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‘Farm of The Future’ To Unlock Potential of Horticulture
Modular Farms Australia director James Pateras said the training farm would help unlock potential in the Australian farming landscape
Special report: EMILY BRADFIELD, Rural Weekly
February 19, 2020
THE Darling Downs is at the forefront of agricultural innovation and is now home to Australia’s first educational modular farm.
This month, TAFE Toowoomba welcomed its first cohort of students to the new Rural Centre of Excellence.
The $2.7 million facility includes a groundbreaking indoor vertical farm, allowing farmers of the future to get their hands on new technology and help shape the future of Australia’s food supply chain.
The vertical farm is the first educational facility of its kind in Australia and one of just two modular farms in the country.
Modular Farms Australia director James Pateras said the training farm would help unlock potential in the Australian farming landscape.
The LED growing lights inside the pod were designed specifically for the system to promote maximum growth .
INSIDE THE FARM
Mr. Pateras describes the farm as a “complete growing system” where plants are grown from seed to harvest inside the controlled growing environment.
The process of growing inside the pod starts with seeds planted in a host plug made from peat moss and allowed to germinate and grow into a seedling, which usually takes about two and a half weeks in most crops.
Plants are grown from seed, rather than seedling, to prevent pathogens or disease entering the pod.
From there the seedling is moved into a vertical tower on the growing wall, where it remains until ready for harvest.
Modular Farms pods are generally used to grow herbs and small leafy greens or even strawberries and blueberries.
The growing lights inside the pod were designed specifically for the system to promote maximum growth and are placed at an ideal distance from the plant canopy.
The farm is also much more water-efficient, using 95 percent less water than traditional crops, as well as the ability to recapture and recirculate water used inside the farm.
The pod is controlled by four indicators: lighting, climate, fertigation, and irrigation, and can be monitored and controlled remotely using an app.
“With a consistent environment, the plants mature much faster than those in a traditional crop.
“It allows us to create a very solid and clean environment for the plants to live in. There’s no cold one day, hot the next day, it’s a very steady environment inside,” Mr. Pateras said.
“A farm like ours can turn a basil seed into a harvestable crop in about five weeks, which is about half the time you’d see in a traditional greenhouse.”
The yield in the vertical farm is also significantly higher than that of a traditional crop.
Inside the 36sq m container farm, there are four growing walls with a surface area of about 65sq m. That 65sq m is able to produce the equivalent of 1000sq m in traditional crops, which equates to about one tonne of basil per year, or upwards of 45,000 lettuces.
Plants are grown in the vertical tower from seedling to harvest.
IN THE CLASSROOM
Dubbed by students as the “farm of the future”, Mr. Pateras said the farm would give students the opportunity to learn about indoor growing technology as the way of the future.
“To be able to do what we do and use as little water as we use is a great opportunity for the kids to realize how we can save on the environment and still consume and grow food,” he said.
The Modular Farms installation at the TAFE campus is one farm with two growing environments, allowing students to experience two different nutrient programs side by side.
“It’s got a dual irrigation system which allows (students) to run experiments side by side but then really focus on the plant biology as well. They can run tests a lot quicker and faster from that set-up,” Mr Pateras said.
Mr Pateras hopes hands-on experience in the growing pod will get the students thinking about the future of food production.
“What I think it will do is create a huge awareness about where plants are going and also allows the kids to learn a lot more about growing plants indoors, which is not new but growing plants on a commercial scale indoors is obviously becoming a bigger factor in the agricultural landscape.
“So it will definitely teach them a lot about what the future may hold about growing food in Australia,” he said.
“The idea of getting in a tractor and plowing up a paddock will maybe one day be a thing of the past, time will tell.
“The technology right now isn’t going to replace the farmer tomorrow but the farm of the future is here now.
“It’s just a matter of more and more people realizing the benefits of what this type of farming can bring to the environment, the community and the people consuming the food.”
A Modular Farms vertical farming operation.
THE FUTURE
Mr. Pateras believes the future of indoor farming is bright, with the potential to completely change the food supply chain and provide fresher, locally sourced produce to communities.
“I definitely think the indoor agriculture space is growing in steam,” he said.
“With the technology improvements over the course of the last few years, we’re seeing reduced entry costs in that controlled system’s space.
