are happening in environmental control systems, data collection, material handling/logistics , traceability/food safety and crop management.
Examples of innovators in the agricultural space include:
2 companies founded out of Boston based Flagship Pioneering, Indigo Ag, Inc. and Inari have raised $600 million and $40 million respectively. Indigo Ag is using natural microbiology and digital technologies to improve grower profitability, environmental sustainability and consumer health. Inari is building the world’s first seed foundry to reintroduce genetic diversity to achieve desired field experiences.
New Zealand based BioLumic is introducing Ultraviolet light to transplant crops at nursery stage to increase crop yield.
Philips recently introduced its GreenPower LED production module, optimized for closed, climate- controlled cultivation facilities. The module allows for a dedicated combination of spectrum, intensity, timing, uniformity and positioning of light to optimize production.
Let’s make the assumption that assumption that the consumer prefers locally grown produce, and that locally grown produce tastes best. The question I am then posing is: Can produce grown in a shipping container be priced competitively with traditional farm grown produce? Or, alternatively, does the consumers’ mindset need to be changed for them to be willing to pay a large premium for local products to enable container farming to work? Essentially, does the industry need a “Starbucks model” to motivate people to pay a premium price for a premium product when lower cost, albeit less quality product is available?
The University of California Cooperative Extension Agricultural and Natural Resources – Agricultural Issues Center did a complete analysis in 2015 of a range of crops. One of these crops was romaine hearts from the Central Coast Region (Monterey, Santa Cruz & San Benito Counties). They determined that based on a range of assumptions it costs an average of $0.65 to deliver a pound of romaine hearts to a blend of regions across the United States (See Appendix A for Cost Analysis – Conventional Farming). Traditional retailers in the United States look for 40 to 45% gross margins in their produce departments. This allows retailers to sell a pound of romaine hearts for just over a dollar to meet their return targets.
Grown in a container farm, the cost to deliver a similar product as described above is at best 3.6x the cost of conventional farming ($2.38 per pound), and more realistically 10.9x ($7.14 per pound - See Appendix B for Cost Analysis – Container Farming). This is impressive for container farming, especially given the square footage of a container is equal to approximately 1% of the square footage of an acre of land.
To determine the viability of selling container grown produce at the retail store level, I did a store check on a range of greens at a local supermarket. Greens were chosen as they are the easiest to grow in a container because they stay at a vegetative stage and do not go to a flowering stage. The flowering stage requires additional lighting of different color for optimum growth.
The chart below depicts pricing for a range of greens at a recent store check of a Whole Foods Market in Newton, Massachusetts. A 40% store level gross margin is assumed for the analysis below:
Please click on the above to enlarge
As shown above, container farming can provide a competitively priced source for many of the locally grown items, as well as small packages of specialized herbs. The items for which container farming can be competitive are largely niche products. Examples of this are products sold in low volumes at a Whole Foods Market in an affluent Boston suburb. For example, there were 30 small boxes of organic herbs on the shelf during my visit, equating to less than 2 total pounds of herbs.
Where are likely efficiencies to be found in container farms?
There are 4 high-level variables that determine the efficiency of a container farm:
Product yield
Cost of the container
Labor
Power
Product Yield
According to American Hydroponics (“AmHydro”) the maximum number of plants per year that can be grown in a container are 46,592. This is based on the assumption of 3,584 plant sites are turned 13x per year. This case assumes a 2oz plant, which equates to 5,824 pounds of annual production. This is the most aggressive yield case and assumes each of the following: (i) 4-week grow time; (ii) No loss; and (iii) no downtime. A much more realistic yet still aggressive yield case would be closer to 4,000 pounds of production. This is based on a 5 to 6 week grow period, 10 turns per year, and some downtime for container maintenance and cleaning. After discussions with container farmers, their estimation of actual yields are closer to 3,000 pounds per year. Efficiency improvements are likely to be limited in terms of yield, given the size constraints of a container.Container Cost
Freight Farms is listing its containers at $85,000 prior to delivery and set-up. AmHydro projects a delivered figure of $87,000. Each of these figures assume use of a container typically purchased from shipping lines and/or container lessors once determined the containers are no longer seaworthy, retrofit for hydroponic farming. CAI International, a major container lessor, published in its 2017 annual report a 3-year average residual price for a 40-foot standard dry van container of $1,101 and $4,045 for a 40-foot high cube refrigerated container. Therefore, the vast majority of the cost of a container ready for farming lies in its retrofitting and profit margin to the container farm seller / lessor.
Determining the true cost of retrofit for a container is difficult. Dan Backhaus, the number 2 person at now defunct PodPonics, a company which had raised $14 million in funding, estimated the cost of retrofit at approximately $20,000. Additionally, a Google search of container farms for sale depicted several Freight Farm units originally purchased in 2016 and now being listed for sale between $55,000 and $68,000.
Efficiencyimprovementsarelikelytobegreatestintheareaofcontainercosts. Ifthemarketgrowsthere will be additional container farm suppliers which will bring prices down. In Appendix B, under the likely scenario, the amortization of the cost of the container represents $2.25 per pound of production.
Labor
The amount and cost of labor is a function of several variables:
Proximity – For example, if one person is going to be responsible for several containers which are far
apart, this will require more staffing hours than if containers are clustered together;
Product type (s) being grown – Certain crops require more care than others and growing multiple crops
will require more labor;
Singular vs multiple cycles – One consistent cycle where an entire containers’ crop is ready at one time
will be more efficient compared to staggering the cycle so that product is being harvested on a more
frequent basis.;
Container layout – More efficient container layout could optimize labor efficiency, although the
efficiency may come with the cost of lower production levels; and
Cost of labor in the region.
Improvements in labor efficiencies are likely to be a function of what is trying to be achieved in the container farm. As the popularity of container farming increases, labor is likely to become more skilled and containers will be in closer proximity. Technological advancements have been very effective in reducing labor costs (eg. viewing plants and monitoring pH levels and other internal variables from a distance). However, most of these technological advancements are what has made container farming viable today. Most of these technological enhancements are not since but rather prior to the advent of the container farm. There has been limited research on the use of robotics to improve harvesting and seeding in container farms. This could potentially have a great impact on labor efficiency but will be very expensive.