“We’re even seeing a lot of the traditional farmers supplementing their traditional greenhouses with growing lights to try to fast-track the speed of growth of their normal traditional greenhouse.”
The container farm has huge potential for isolated communities and city landscapes in delivering clean, fresh produce and eliminating food miles.
“As our cities begin to grow … the opportunity to grow in those areas is huge,” he said.
“It’s probably just scratching the surface in terms of where these types of systems can live, how they can change the food supply chain and improve the quality of food.
“We’re a very lucky country in Australia, where we can grow a lot of our food year-round. What our system allows people to do is create that microeconomy and sense of community farming.
“These things can live anywhere, so the ability to grow fresh leafy greens in Mt Isa or Birdsville is quite powerful in itself.”
The farms also have the potential to eliminate any unnecessary food miles. Australia’s first modular farm is located at Brisbane’s Eat Street Northshore, supplying vendors with fresh produce.
“We harvest our crop on a Thursday, we walk it down 50m to the vendors who buy our crops and by the next night, the produce is on the plate.
“You won’t be able to get in any fresher than that, and in terms of food miles we’re talking 50m,” Mr Pateras said.
“If you can grow food locally with one of our farms, I think it will be a far better injection into the local economy than bringing food in from interstate or overseas.”
Brick Street Farms Will Open A Pop-Up Market In A St.Pete Warehouse Next Month
Brick Street Farms, a St. Pete-based urban farming and produce company, comes into 2020 ablaze in change now its “cultivation hub” is set to debut at the end of this year
C/O BRICK STREET FARMS
A temporary spot to cop your fresh kale and spinach.
FEB 6, 2020
Brick Street Farms, a St. Pete-based urban farming and produce company, comes into 2020 ablaze in change now its “cultivation hub” is set to debut at the end of this year. Renovations to Brick Streets' market location—located at 2001 Second Ave. S. in St. Petersburg—have shut it down its market temporarily, so a Brick Street pop-up market will soon open in its production warehouse in St. Petersburg’s Grand Central District (at the corner of 3rd Avenue S. and 22nd Street, to be exact.)A press release says that the warehouse pop-up market hopes to open in March and will sell Brick Street's prized fresh produce as soon as doors are open.
This cultivation hub, which is still in the beginning stages of construction, will allow Brick Street Farms to increase production in order to satisfy high-demand. St. Pete’s Urban Canning Co. will also rebrand itself into the “Brick Street Canning Company” and sell canned and pickled goods out of the Brick Street Farms complex when it opens at the end of 2020. Until the cultivation hub opens, this warehouse space will be home to the Thrive Program—which allows consumers to buy or lease the shipping container farms that the Brick Street team manufactures.
Keep your eyes peeled for the opening of this warehouse pop-up market in the Grand Central Warehouse district by following Brick Street Farms on Instagram.
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Freight Farms Raises $15M in Series B funding Led By Ospraie Ag Science
Freight Farms, the containerized vertical farming company, announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Ospraie Ag Science, an investment firm committed to supporting sustainable solutions that improve the quality of life for both farmers and society
Freight Farms, the containerized vertical farming company, announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Ospraie Ag Science, an investment firm committed to supporting sustainable solutions that improve the quality of life for both farmers and society. The investment round, which received participation from existing investor Spark Capital, brings the company's total funding to more than $28 million.
Proceeds from the Series B fundraise will be used to advance the technical potential of Freight Farms’ platform through continued innovation, with new services designed to benefit its growing global network of farmers and corporate partners. The investment follows the announcement of Freight Farms’ strategic national partnership with Sodexo to grow food onsite at educational and corporate campuses nationwide and will support ongoing contributions to collaborative research projects and partnerships.
“Freight Farms has redefined vertical farming and made decentralizing the food system something that’s possible and meaningful right now, not in the ‘future of food,’” said Jason Mraz, President of Ospraie Ag Science. “Full traceability, high nutrition without herbicides and pesticides, year-round availability – these are elements that should be inherent to food sourcing. Freight Farms’ Greenery makes it possible to meet this burgeoning global demand from campuses, hospitals, municipal institutions, and corporate businesses, while also enabling small business farmers to meet these needs for their customers.”
“It’s a big step forward for the industry when financial markets recognize and champion the value of creating a distributed food system,” added Brad McNamara, Freight Farms CEO. “Aligned on mission-driven growth as a team, there is a massive opportunity before us to scale across global markets, propelling meaningful technology that’s already doing good.”
Founded in 2010 by CEO Brad McNamara and COO Jon Friedman, 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. This innovation, with integral IoT data platform farmhand, launched a new category of indoor farming and propelled Freight Farms into the largest network of IoT-connected farms in the world. Freight Farm’s 2019 launch of the Greenery raised the industry bar, advancing the limits of containerized vertical farming to put the most progressive, accessible, and scalable vertical farming technology into the hands of people of diverse industry, age, and mission.
“With the Greenery and farmhand, we’ve created an infrastructure that lowers the barrier of entry into food production, an industry that’s historically been difficult to get into,” said Jon Friedman, Freight Farms COO. “With this platform, we’re also able to harness and build upon a wider set of technologies including cloud IoT, automation, and machine learning, while enabling new developments in plant science for future generations.”
For more information:
Talia Pinzari
Tel: +1 (781) 635-6392
Email: talia@pinzaripr.com
www.freightfarms.com
Publication date: Wed 12 Feb 2020
Freight Farms and Sodexo Announce Strategic National Partnership to Grow Food Onsite at School Campuses Across the U.S.
With sustainability and transparency in mind, partnership will enable year-round on-campus food production at university and K-12 educational institutions and other national Sodexo clients
With sustainability and transparency in mind, partnership will enable year-round on-campus food production at university and K-12 educational institutions and other national Sodexo clients
BOSTON, Jan. 29, 2020 / PRNewswire
Freight Farms, the global innovation leader of containerized vertical farming, and Sodexo, the world leader of integrated food, facilities management and organizational quality of life services, have partnered to bring the most advanced hydroponic vertical farming technology to schools and universities across the country. The collaboration will usher in the implementation of Freight Farms' Greenery container farms to campuses across the U.S., enabling the onsite growth of fresh, traceable produce year-round that's pesticide and herbicide-free and sourced with zero food miles.
With Freight Farms’ Greenery onsite, educational and corporate campuses will be able to grow more than 500 varieties of crops, like Salanova Green Butter Lettuce, at commercial scale year-round.
As awareness of key issues in food safety, health and wellness, and environmental sustainability continue to rise with increased urgency, this strategic partnership reflects Freight Farms' and Sodexo's shared vision to enable real, measurable change in food sourcing for educational and corporate institutions.
"Students, institutions, and corporate businesses want healthy, safe, and delicious food, and they want it sourced as sustainably as possible. Sodexo is proud to use and support the latest agricultural technology to create meaningful food system change, said Kenny Lipsman, Director of Produce Category for Sodexo. "Our partnership with Freight Farms allows us to grow nutritious, superior-quality food on-site for our clients, just steps from the kitchens and serveries. As part of Sodexo's Better Tomorrow Commitments, developed in accordance with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, this technology allows for traceability, reductions in food waste, and year-round crop consistency."
Co-founder and CEO of Freight Farms Brad McNamara, continued, "Sodexo's commitment to offer onsite food production to its customers helps accelerate food system decentralization — leading the charge for better sourcing practices at an institutional level. Sodexo's adoption of Freight Farms on-site programming will demonstrate to their customers and client communities the positive impact hyper-local food production can have on priorities from nutrition and food safety to emissions reduction."
With the largest network of connected farms in the world, Freight Farms' customers are located in 25 countries and 44 U.S. states, and range from small business farmers to corporate, hospitality, retail, education, and nonprofit sectors. To date, 35 educational and corporate campuses use Freight Farms' technology, and together with Sodexo, implementation will rapidly expand across the U.S.
By integrating Freight Farms' 320 square foot Greenery onto campus, Sodexo's customers will reap numerous benefits, including:
Food miles and waste reduction
Food is harvested steps from the plate, eliminating food miles
Harvested onsite, food lasts significantly longer, reducing spoilage waste
The Greenery uses 99.8% less water than traditional agriculture, and in some humid areas, operations can be water-positive
Peak freshness and nutrition, year-round
Unlike food that has to travel great distances between harvest and plate, freshness and nutrient density does not degrade during transit
Crops are never exposed to pesticides or herbicides
The farms grow at commercial scale and maintain the perfect environmental conditions every day of the year
Safety, transparency, and data-driven traceability
The hydroponic container farms are soil-free, a common carrier of E. coli, as well as decentralized from the mass supply chain
Campus communities can get to know their own farmers and witness every growing stage of their food
Proprietary IoT technology, farmhand, tracks produce from seed to plate, even down to the hour
Student and employee engagement
Schools can choose to integrate their farms into interactive curricula across disciplines like science and technology, agriculture, nutrition, business, and social impact
Corporate businesses can integrate their onsite farms into employee wellness and benefit programs
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 in 25 countries and 44 U.S. states 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.