Power
Based on my discussions, the item that farmers underestimate the most is the cost to provide heating and cooling to the container farm. The containers themselves are solid steel masses but then are being modified for an alternate function. Modifications are frequently made to provide multiple entrances and exits. Additionally, provisions for ventilation, heating and cooling are needed to achieve optimal temperatures and humidity levels for plant growth. Each of these modifications reduces the solidity of the container and can require further power. Additionally, as high levels of lighting are required for growth, these lights can generate significant levels of heat.If the container is expected to be mobile, there may be limitations to types of power which can be used. Copious work has been done on the use of solar, with limited benefits to date. The limiting factor largely is the square footage of the container (typically 8ft x 40ft). Increased lighting efficiency, predominantly within LED, has improved power efficiency. These improvements are likely to increase steadily.
Summary of Efficiencies
The greatest cost improvement will be the pricing of the retrofit container. In a blog posting in March of 2018 by the Indoor-Ag Conference, it was estimated that branded containers cost in the range of $50,000 and $120,000 to purchase (our analysis uses $85,000 to $87,000) and those which were “homegrown” cost between $15,000 and $20,000. The cost of the branded containers should come closer to those which are homegrown. In the same blog, it was estimated that the cost of LED lighting, representing 25% of the fixed cost of a container, is expected to fall 40% from 2017 to 2020.
Labor is a second area where efficiencies will likely occur. However, gaining short term efficiencies in labor will likely be capital intensive. Given there are an estimated 500 container farms in the world, the incentive to infuse large amounts of dollars into container farms by R&D focused entities, is likely limited. The efficiencies will likely initially come to greenhouses and other contained environments; then the technology will be transferred to container farms.
Container Farms vs. Other Types of Controlled Environments
One of the many benefits of a container farm is related to being close to the customer. Another is that production is occurring in a fully contained environment. However, what are the benefits of container farming as compared to other forms of farming in controlled environments? The Indoor-Ag Conference Blog from March 2018 described the 5 most important benefits of container farms (paraphrased below):
The typical farmer is aging and 80% of container farmers are new to growing – Therefore, this brings new farmers into industry.
Investors have shown interest in providing funding to the industry.
Container can be in place and ready to grow in a few months, versus many months to over a year for
a fixed structure.
Containers can be placed almost anywhere due to size and having been retrofit offsite.
Comparatively low priced to set-up.
However, the question still remains, why choose a container instead of other forms of controlled environment farming facilities. This is a complex question because the constraints of the container footprint can impact the efficiencies of the container. I outlined 2 major reasons that could spur the growth of the container farm industry, as outlined below.
Reason 1: The primary reason that I can see for growth in container farms is that new farmers want to get into the industry with a limited investment. In no other form can one own a farm and all the necessary equipment for less than $100,000, and be up and running within a few months. This is an enticing motivator for an individual interested in going into farming. However, why the need for container farming. If a product can be grown in an alternative contained environment at a location within a day’s transport from the end consumer, at a cost that is far below that of produce grown in an on-site container farm; then there seems limited need for the container form for farming. Potentially container farming would be practical in an extremely cold location, where building a solid structure would be problematic.
Reason 2: Marketing! Wouldn’t it be a great marketing tool for a high-end restaurant or other type of food establishment to tell customers that the food they are eating was grown on-site and picked just prior to serving. An interesting example is the Boston based Cultivar restaurant, that touted on their homepage “Chef Dumont’s menu is informed by the restaurant’s on-site Freight Farm hydroponic garden, enabling fresh food production year-round, along with seasonal market produce, foraged ingredients, sustainable seafood and dry-aged meats”. In this example and others, the container was a great marketing tool and provided a premium product. However, it required great amounts of time and expense. I visited Cultivar l
to see the container and noted that it was covered in a fine wood exterior (see picture below) and was seeming less than a 20-foot container (less than 160 square feet). The container was located in a very public and expensive location and has a singular entrance point outside of the restaurant requiring an individual to go outside of the restaurant to harvest. Per Cultivar’s website, the container produced 225 heads of lettuce, brassicas and herbs a week.2
Summary:
Following a full analysis herein, my conclusion is that container farming is and will continue to be a niche product. It appears that fewer new farmers will buy container farms as they learn the results others have experienced. I believe container farming will become an increasingly niche product focusing on area’s that cannot get recently harvested produce at a reasonable price as well as niche restaurants and other food establishments that are willing to invest their resources to tout the growth of produce on-site.
The benefits of growing in a container, versus growing in an alternative contained environment are largely supply-side benefits: (i) Need for more farmers in the market; (ii) Investors seeking returns in the space; (iii) Entry into market with limited capital; (iv) Time to market; and (v) Limited footprint. It is on the demand side that the viability of the business comes into question. What do you get by growing right next to your location, versus, growing within a short distance of your location? The answer lies in the marketing of the container farm. It is my belief that the entities whom are willing to invest time and money to gain this marketing appeal will be very limited.
2 Please note that in January of 2019 it was announced that Cultivar was closing after being opened for less than 2 years. Speaking to Cultivar’s owner, Mary Dumont, she stated that the farm would be for sale in the near future.
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How Urban Indoor Farming Technology Is Changing
Lana Bandoim Contributor
Some of the crops are available to taste and buy during a tour at Square Roots Urban Growers in New York. Photo credit: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images
As automation and data collection processes become more common, they are affecting more areas of the food industry. Urban indoor farming technology is also changing. Tobias Peggs, CEO and co-founder of Square Roots, shared more about how tech is transforming the industry.
Located in Brooklyn, Square Roots focuses on urban indoor farming. Its scalable “farmer first” technology platform brings fresh, healthy food to urban areas year-round, while simultaneously training future generations of farmers. The company recently announced its first major national expansion and partnership with Gordon Food Service.
"Gordon Food Service is one of North America's leading food service providers. It is a massive $15 billion per year food company with distribution operations spanning North America, as well as 175 retail locations in the U.S. Together, we will be building new campuses of our Square Roots indoor farms on or near Gordon Food Service distribution centers and retail stores across the continent," Peggs says.
Square Roots
Square Roots' technology focuses on data, insights and tools that help farmers learn to grow non-GMO, pesticide-free and delicious food all year round. Its platform also has a network of cloud-connected, modular farms, which are built inside shipping containers. Each farm has its own controlled climate that is optimized for growing certain crops.