About Sodexo North America
Sodexo North America is part of a global, Fortune 500 company with a presence in 72 countries. Sodexo is a leading provider of integrated food, facilities management and other services that enhance organizational performance, contribute to local communities and improve quality of life for millions of customers in corporate, education, healthcare, senior living, sports and leisure, government and other environments daily.
The company employs 160,000 people at 13,000 sites in all 50 U.S. states and Canada and indirectly supports tens of thousands of additional jobs through its annual purchases of $19 billion in goods and services from small to large businesses. Sodexo is committed to supporting diversity and inclusion and safety while upholding the highest standards of corporate responsibility and ethical business conduct. In support of local communities across the U.S., in 2018, Sodexo contributed over 159,500 in volunteer hours, and since 1996, the Stop Hunger Foundation has contributed nearly $34.5 million to help feed children in America impacted by hunger.
Founded in 2010, Boston-based Freight Farms has established itself as the leader in the containerized agriculture industry. With its flagship product, The Leafy Green Machine™, the company was the first to integrate smart, hydroponic, vertical farming into an intermodal freight container.
To date, Freight Farms’ global customer base includes individual clients and corporations, universities, non-profits, municipalities, and restaurants.
(PRNewsfoto/Freight Farms)
View original content to download multimedia:
SOURCE Freight Farms
AgroTech Shipping Container Farming Systems For Indoor Organic Farming
Grow Pod Solutions is an AgroTech shipping container farming systems for indoor organic farming. Their desire is to provide sustainable, reliable, and result-oriented modular farming to feed the next generations
February 3, 2020
With this modern farming technology innovation, anyone can farm leafy greens, herbs, and spices for personal consumption and sales. The modular farming also guarantees high yield and no bacteria or disease, in a controlled environment.
As the population of the world grows, food security remains one of the biggest challenges to human survival and proper nutrition. Traditional farming methods alone can’t deliver all the food needed, as it is prone to negative effects that can stunt growth.
Grow Pod Solutions is an AgroTech shipping container farming systems for indoor organic farming. Their desire is to provide sustainable, reliable, and result-oriented modular farming to feed the next generations.
Everything about the farm is automated including soil, water, temperature, humidity, etc. These modular farms are also not affected by disease and there are no pesticides, so the food is 100% of quality and nutrient.
Now, anyone can grow their food for personal consumption or sell the produce for profit.
To learn more, please visit here.
Grow Pods are designed to offer farmers an unmatched yield in a highly controlled farming environment. For each pod, farmers will be able to grow a considerable amount of vegetables like 2,000 heads of lettuce which equates to about 70,000 dollars of yearly revenue.
Leafy greens are in high demand these days because they are rich in nutrients and people are becoming more conscious about living healthy. However, growing them in the open is a pain. They are exposed to too much or not enough water, pathogens, bacteria and diseases, pests, human and animal contamination, and unfavorable weather.
However, with the Grow Pods, farmers don’t have to worry about any such issues. The pods are focused mainly on leafy greens and every 55 days the users can harvest and use or sell. The pods can grow quite a number of leafy green varieties like carrots, lettuce, cabbage, even spice, and herbs.
Grow Pod Solutions is working with universities, farmers, and distributors, local farmers, and outdoor markets, and essentially anyone that sells directly to consumers and interested in getting into farming.
With the help of soil scientists, Grow Pod Solutions has been able to develop its own soil that is pathogen-free and clean. So, they are able to provide both Hydroponic Based farming and soil-based and custom based farming that guarantee quality and high yield.
Existing farming and new entrepreneurs are welcomed to join Grow Pod’s community of growers. They are exposed to try new lines of soil and nutrients, so they can become successful in the indoor environment farming.
Grow Pod Solutions was created out of the desire to deliver quality leafy greens that are free of pesticides and contamination. With their superior and automated technology, they will be able to provide farmers with greater farm yield that promises high profitability.