"This means better speed to market. Using a modular container, we can open a new farm in three months and be very efficient with capital instead of taking years and spending millions of dollars to build a plant factory or a large scale industrial indoor farm or greenhouse. We can test a new market very quickly and can also be very creative with existing city infrastructure. We can pop up in a parking lot or take over a disused warehouse," Peggs explains.
The company's farms can be built in the same zip code as the end consumer. This means fresher products for the customers and more engaged urban communities. The setup can help customers feel connected to their local farm and farmers through events like regular farm tours. For example, in Brooklyn, Square Roots can go from harvest to store shelf in 24 hours or less.
Urban indoor farming is also easy to scale. To meet increasing customer demand in any market, they can simply add another container to any existing farm. Each of the container farms can grow 100 pounds per week of products, so they can add farms to meet the market needs when necessary.
Square Roots
"This means just-in-time capital deployment (very efficient) and also just-in-time technology deployment, which is important, as technology in this industry is improving fast, and you do not want to spend years and millions to open a big farm full of old tech," Peggs shares.
Another advantage is faster learning. The farms are cloud-connected and collect millions of data points in real-time that they can analyze with machine learning techniques to determine how changes in certain environmental parameters can impact the yield and taste of the final produce. More climates in more containers mean more feedback loops, which means faster learning. For example, the system has learned how to bring down the time to grow basil from 50 days to 28 days. That same system will also help them develop new "recipes" for new SKUs later this year, like strawberries or tomatoes, faster.
Peggs explains the company's mission is to bring local, real food to people in cities across the world and empower the next generation of leaders in urban farming. The company has plans to build, scale and expand, while training more farmers to grow delicious food on a global scale.
Lana Bandoim Contributor
I am a freelance writer and editor with more than a decade of experience. My work has appeared on Yahoo! News, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, The Week, MSN Money...
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Ikea Harvests First Lettuce From Stores Helsingborg and Malmö
We're not going to make jokes about putting your own salad together at Ikea, but it can be done from now on. The furniture giant has been growing lettuce in a container farm near their stores in Helsingborg and Malmo sinds early this year. Yesterday Catarina Englund, global sustainability innovation manager, announced the harvest of their first lettuce from what they call their "on-going circular urban farming tests".
"Together with Bonbio we are testing how to become self-sufficient in growing our own local salad", Catarina explained. "We can harvest 15-20 kg per day from this container. In addition, we are using our own food waste from the IKEA store to produce a nutrient solution in Bonbio/OX2 biogas plant. The aim is to establish a closed circular food loop. We all look forward to follow this interesting tests", Catarina explains.
Waste processing
Bonbio is a waste processing company and has been working with Ikea to evaluate their food waste for a longer period by now. "The majority of IKEA Sweden's food waste already goes into various biogas plants, including the biogas plant in Helsingborg, which is run by our sister company OX2 Bio", they explain. "At the biogas plant, Bonbio refines the food waste into plant nutrients, which are then used to grow leafy lettuce in the specially built cultivation containers right next to the IKEA department stores. By controlling light, temperature, irrigation and nutrient supply, we are independent of the seasons and can secure a large production of locally grown and fresh plants all year round."
Hydroponic Ikea
Ikea has been active for a longer period in the hydroponic industry. Back in 2016 the introduced a line that lets consumers grow their own lettuce and herbs on water. Last year, they've invested in Click & Grow, a producer of smart indoor gardens. This year in May they are to announce the results of their collaboration with Tom Dixon, a UK based industrial designer that will 'explore urban farming, making homes the new farm land.' The ambition is to find affordable and forward thinking solutions that can be used to grow plants and vegetables at home and beyond.
Salads first
But now it's all about the harvest of the first lettuce. Initially, the salad will be served in the department stores' staff dining rooms. "We're hoping to serve the salad in the customer restaurants in the coming year."
Publication date : 3/28/2019
Author: Arlette Sijmonsma
© HortiDaily.com
This Urban Farm Grows Strawberries In Shipping Containers In Central Paris
Mónica R. Goya
In terms of humidity, air quality and light, Agricool has created the perfect environment by growing strawberries in customized, reclaimed shipping containers. Every year, seven tons of strawberries are produced in each container. According to Agricool, these containers can yield 120 times as much as a field. | Mónica R. Goya
Agricool is a Parisian urban agriculture tech start-up that recently raised $28 million to scale its business: growing strawberries in reclaimed shipping containers in central Paris using vertical farming methods. Since the plants are cultivated using aeroponics — that is, by spraying a mist of water and nutrients on the plants' exposed roots (as opposed to the plants growing in soil) — their process uses 90 percent less water than conventional agriculture. Pesticides aren't needed because they grow in a controlled environment, and their carbon footprint is almost nonexistent because the transportation radius is less than 20 kilometers. Additionally, they claim to be 120 times more productive than traditional, soil-based agriculture, and their LED lights are powered by renewable energy.
The final design of each shipping container looks modern, with its external shell covered by a wooden panel. One of the reasons why the company uses reclaimed containers is because they are weatherproof. | Mónica R. Goya
Founded in 2015 by Gonzague Gru and Guillaume Fourdinier — two friends who grew up on farms in the French countryside — Agricool's principles are based on sustainability without compromising profitability. Furthermore, their business model can be imitated anywhere. Proof of their scalability is that they operate a strawberry container in Dubai. With their latest round of investments, they are planning to add about 100 containers to their current fleet by 2021.
Vertical farming makes the most of available space. Also, the company designs and produces its own LED lights, which are tailored specifically to its needs.
Mónica R. Goya
When the right time comes, colonies of bumblebees are brought into the shipping containers for pollination. | Mónica R. Goya
Their strawberries can be purchased at Monoprix supermarkets, as well as La Grande Epicerie de Paris, one of the city's most exclusive food halls.
Lab tests are conducted to assess the sugar levels and nutrients of the fruit. According to Agricool's own lab tests and external tests, their strawberries contain 30 percent more vitamins and 20 percent more sugar than conventional ones. | Mónica R. Goya
Remy Faury is an engineer who works on the research and development team at Agricool. The company's R&D team makes up 70 percent of the company.