For more information, please visit https://www.growpodsolutions.com/.
RELATED ITEMS: AGRICULTURE, AGROTECH, CABBAGE, CARROTS, CONTAINER, FARMING, FOOD, GROW POD SOLUTIONS, HERBS, INDOOR, LETTUCE, ORGANIC, SHIPPING, SPICE, SYSTEMS, TECHNOLOGY
The Planty Cube is A Vertical Farming System Assembled Like LEGO Bricks
Agriculture IoT startup n.thing has developed ‘planty cube,’ an automated vertical farming system that allows users to maintain crops at any time and from anywhere. the system connects like LEGO bricks with a modular design made up of multiple capsules called pickcells that contain the seeds of each plant
jan 14, 2020
Agriculture IoT startup n.thing has developed ‘planty cube,’ an automated vertical farming system that allows users to maintain crops at any time and from anywhere. the system connects like LEGO bricks with a modular design made up of multiple capsules called pickcells that contain the seeds of each plant.
images courtesy of n.thing
to demonstrate its potential, n.thing has developed a smart hydroponic farm that uses the planty cube design. shaped like a shipping container, it is made of stacked rows and shelves of planters on each wall with each pickcell roughly two inches in width, length, and depth. after seeds are sown through their smart seed capsules, a computerized system controls the environment by monitoring plant health and adjusting the LEDs, temperature, and humidity, accordingly. the planty cube system, which uses sensors to collect data on the plants, can also be controlled via a smartphone, presenting the unique opportunity to farm remotely.
the grow system can work in a number of different settings, from an apartment to a cafeteria, and is automated enough that plants can thrive without constant human attention. the ease of use also makes it simpler for clients who want to start vertical farming businesses, to increase the size of their farm at low-costs, over longer periods of time, and in line with their individual business growth.
a number of companies are developing vertical farming concepts including LG who launched its own indoor vertical farm at CES 2020. unlike glasshouse production, which relies on sunlight, vertical farming makes use of led lighting to provide different wavelengths of light, according to crop and growth stage need. these high-tech units are being presented as the solution to many of the challenges facing traditional production methods, such as pollution and water use.
CES 2020: The Planty Cube Aims to Make Vertical Farming More Modular And Automated
Like other vertical farms out there, the Planty Cube environment contains rows and shelves of planters stacked inside a shipping container
While many questions remain around exactly what role vertical farming will play in the future of agriculture, there are a few things we can count on with certainty. These indoor farms will become more and more automated over time, as well as modular. They will also be more user-friendly to the average consumer or small business, something evident by the number of indoor farming offerings at CES 2020 this week.
Among those offerings is the Planty Cube, a smart hydroponic indoor farm made by a Seoul, South Korea-based IoT company called n.thing. The grow system is modular enough to work in a number of different settings, from an apartment to a cafeteria, and automated enough that pretty much anyone can operate it.
Like other vertical farms out there, the Planty Cube environment contains rows and shelves of planters stacked inside a shipping container. Plants rely not on soil and human hands cultivating them, but instead on a computerized system that delivers the right “recipe” of nutrients, water, and light from LEDs to help photosynthesis. Humans have little involvement with the actual plants during the grow process. Most of the work on the farm, such as adjusting the LEDs, controlling temperature and humidity, and monitoring plant health, is done by the Planty Cube system, which uses sensors to collect data on the plants and can be controlled remotely by a smartphone.
Leo Kim, n.thing’s CEO, came up with the idea for the farm after creating an IoT-enabled smart pot called “Planty.” From there, the company developed the Planty Square, a modular system made up of multiple capsules called Pickcells, each roughly two inches in width, length, and depth, that contain the seeds of each plant. Users can connect multiple Squares (“like a Lego block,” says Kim) to grow larger crops, and enough of these put together make up the Planty Cube farm.
The Planty Cube system relies heavily on data from farming logs, which are fed back into a database known as the CUBE Cloud and analyzed with AI to help farmers determine optimal growing conditions for each crop. As the user adds more Squares to the farm with new and different crops, this real time, cloud-based system makes it easier for the user to manage the overall farm, even remotely.
While a number of companies now operate automated vertical farms that grow leafy greens, most of these (Kalera, Plenty, Intelligent Growth Systems) are better suited to large warehouse settings that produce millions of heads of lettuce. Planty Cube’s modular and user-friendly nature make it a more apt candidate for places like schools, hospital cafeterias, and university dining halls — all locations that would benefit from having freshly harvested greens onsite.
Planty Cube nabbed a Best of Innovation award for CES this year. If you’re currently milling about the show floor in Vegas, drop by n.thing’s booth to see the Planty Cube in action.
Grower Data: Farming As A Business With The LGM
Our customer base here at Freight Farms is incredibly diverse, but whether you’re an entrepreneur, a distributor or a restaurant, the business numbers need to make sense
February 15, 2019, Caroline Katsiroubas
Welcome to our most popular blog post of all time!
We originally published this story back in 2015 so the content is a bit outdated. We have since launched our next-generation container farm, the Greenery™, which we encourage you to learn more about! This new farm has more plant sites, stronger LED lighting, and more flexibility for growing your business.
Our customer base here at Freight Farms is incredibly diverse, but whether you’re an entrepreneur, a distributor or a restaurant, the business numbers need to make sense. We shared data on how the LGM compares to traditional farming practices, and now we are sharing the data we’ve been able to collect on crop yields, business and operating expenses, pricing and revenue.
The small business farmers in our network are each unique in how they operate their businesses. Some sell directly to customers, others to restaurants or wholesalers. The diversity in business plans influences the numbers significantly. Some of the other variables that have an impact are packaging, location, crop, and hired labor. While the numbers we are sharing have significant ranges, they still paint a good picture of how a business can be run using the Leafy Green Machine.
First, we’re sharing some of the top crops grown by our farmers and the corresponding weekly yields. We’ll then elaborate more on the costs associated with running the LGM, and how pricing and revenue can break out.
Crop Yields
By now you’re aware that the crops that grow best in the Leafy Green Machine are... leafy greens. To optimize all 320 square feet inside the container, we recommend growing smaller compact crops, like head and loose leaf lettuces, herbs and heartier greens like kale and swiss chard. That doesn’t mean larger crops can’t grow, but for those who are operating it as a business, we recommend growing crops with a high turnover rate, which just means each farmer will have more produce to sell for profit.
Here we’re sharing the weekly yields of some of the more popular crops grown by our network of farmers. You’ll notice that we measure yields by a unit dependent on the crop (heads, bunches, ounces etc.), but we’ve also converted the yield numbers into a standard unit of measure (pounds), across the board. It’s important to keep in mind that this is not how the market buys and sells all varieties of produce, but we wanted to give a relative measure that you could wrap your head around.
Operating costs
Now that you’ve got a good sense of what the LGM can produce, let’s talk about its consumption. You’ll notice wide ranges, and that’s because a lot of these costs are location dependent. For example, electricity costs in New York City may be drastically different than those in Arkansas, and a site lease in Boston may cost more than one in New Hampshire.
We’ve seen operating costs ranging from around $8,000 to $16,500, but most frequently this falls around $10,400 annually. Obviously, some of these costs are subject to change.
Business Costs
In addition to operating an LGM, there are also indirect costs associated with running the LGM as a business. These costs are largely driven by our farmers and their chosen business model, so similar to the operating costs these are also going to range. We think of these numbers differently than operating costs, because these vary based on who is buying the produce. As a result we really rely on our experienced farmers’ network to uncover best practices for our newest farmers. Ultimately our farmers are their own boss, and each farmer’s income and goals are his/her own. But as a result of being so personal, these items are less straightforward. Even so, we wanted to include as many of the potential line items as possible. For the purpose of being clear about the numbers, we’ve included the bulk of the line items we uncovered and a range of our farmers’ annual spend:
Again, we’ve seen business costs ranging from around $3,900 to $9,600, but most frequently this falls around $7,200 annually.
Below we've combined all the costs associated with operating the LGM as a business that we discussed above:
Adding it all up
Alright, we just shared a lot of numbers that are important to know. These are crucial to understanding when farmers figure out how to price the end product. What we encourage our farmers to do is drill this number down into a cost per unit (unit depending on crop and described in the chart above). This number gives you a floor for pricing, meaning you’d never want to continuously sell your crop for less than what it took to produce. This is the most important thing to remember when operating the LGM as a business.