Mónica R. Goya
Maria Foncillas is a "cooltivatrice" or an urban farmer, at Agricool.
Mónica R. Goya
At Agricool, several varieties of strawberries are grown throughout the year. These ones, in particular, belong to the Magnum variety. The growing cycle of the fruit is two months from seed to harvest.
DelFresco Pure Goes Vertical With CubicFarm
April 10, 2019
Jo-Ann Ostermann, of CubicFarm and Carl Mastronardi of DelFresco Produce demonstrated the vertical farming system by CubicFarm at CPMA in Montreal.
MONTRÉAL—Vertical farms are all over the news as players want to cash in on consumer demand for local fresh produce, but it’s not as easy as dropping a container next to a supermarket.
That’s where a background in greenhouse growing comes in.
Kingsville, ON-based DelFresco Produce Ltd. is working with CubicFarm Systems, Milner, BC, to expand the company’s product line and footprint with container farms.
“We’re starting with 14 units, and we’re going to see how quickly we can get this going,” said DelFresco President Carl Mastronardi. “Once we see that it’s going well, we’re going to expand it.”
Mastronardi envisions nationwide expansion over the next five years and is drawing on decades of experience growing greenhouse produce in Canada.
Growing in containers is a hot trend right now, but not everyone’s up for the challenge.
“A lot of people are getting into it, and a lot are failing,” he said.
Part of that is the technology, and part is the high cost of labor – two things for which CubicFarm and DelFresco believe they have the solution. CubicFarms’ system is fully automated, instead of relying on racks that have to be manually rotated. That cuts down tremendously on labor, Mastronardi said.
The technology has evolved over the past decade and a half. Most growers wouldn’t consider lights for vegetables because the energy cost is too high.
Nowadays, the LED lights are highly specific, emitting only the light necessary for optimal plant growth, with new tech constantly coming online, said Jo-Ann Ostermann, vice president of CubicFarm.
“We’re getting better and better at it every day,” she said.
Mastronardi is no stranger to taking risks with a new technology. DelFresco launched greenhouse strawberries in Ontario several years ago, and Mastronardi was recognized by the Ontario Produce Marketing Association as its Produce Person of the Year for the endeavor in 2018.
With this new venture, DelFresco is aimed at flavor and safety.
“What we’re trying to do is give the consumer a real safe product, and a taste experience,” he said.
Products planned for launch include living garden lettuces, which consumers can buy with roots intact and continue growing at home, as well as living microgreens that stay fresher longer.
“The biggest advantage is a better flavor profile whether it’s 120 degrees outside or 20 degrees outside,” Mastronardi said.
Tagged cpma, greenhouse
Pamela Riemenschneider is Retail Editor for Blue Book Services
First ICA Maxi Store in Sweden, One of 84 Grocery Locations, Launches Sale of Onsite-Grown Produce
Freight Farms customer ICA Maxi Högskolan now offers customers leafy greens grown onsite just steps from in-store shelves
NEWS PROVIDED BY Freight Farms
April 10, 2019
BOSTON, April 10, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Freight Farms is pleased to announce the launch of ICA Maxi Högskolan's own line of produce grown onsite for shoppers. Located in Halmstad Sweden, Freight Farms customer ICA Maxi Högskolan is one of ICA Gruppen's 1,300 grocery stores in the country. This month, the store began harvesting a range of hydroponically-grown greens for shoppers from Freight Farms' flagship container farm, the Leafy Green Machine.
Freight Farms' Scandinavian distributor, FutuFarm, installs a Leafy Green Machine at ICA Maxi Högskolan in Halmstad.
ICA Maxi Högskolan employees, Max Rydberg and Douglas Klang, now grow produce onsite for customers in Freight Farms' Leafy Green Machine.
"We're excited to be the first ICA Maxi store to implement an onsite farm," said Rikard Hillarp, owner ICA Maxi Högskolan. "By growing crops just steps from our shelves, we're able to offer our customers what are truly the freshest greens possible."
Freight Farms' containerized farming technology allows ICA Maxi Högskolan to create and maintain the optimal growing conditions to harvest produce year-round using less than 5 gallons of water per day. Beyond the store's initial offering of butterhead lettuce, spinach, and herbs, the farm's integrated IoT data platform, farmhand, will also allow the store to grow non-native crops otherwise unavailable in the region, regardless of seasonal limitations in Sweden's Nordic climate.
"Freight Farms' technology is especially helpful in Sweden, where our short growing seasons can limit crop availability throughout the year and increase our reliance on imported produce," added Hillarp. "We're now able to shorten the distance food travels to get to our customers from 2,000 kilometers to just 30 meters."
By removing the miles between the food source and consumers, produce maintains nutrient density and stays fresh for far longer, significantly reducing food waste for both retailers and consumers.
On March 29, ICA Maxi Högskolan kicked off its launch with a Harvest Festival for customers, selling produce and offering free samples of the newly-harvested greens and a Q&A with store employees Max Rydberg and Douglas Klang, now the newest onsite farmers.
"Our team innovated the technology to empower individuals and businesses all over the world to decentralize the food system in meaningful ways specific to their local community or environment," said Freight Farms CEO Brad McNamara. "We're thrilled to work with industry leaders like Rikard Hillarp and retailers like ICA Maxi, who together have the forward-thinking vision and reach to disrupt the grocery industry internationally."
About Freight Farms
In 2012, Freight Farms debuted the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container—the Leafy Green Machine—with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food. Now with the Greenery and integral IoT data platform, farmhand®, Freight Farms has the largest network of connected farms in the world, with global customers ranging from small business farmers to corporate, hospitality, retail, education, and nonprofit sectors.
To learn more, please visit freightfarms.com, or visit us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. For inquiries local to Scandinavia, please contact Freight Farms' official distributor, FutuFarm, for more information.
About ICA Gruppen, ICA Maxi
With a focus on food and health, ICA Gruppen is one of the Nordic region's main players in grocery retail, with 2,079 wholly-owned or retailer-owned stores and pharmacies. Its ethos is defined by three entrepreneurial values: drive, innovation and the desire to take on responsibility. ICA Gruppen believes it has a great responsibility—and great opportunity—to have a genuine impact on the value chain by conducting its operations in a climate-conscious manner. To ICA Gruppen, a commitment to community engagement and improvement in sustainability mean long-term success. ICA Maxi stores, individually owned by grocery industry entrepreneurs, are the largest food stores within ICA Gruppen, with 84 locations across Sweden.