We totally understand that this can sound like a daunting task to those who aren’t familiar with how to calculate all-in costs, which is why Heather came up with a handy spreadsheet model that calculates each freight farmer's cost per unit. All you need to do is input some of your own data! So if you’re working on your business model, and need to figure out the cost per unit just ask us and we’ll send it right over.
Revenue and Pricing
Pricing can be tough for some farmers. The above information will keep your business profitable, but when optimizing revenue you need to take into consideration a few more variables. Here are the three things to keep in mind when pricing a product:
Cost to produce (above)
Competition and substitute prices (what else is in the market that buyers can purchase instead?)
Customer willingness to pay (at what price will a buyer say “ouch” but buy it anyway?)
For those farmers who are new to the market or for companies introducing a new product to their current buyer, they can choose to introduce their crop by offering it at a low introductory price. This limits the buyer's risk for purchasing this new product, enticing them to try it out. This also gives the farmer the ability to attract customers while not anchoring the price of their product too low, and furthermore, gives the buyer the ability to test the product. After a specified period of time, if the buyer is happy with the product, the price reverts back to the non-introductory (e.g., higher) price. In essence, you’re building your very own demand curves!
Pricing
Like we said earlier, each of our farmers operates unique businesses, choosing to grow and sell different crops to a variety of different outlets. This diversity in business plans influences the numbers significantly, but we do want to give an example of how some of our farmers are pricing their product. Here is a range of what our freight farmers in Boston have been commanding in wholesale price for cases of mini heads of Red Oak Leaf Lettuce:
The Bottom Line
Now that we’ve talked about yields, operating/business costs, and pricing, it’s time to put it all together to get an annual profit. Below we’re using the pricing example from our farmers in Boston selling mini-head lettuces wholesale:
88 cases x $12.50 = $1,100 weekly revenue
$1,100 x 52 weeks = ~$57,000 annual revenue
$57,000 - $18,000 = ~$39,000 annual profit
An average of 88 cases per week breaks out to $1,100 in revenue or ~$57,000 annually. Factoring in the annual costs discussed above (~$18,000) calculates to a profit of ~$39,000 annually for one Leafy Green Machine.
So how do these numbers scale if farmers operate more than one farm? It’s tempting to multiply the bottom line for the number of farms, but here are two things to remember: fixed costs and some other variable costs scale. This gives a boost to profits over multiple farms.
But what is the biggest variable that drives the economics of the farm? Crop type. The buyer type (who the farmer sells to) comes in a very close second. We’ve talked at length about lettuce, but for this example, we’re switching to a lower-price crop: basil. The low price of this crop can be overcome by packaging it in small units (picture 1 or 2-ounce clamshells of basil). When farmers choose to sell directly to end consumers (CSAs, farm stands, etc.) they may command the highest price point for some normally low-price crops. Conversely, choosing to sell that same low-price crop in bulk to a wholesale produce distributor generally does not command a price above the “all-in” cost per unit - so don’t do that! Just keep in mind that the labor involved in packaging will increase costs.
Growing in the future
The most powerful thing to know here is that our network of farmers is relatively new to the occupation. These numbers weren’t gathered by expert growers, but simply from everyday people like you and me who had a burning desire to become a farmer. Another great thing about these numbers is that they aren’t static; they will change as we get more farmers growing, and they will change again as we make our systems more efficient.
It’s important to us to share the capabilities of the Leafy Green Machine, but even more important to tell the story of each of our farmers. And we owe it to them for all of this information. They are the ones growing for their local communities, and making the real positive change in the food system. We wouldn’t be where we are today without them!
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Freight Farms Is Rearchitecting The Concept of Vertical Farming
Freight Farms helped invent the now-thriving farm-in-a-container market, where companies build vertical farms inside old shipping containers to grow pesticide-free produce throughout the year
Freight Farms helped invent the now-thriving farm-in-a-container market, where companies build vertical farms inside old shipping containers to grow pesticide-free produce throughout the year. But now that vertical farming companies are sprouting up almost as fast as the leafy greens they grow, the Boston, MA-based startup wants to completely rebuild the shipping container concept.
Its new product, The Greenery, which the company just announced today, isn’t a reiteration of its existing Leafy Green Machine (LGM). Instead, it’s a complete re-imagining of the shipping container concept that enables just about anyone to farm a large variety of crops. Or in the words of Freight Farms cofounder Brad McNamara, they’re “rearchitecting the whole vertical farm concept.”