SOURCE Freight Farms
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World’s Top Furniture Retailer Set To Begin Serving Home-Grown Salad
The world’s biggest furniture retailer is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile
Ikea, which demonstrated one of the LED-powered containers at an event at a store in Kaarst, western Germany, expects to start serving home-grown salad to customers at its restaurants from pilot projects at two stores in Sweden next month.
Circular farming involves waste food being turned into nutrients that are used to grow new crops.(iStock/Representative Image )
April 04, 2019
Reuters | Kaarst
The world’s biggest furniture retailer is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile.
Ikea, which demonstrated one of the LED-powered containers at an event at a store in Kaarst, western Germany, expects to start serving home-grown salad to customers at its restaurants from pilot projects at two stores in Sweden next month.
“The conditions are perfect for maximum taste and growth and you also have the sustainability advantage because you don’t have the transport,” said Catarina Englund, innovation manager for the Ingka Group, which owns most Ikea stores.
The containers, managed by circular farming firm Bonbio, have four shelves, carrying up to 3,600 plants in total, fed by nutrients extracted from organic waste, including leftovers from Ikea’s restaurants.
Circular farming involves waste food being turned into nutrients that are used to grow new crops.
The system, known as hydroponic farming, means the plants need no soil or pesticides, and use 90 percent less water and less than half of the area of conventional farming, with the LED lights to be powered by renewable energy, Ikea said.
One of the world’s biggest sellers of LED lights, the retail major also sells home hydroponic kits for hobby indoor gardeners. Englund said about 15-20 kg of salad can be harvested a day from each container and the fact that the lettuce will be grown on site means production can be precisely tailored to the demand of a store, reducing food waste.
Sales of Ikea food like hot dogs or Swedish meatballs account for about 5 percent of the group’s 35 billion euros ($39.34 billion) of turnover.
On March 25th Steven Warren Released Form D. Freight Farms $13.07 Million Financing.
A form D was filed by Freight Farms, Inc., Corporation because of $13.07 million equity financing. The date of first sale was 2017-04-04. Freight Farms sold $8.09 million or 61.90 % of the fundraising offer.In total it’s $13.07 million
Posted by Mike Johnson
March 25, 2019
Freight Farms Fundraising
A form D was filed by Freight Farms, Inc., Corporation because of $13.07 million equity financing. The date of first sale was 2017-04-04. Freight Farms sold $8.09 million or 61.90 % of the fundraising offer.In total it’s $13.07 million. On 2019-03-25 the document was filed and the reason was: unspecified. The fundraising still has about $4.98 million more and is not closed yet. We have to wait more to see if the offering will be fully taken.
Freight Farms is based in Massachusetts. The filler works in the Other Technology business. The person that filed the form was Steven Warren Treasurer. The company was incorporated more than five years ago. The filler’s address is: 340 Summer Street, Suite 108, Boston, Ma, Massachusetts, 02127. Brad Mcnamara is the related person in the form and it has address: 840 Summer Street, Suite 108, Boston, Ma, Massachusetts, 02127. Link to Freight Farms Filing: 000159280019000003.
Freight Farms Offering Details
The startups in the Other Technology sector sell on avg 85.80 % of their offerings amount. Freight Farms have sold 61.90 % so far. The financing is still open. Also companies in the Other Technology industry have an avg fundraising size of $1.54 million.And the total raised amount is 425.26 % bigger than the average.As for minimum investment it is set at $0.
Form D – advantages and disadvantages
Usually Form D fillings have information that ventures and startups don’t like revealing. More precisely they reveal plans and reasons for funds raising. On other hand this could help understand better your competitors.
Freight Farms ‘s pluses of Fundraising Reporting
The Form D signed by Steven Warren might help Freight Farms, Inc. as clients feel much more safe to work with a better financed firm. Chances are high that Freight Farms, Inc. will stay financially sound. There are good PR effects as well as more attention from angels venture-capital, firms and funds.
The Crazy Food Fight Over The Future of Vegetables
What’s at stake is billions of dollars and the future of food on the planet. Over the past 50 years, large farms growing massive amounts of one crop (known as monoculture) have gobbled up land. While industrial farming has increased crop yields, it’s done so at the expense of consumer choice
Who Knew Farming Could Get So Dirty?
BY RICHARD MARTIN
March 28, 2019
CHRISTOPHER TESTANI
On a cold, rainy night in Brooklyn, a crowd gathers inside the building that houses Square Roots, a company co-founded by CEO Tobias Peggs, a tech entrepreneur, and Kimbal Musk, who sits on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX (both started by his older brother, Elon) as well as Chipotle. Located on a dreary street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, the building is, technically, a farm. Its parking lot holds ten enclosed shipping containers.
With a bit of showmanship, Peggs throws open the door to one of the containers and a violet glow envelops the crowd. Inside, tightly packed vertical rows of red leaf lettuce, basil, and mint grow hydroponically through a combination of artificial light and a nutrient-rich solution. Musk and Peggs say they can cultivate three acres of plants in one container using a technique that could be adopted by any city in the world.
CHRISTOPHER TESTANI
At the heart of the vertical-farming trend championed by Musk and Peggs is the idea that although you can find lettuce at your grocery store in Boston in January, thanks to a system that allows farms in states like California and Arizona to ship fresh greens across the country at a reasonable cost, there are better alternatives.
Growing lettuce outdoors on a large-scale farm uses a lot of water. Plus, it’s estimated that during the up-to-five-day domestic trip from these farms to the grocer, the greens lose much of their nutritional value.
About 35 miles north of Brooklyn, a back-to-the-future approach to farming is growing. A few days later, I join Jack Algiere, the farm director of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, New York, and we walk along a hillside path with cows and lambs grazing on one side, goats frolicking on the other.
CHRISTOPHER TESTANI
Dressed in a flannel shirt and a sturdy coat, Algiere enters a half-acre greenhouse. Lettuce leaves the size of a baby elephant’s ears luxuriate in the warm air. Purple and yellow stalks of chard erupt from the earth, which is dark brown and lush.
Algiere treats this food with the same care and attention as Dan Barber, a top chef. Barber runs Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a farm-driven restaurant that consistently ranks as one of the best restaurants in the world.
You would think the viewpoints of Musk and Barber, two of the most influential voices in farming, would be closely aligned, but their debate about how to grow lettuce is getting heated and dirty.
CHRISTOPHER TESTANI
Barber: “[Kimbal’s] really smart, but the only reason he wants everyone to eat salad in the winter is because it’s the only thing he can grow in a vertical farm. He’d be telling you he’d want everyone to eat rutabaga if he could grow rutabaga. I love the guy, but let’s be honest: You can’t grow anything.”
Musk: “I don’t think [Dan] has a fundamental disagreement with what I’m doing. He sees the momentum moving towards indoor farming, and he doesn’t like that future.”
What’s at stake is billions of dollars and the future of food on the planet. Over the past 50 years, large farms growing massive amounts of one crop (known as monoculture) have gobbled up land. While industrial farming has increased crop yields, it’s done so at the expense of consumer choice.
In a span of 80 years, the variety of the world’s seeds dwindled by 93 percent, according to the Rural Advancement Foundation International: In 1903, 497 types of lettuce existed, but by 1983, there were just 36.
Industrial farming is so chemically reliant and ultimately bad for the soil (not to mention bad for the diets of those who live on its produce) that the United Nations’ 2013 trade and development conference urged a global return to sustainable farming practices.
Nowhere are the consequences of industrial farming more evident than at your supermarket, where identical-looking potatoes, carrots, and greens line the produce shelves. The presentation looks attractive, but that sameness is a result of destructive land-management practices—practices that lead to less-nutritious produce.
And then there’s foodborne illness. Remember the Great 2018 Romaine Lettuce Scare? Investigators traced that outbreak back to a large-scale farm in Santa Maria, California.
“It’s not like this is the question we should be thinking about five generations from now,” Barber says. “This stuff takes a long time, but time is running out.”
The Musks Shall Inherit the Earth
Square Roots may be the least splashy of all of Kimbal Musk’s endeavors. The South African native became involved in the food world after making millions building and selling start-ups, both on his own and with his brother. He did a stint in culinary school in New York City, then settled in Boulder, Colorado.
Lost in the shadows of the Musk sibling mythology is that Kimbal is actually a legitimate farm-to-table pioneer. He opened his first restaurant, the Kitchen, in 2004, sourcing ingredients from Colorado’s rich agriculture and livestock communities.
Musk launched Square Roots with Peggs in 2016 with one concept: “Can we take a young person with no experience and bring them in and teach them how to farm in a box in double-quick time and get them to grow food that is tasty, that people want to eat?”
Kimbal Musk (left) and Tobias Peggs | CHRISTOPHER TESTANI
The initial results were encouraging, although Square Roots cycled through distribution concepts before arriving at its current direct-to-retail model. You can now find Square Roots’ greens and herbs at specialty grocers around New York City.
Later this year, the company plans to operate in other U. S. cities and then scale from there. In each market, the produce will travel from the shipping containers to nearby store shelves, a solution that is hyperlocal and, now, highly traceable.
During the romaine-lettuce scare of late 2018, when an E. coli outbreak in California led to a coast-to-coast recall, Peggs and Musk realized that the data they compile for Square Roots would allow them to trace everything they grow back to the very shipping container that produced it. Now there’s a “Transparency” section on the company’s website where consumers can enter the lot number from their package of Square Roots herbs.
There are energy concerns with this type of farming, as well as a sense that it isn’t natural, but Musk is leaning into those issues. This is lab-grown food, and his team is sciencing the shit out of it. Strawberries, eggplants, beets, radishes, carrots, and more will come to market in five years.
“Right now we’re super-premium and people love it,” Musk says. “But over time we really want it to be about real food for everyone. We can get the price down and deliver delicious product 365 days a year.”
The Real Dirt on Heritage Farming
Stone Barns Center runs apprenticeship and education programs aimed at training and supporting small farmers. Small-scale farming is knowledge-intensive and complicated, Algiere acknowledges, but it’s the right thing to do for ourselves and the planet.
Watch the news and it’s depressing for farmers, but there was a glimmer of good news in the USDA’s 2017 Agriculture Census. At the same time that the overall number of farms in the United States decreased by 5 percent to only 2 million, farms with annual revenues between $100,000 and $250,000 saw the largest increase in sales between 2016 and 2017.
“This is so important,” says Algiere, launching into a soliloquy about the rising interest of young, first-time farmers and the surprising upswing in the number of small U. S. farms. He grabs a rake and continues his lecture on how small farms on the perimeter of major urban centers can not only thrive but can also conserve the land.
Algiere walks out into a plot of carrots and runs the rake over the greens protruding from the soil, explaining that most of the equipment available to farmers is of the giant John Deere tractor variety, because industrial farming has dominated society since the mid- to late 20th century.
“The problem is that there hasn’t been a set of tools for small-scale, diversified farms since 1940,” he says. That’s why among the many educational endeavors that Stone Barns Center supports is Slow Tools, a collective of farmers, designers, and engineers (with an annual conference held on the property) aimed at manufacturing equipment that can help small farmers grow vegetables and work their five-ish acres more efficiently.
Attendees include retired engineers who’ve developed a desire to farm, prototypical millennials seeking a return to the land, and even city dwellers who got their first taste of farming by working at one of the vertical hydroponic farms.
Barber so believes in Algiere’s work, as well as the entire regenerative-farming and land-management movement, that he cofounded Row 7 Seeds last year. Barber asserts that most of the seed business is now owned by chemical companies that have little interest in small, regenerative farms.
Jack Algiere (left) and Dan Barber | CHRISTOPHER TESTANI
“They don’t make money on the seeds; they make money on the intervention of chemicals,” he says. “That’s why the seed company became so important to me. It really does lay the foundation for everything that follows, including flavor, up to when it hits your mouth. That can be determined on a genetic level.”
Back in the greenhouse, Algiere puts down the rake, heads outside, and walks to a barn filled with hundreds of chickens. They swarm toward him and produce a cacophony of clucks that make it impossible to hold a conversation.