To do that, McNamara and fellow cofounder Jon Friedman kept the foundational basics in play: farming still takes place inside a 40-foot shipping container and still involves the usual mix of hydroponics, LEDs, and software to control things like plant nutrients, temperature, and light levels. But inside the walls of that 40-foot container, Freight Farms has introduced some major changes.
One of the biggest tweaks is also one of the simplest: the inclusion of a racking system that’s actually movable. Since its founding in 2010, Freight Farms has used stainless steel vertical towers arranged in rows inside the shipping containers for growing. (SF-based Plenty employs a similar structure to its farms.) While this allows for much more growing space than in most vertical farms — which actually use horizontal rows of shelves — McNamara and Friedman saw a way to make the space inside the container even more productive by enabling customization.
With The Greenery, both the grow racks and the panels that hold the LEDs are now movable, so farmers can customize the layout inside the container based on the type and number of plants they grow. “In order to accommodate a larger variety of crops, rows can expand and contract,” Friedman explains of these mobile racks. For example, some plants are rooted, some grow on vines, and some simply need more space (e.g., tomatoes). Rather than having to grow plants according to what the space inside a container dictates, Greenery allows farmers to change the space based on what they need to grow.
A big impact on growth and yield is lights — that is, LEDs. But more LED power equals more electricity, which is financially constraining on companies and just all-around bad for sustainability. “Indoor agriculture has always struggled because you’re replacing the free resource of sun with lighting,” McNamara explains.
With The Greenery, Freight Farms addressed the lighting issue by redesigning the ropes of LEDs into panels that, according to the company, triples access to light and keep light energy from being wasted. McNamara and Friedman explained to me that the new lighting design produces a light intensity that’s 3x more powerful than its predecessor (the LGM) but doesn’t incur a 3x energy increase.
Arguably, though, the biggest improvement Freight Farms has made with The Greenery isn’t any one piece of technology, but the decision to bring all the tech in-house and build it themselves.
The typical vertical farm takes various off-the-shelf technologies, such as sensors, lighting, and hydroponics, and strings them together. The result is a farm that runs off fairly siloed elements that weren’t necessarily built to “talk” to one another, which can lead to interoperability issues, higher costs, and more time spent making sure these various systems work together. By contrast, the pieces at work in The Greenery were built with interoperability in mind, which in theory at least means a more reliable system and better control over the whole operation. Freight Farms also says it’s easier to automate the farming process with all the tech in-house, thereby making it simpler for anyone to use.
“It’s a turnkey offering in that no matter where you are in the world you can just pick up the instructions and go,” says Friedman. And because of that ease and lower costs, more populations can reap the benefits of vertical farming, including underserved ones most in need of easier access to fresh food. “This platform allows us the opportunity to not only feed a demographic and teach them how to farm,” says McNamara.
And while this vertically integrated vertical farm is a fairly new concept, Freight Farms isn’t the only one trying its hand at the idea. Over in the UK, the Future Farming Hub is attempting a similar one-stop-shop indoor farm, though their project doesn’t officially kick off until April of 2019. Even so, I expect we’ll see more companies in future exploring and offering vertically integrated systems.
Freight Farms currently operates in over 15 countries, including the Everlane factory in Vietnam and a Wendy’s location in Guam. According to Friedman, The Greenery will sell initially for $104,000. The company, meanwhile, plans to expand into new markets, particularly around the non-profit sector in order to help individuals and companies give back to their communities by making it easier and faster to get healthy, locally grown food.
Freight Farms Aced 2019 – Here's Our Report Card
2019 was a year for the books! We released the Greenery and showed you how it works. We hosted a record number of webinars featuring customers from all backgrounds and levels of experience
December 23, 2019
As we enter a new decade, we look back at all our 2019 accomplishments.
2019 was a year for the books! We released the Greenery and showed you how it works. We hosted a record number of webinars featuring customers from all backgrounds and levels of experience. We also invited you to a record number of open houses, where you were able to meet the team, tour the farm, and ask a local Freight Farmer all your questions. And, as with every year, we expanded our world map with new customers from the United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, and Australia!
2019 was also a banner year for our farm-to-school customers. As an increasing number of K-12 schools and universities add container farms to their campuses, we see the Greenery become more than just a means of food production. Instead, the Greenery can function as a classroom, research lab, after-school club, center for student jobs, and so much more!
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