He moves toward the pigs and extends his hand toward a comically large sow that comes to greet him. “My animal operations feed the compost and pasture operation here,” he says. “My compost system feeds the crops and orchards, and any leftover feeds the pigs.” As hogs wrestle playfully, he whispers about how amazing the bacon coming from these animals will taste.
Eat the pork from Stone Barns Center and you will immediately understand what Algiere means. Try its carrots and you’ll come to believe what Barber does. The flavor of these foods—started from diverse seeds (both heirloom and experimental hybrids), coddled by premium soil, cultivated with gentler farming methods—rewards the eater in a way that your typical supermarket versions cannot.
Is it hard work? Algiere’s calloused hands prove that, yes, it is. But it’s not anything we haven’t done before.
The Fight for Farming’s Futures
Chris Newman, who cofounded Sylvanaqua Farms in rural Virginia with his wife in 2013, calls himself a “permaculturist” and proclaims his reverence for the land—but also for technology. “There is no single ‘right’ way to produce food,” he says in an email interview.
His own farming practices aim to be regenerative, like Algiere’s, and he’s adamant that these types of farms can produce food while helping to restore the environment. Yet ultimately they won’t be able to keep up with demand.
“Sooner or later, people on both sides of the debate will have to understand that sustainable food production lies in the intersection of nature and technology, not in their mutual exclusion.”
Call them rigid in their convictions, but Musk, Peggs, Barber, and Algiere are at least stoking the debate about how to feed the planet healthy food. And they’re drawing prominent investors into the search for a resolution.
Investors like Tom Colicchio, a cohost of Top Chef and an early backer of Bowery Farming, a company with two hydroponic farms. “I like what [Barber] has to say, and I also believe that through the right kind of farming and regenerative practices, we can build soil, we can grow,” he says. “That doesn’t help if there’s flooding or drought with climate change. I’m looking at 20 or 30 years down the road, and we’re going to have to rely on indoor farming.”
But then there’s the issue of energy use. Henry Gordon-Smith, a leading consultant on urban agriculture, advises multinational corporations and individuals wanting to start their own vertical, rooftop, or greenhouse farms.
Seated in his Brooklyn office, he recounts a study he conducted for an international beverage company to determine the carbon footprint of five crops grown in three settings: a vertical farm and a greenhouse, both in New Jersey, and a soil-based farm in California.
The results were mixed, depending on the crop, but a key takeaway was that the vertical farm’s carbon footprint was “extraordinarily higher,” due to the energy used. He adds that when you account for food waste, water use, and social impact, the playing field levels a bit, but the bottom line, he says, is “there’s no silver bullet. That’s not the catchy sound bite that people are looking for, but that’s the fact.”
Yet the cash continues to pour into vertical farming. Venture capitalists have pledged about $1 billion over the past two years to fund start-ups like Plenty, AeroFarms, and Bowery Farming. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are in the game.
Market research projects the global vertical-farming market will hit $10 billion by 2025. Operations like AeroFarms’ 70,000-square-foot facility in Newark, New Jersey, and the 100,000-square-foot farm that Plenty built outside Seattle will soon become commonplace, proponents suggest.
Matt Barnard—the CEO of Plenty, which has amassed more than $200 million from investors like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and SoftBank, the majority shareholder in Uber—explains that he’s going big because of the scale of the problem.
“I was brought in by one thing and now I’m here for many—for health, nutrition, stresses on the land system,” Barnard says. That mission, however, may depend on trusting in not one solution but a combination of many.
For the moment, the vegetables available at your local farmers market or upscale grocery store reflect this dichotomy. You can easily find a plastic tub of lettuce from a hydroponic farm and, depending on the season, you may also find a sweeter, smaller, more efficient variety of honeynut squash developed in part by Barber and Row 7 Seeds.
Hydroponically grown greens and soil-grown, small-farm-produced squash living side by side in harmony: It’s a utopian vision already playing out in front of your shopping cart. The true question is, will you buy either? The answer, if you’re really concerned about your health and the health of the planet, is that you’ll buy both.
Eating Local Just Got Easier For Some North American Cities
There are many benefits to eating local food—reduced carbon emissions from transport, more nutritious products picked closer to ripening, supporting local economies—but for a lot of people, local isn’t an option. There are many food swamps and food deserts throughout the United States that are in part a result of limited access to healthy, local food.
Much of the time, food racks up quite a few miles on the foodometer before it reaches our plates. But the organizations Square Roots and Gordon Food Service are partnering to help bring locally-grown food to customers across North America year-round.
Founded in 2016, Square Roots has developed scalable urban farming technology to achieve their mission of bringing local, real food to people in cities to empower the next generation of leaders in urban agriculture. Gordon Food Service is one of the leading food service providers with distribution operations spanning North America, along with 175 retail locations. This partnership will help enable Square Roots to develop new indoor farms near Gordon Food Service distribution centers and retail stores, which will make an assortment of high-quality, local produce available to Gordon Food Service customers.
“Customers want an assortment of fresh, locally grown food all year round. We are on a path to do that at scale with Square Roots and are excited to be the first in the industry to offer this unique solution to our customers,” said Rich Wolowski, CEO of Gordon Food Service.
Square Roots will not only bring their high-tech farming platform to the collaboration—including their transparency timeline—but they will implement their Next-Gen Farmer Training Program in the new locations. This program trains young people to become future food leaders and includes education in plant science, food entrepreneurship, community engagement, and of course growing food.
With this partnership, eating local will get a bit easier for the many cities that will soon have a Square Roots campus, helping people reduce their carbon footprint while supporting the next generation of urban farmers.
Featured Image Courtesy of Square Roots
IKEA To Start Serving Salad Grown At Its Stores
IKEA, the world's biggest furniture retailer, is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile
April 04, 2019
A basil plant and a red lettuce grown without soil, using nutrients and water while LED-lights give it the light it needs to grow, is pictured.
KAARST, Germany (Reuters) - IKEA, the world's biggest furniture retailer, is preparing to serve lettuce grown in high-tech containers outside its stores as part of efforts to improve its environmental profile.
IKEA, which demonstrated one of the LED-powered containers at an event at a store in Kaarst, western Germany, expects to start serving home-grown salad to customers at its restaurants from pilot projects at two stores in Sweden next month.
"The conditions are perfect for maximum taste and growth and you also have the sustainability advantage because you don't have the transport," said Catarina Englund, innovation manager for the Ingka Group, which owns most IKEA stores.
The containers, managed by circular farming firm Bonbio, have four shelves, carrying up to 3,600 plants in total, fed by nutrients extracted from organic waste, including leftovers from IKEA's restaurants. Circular farming involves waste food being turned into nutrients that are used to grow new crops.
The system, known as hydroponic farming, means the plants need no soil or pesticides, and use 90 percent less water and less than half of the area of conventional farming, with the LED lights to be powered by renewable energy, IKEA said.
One of the world's biggest sellers of LED lights, IKEA also sells home hydroponic kits for hobby indoor gardeners.
Englund said about 15-20 kilograms of salad can be harvested a day from each container and the fact that the lettuce will be grown on site means production can be precisely tailored to the demand of a store, reducing food waste.
Sales of IKEA food like hotdogs or Swedish meatballs account for about 5 percent of the group's 35 billion euros ($39.34 billion) of turnover.
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
Gordon Food Service To Build 'Urban Farm Campus' At Headquarters
Author: Krishna Thakker@krishna_thakker
March 26, 2019
Dive Brief:
Indoor farming startup Square Roots has announced the location for its first "urban farm campus" at Gordon Food Service's headquarters in Wyoming, Michigan, according to a press release emailed to Grocery Dive. The two companies first announced their partnership a few weeks ago.
The flagship farm campus will include 10 specially designed Square Roots shipping containers for direct production and four more for operational support. The containers will take up less than two acres of land on Gordon’s 50-acre site and will generate more than 50,000 pounds of non-GMO, pesticide-free herbs and greens a year.
The herbs and greens grown on the campus will be sold commercially to chefs and to consumers who shop at Gordon Food Service’s retail stores. The construction and installation of the farm campus is expected to be complete this fall and will be operational immediately.
Dive Insight:
This will be the first of several urban campuses that Square Roots builds on Gordon Food Service sites, and launching at Gordon Food Service's headquarters will give the food distributor the ability to oversee the operation and have a better understanding of how it will distribute and sell the herbs and greens that Square Roots produces.
"This partnership brings together technology, agriculture, young farmers, and scalability, in a model that could revolutionize our food systems," Rich Wolowski, North American President and CEO of Gordon Food Services, said in a statement. "And it’s wonderful to be starting in our own backyard.”
Until now, all of Square Roots’ containers have been located in Brooklyn, but with the limited amount of space available in that area, the only way to expand is to go outside the region. This first farm campus will serve as a template for its future farms on other Gordon sites, giving both companies the flexibility to see what works and what doesn't before deploying to other locations.
In addition, Square Roots is bringing its Next-Gen Farmer Training Program to Gordon’s headquarters, and this new location opens the opportunity to more people who see a future in farming. This is especially useful in the Midwest where agricultural production is a big business, and also helpful as indoor farming gets more popular in the U.S. With the training program, Square Roots will have a lineup of future employees and the hands-on-deck it needs for additional campuses.
Indoor farming is projected to be a $3 billion market by 2024 as unpredictable weather conditions, the push for sustainability and more impact traditional farming. Some states offer tax benefits and incentives for sustainable farming as well, such as Michigan's Farmland and Open Space Preservation Act.
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Canada: Lettuce Lads Launch: Hydroponics Technology in Canmore
Date & Time
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
5:00 PM – 9:00 PM MDT
Location
The Greenhouse
60 Lincoln Park
Canmore, AB T1W 3E9
Canada
Lettuce Lads are opening the greenhouse doors and you're invited!
From January until now, the Lads have been building a proof of concept for their innovative system in the greenhouse on Lincoln Park (Canmore, AB). Now it's time to swing the doors open and show everyone how their patented design has come to life.
Launch Event details:
'Open house' style event from 5-9PM on Tuesday, April 23rd
Learn more about hydroponics and check out the Lettuce Lads system (currently growing Quinoa and Lettuce)
Snacks and beverages provided by local Bow Valley businesses
Short presentation from the Lads at 730PM about the system and long-term plans
Get your 'Early Bird' tickets now to receive a free Lettuce Lads Jute Grocery Bag and a chance to win an assortment of local Bow Valley products. Limited quantities of this ticket type available.
Presentation happens at 7:30PM, so be sure to be in attendance at that time to hear about locally grown produce in Canmore and the plans for the future.
Agricultural Technology in Canmore?
Yes! To be specific, it's an innovative hydroponics system for sustainable, local, year-round food production! The design can be implemented indoors or inside shipping containers to create portable farms that can operate anywhere.
Check out a timelapse of the build process for the system's structure on YouTube.
A New, Sustainable Food System
Lettuce Lads have big plans, and their high-density hydroponics technology is only step one. They want to see positive change in the food system, and they believe that it starts with an emphasis on sustainability and local development.
To learn more about the Lettuce Lads - their current hydroponics system and future plans - be sure to get your tickets for the April 23rd Launch today!
FAQs
What are my transportation/parking options for getting to and from the event?
On-site and street parking is available but limited. Public transportation and/or carpooling is recommended but not required. The Greenhouse is located at 60 Lincoln Park in Canmore, Alberta.
What is happening at the event?
The event is 'open-house' style so attendees are encouraged to visit at any point between 5PM and 9PM. During that time, the Hydroponics System will be on display and members of Lettuce Lads will be available for questions. However, the Lettuce Lads presentation will happen at 7:30PM. The presentation will briefly cover Lettuce Lads' plans for growing produce in Canmore, their long-term goals, and how they plan to move forward.
How can I contact the organizer with any questions?
Lettuce Lads can be contacted in the following ways:
Email: info@lettucelads.co
Website: LettuceLads.co
Facebook: @TheLettuceLads
Instagram: @TheLettuceLads
Do you plan to sell produce in the Bow Valley?
Yes. While we don't plan to be farm operators on a large scale, we do plan to have 1-2 shipping container farms in Canmore in the near future. We will offer our produce via local grocery stores and restaurants.
Do you only grow lettuce varieties?
No. We are currently growing quinoa and lettuce as an example of what our system can do. We plan to expand into other types of produce as we move forward.
Is your system available for in-home usage?
No. We are focused on large-scale food production, but we would be happy to direct you to other companies that provide indoor growing options for homes or offices.