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Thrive Containers Launched Operations With Its New Intelligent Container Technology - Shipping Container Farm
Our vision is to not only bring accessibility to farming but to offer a great return on investment for the AgTech industry.”
Thrive Containers launched operations today with its new intelligent container technology, aiming to disrupt the commercial farming industry. COVID-19 and climate change have accelerated existing strains in global food accessibility and supply chains, highlighting the need to rethink the world’s agriculture systems.
Our founder and CEO Shannon O'Malley has been at the forefront of this change through six years of container farm innovation here at Brick Street! O’Malley observed “Thrive Containers is redefining shipping container farming technology.
Our vision is to not only bring accessibility to farming but to offer a great return on investment for the AgTech industry.” Thrive Container's farm system uniquely excels in software automation, customer experience ease of use, and adaptability engineered by industry-leading experts. The result is maximized, year-round crop growth, reducing up to 90% of freshwater resources used in traditional agriculture practices. Shannon Quotes
Thrive Launch
“Thrive Containers is redefining shipping container farming technology. Our vision is to not only bring more accessibility to farming but to offer a great return on investment for the AgTech industry.”
“We want to bring this cutting-edge technology to the masses, to build a farm whose technology is firmly centered on the grower experience.”
Ohio Container
“The Ohio Container is the first breakthrough container model that focusses on leafy greens and herbs providing industry leading yields to the shipping container farms market.”
“Rivers are the inspiration for our model naming convention. Since Thrive container technology supports cleaner, healthier waterways, we want to celebrate, acknowledge, and highlight our commitment to our planet.”
Industry Evolution
“The Agtech industry is currently situated where the .com legacy once was. We are in an industry that is in a race to define who the main players are.”
Investment opportunity
“In the Agtech industry, shipping container farming is wide open, with key competitors that are raising and looking for market share. Each competitor has its own unique business model and approach, focused on different paths to success. Our focus is decentralizing the commercial food system at the point of consumption while utilizing large scale grocers in minimal spaces.”
Supply chain
“By growing the highest producing yield containers, we are bringing production to the point of consumption to provide access to the masses. We are mobile and focused on the urban core. Vs competitors buying large acreage and trucking produce out.”
THE LINE-UP
Thrive Containers provide a multitude of container farm systems for all types of growing solutions. Our in house manufacturing continues to explore the endless possibilities of technology + agriculture.
The most efficient leafy green hydroponic container on the planet. Built for ROI, Ohio’s production efficiencies and low reliability on resources yield higher, while maximizing profit and planet.
COMING SOON: The most efficient micro green hydroponic container on the planet. Built for ROI, Yukon’s production efficiencies and low reliability on resources yield higher, while maximizing profit and planet.
COMING SOON: The most efficient cannabis/hemp hydroponic container on the planet. Built for ROI, Colorado’s production efficiencies and low reliability on resources yield higher, while maximizing profit and planet.
Thrive Container Website!
Follow us on Instagram @thrivecontainers
Click the link below to check out the Thrive website!
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GP Solutions, Inc. Enters Into Distribution Agreement With Advanced Container Technologies, Inc.
A key component of the agreement is ACT's exclusivity to market GP Solutions "Grow Pods." GP Solutions "Grow Pods" has become a popular and trusted technology in the agriculture industry. Subsequently, ACT completed a share exchange on October 9th, 2020, with Medtainer, Inc., (MDTRD). Medtainer, Inc. is a California based company that specializes in manufacturing, branding, sales and marketing consultation
NEWS PROVIDED BY
Oct 27, 2020
CORONA, Calif., Oct. 27, 2020,/PRNewswire/ -- On August 6th, 2020, GP Solutions, Inc. (GWPD) finalized a distribution agreement with California-based Advanced Container Technologies, Inc., (ACT). The agreement states ACT has the exclusive right to market, sell, and distribute GP's products in the United States and its territories. This agreement has an initial term that expires on December 31, 2025, and is renewable indefinitely as long as ACT meets prescribed sales targets. GP manufactures fully insulated, food-grade shipping containers that are specifically modified to provide an optimally controlled environment for growing a wide range of horticultural and agricultural products in all environments and climates.
A key component of the agreement is ACT's exclusivity to market GP Solutions "Grow Pods." GP Solutions "Grow Pods" have become a popular and trusted technology in the agriculture industry. Subsequently, ACT completed a share exchange on October 9th, 2020, with Medtainer, Inc., (MDTRD). Medtainer, Inc. is a California based company that specializes in manufacturing, branding, sales, and marketing consultation.
GP Solutions, Inc. President, George Natzic, stated, "We are very excited about the prospects of this agreement allowing ACT to use its expertise to market and sell GP Solutions' Grow Pods." Also stating, "This also allows GP Solutions to focus on manufacturing new products and executing our business model into new industries and territories."
GrowPods are controlled environment micro-farms with a sealed eco-system, utilizing filtered air and water while maintaining a pest-free environment to eliminate pathogens. Grow Pods offers farmers a high-margin niche to expand into and gives consumers access to safe, tested, and nutritious "Super Foods."
For more information, call: (855) 247-8054 or visit: www.growpodsolutions.com.
Connect:
Website: www.growpodsolutions.com
Facebook: facebook.com/GrowPodTechnology
Twitter: @GrowPodSolution
Forward-Looking Statements
This release includes predictions or information that might be considered "forward-looking" within securities laws. These statements represent Company's current judgments, but are subject to uncertainties that could cause results to differ. Readers are cautioned to not place undue reliance on these statements, which reflect management's opinions only as of the date of this release. The Company is not obligated to revise any statements in light of new information or events.
SOURCE GP Solutions
Related Links
https://www.growpodsolutions.com
Also from this source
Vertical Farm Market Projected to Reach $7.3 Billion...
Test Results Show Lettuce Grown in GrowPods to be Pathogen Free...
Why This First Nation Bought A Shipping Container During COVID-19
To get fresh produce, Sheshegwaning First Nation turned to a technology initially developed for growing food in space. But is it a real solution for food insecurity?
Sheshegwaning First Nation purchased a container farm in June. (Courtesy of April Folz)
By Charnel Anderson October 23, 2020
To Get Fresh Produce, Sheshegwaning First Nation Turned
To A Technology Initially Developed For Growing Food In Space.
But Is It A Real Solution For Food Insecurity?
The first frosts have already arrived in Ontario, but in Sheshegwaning First Nation, a small community on the western edge of Manitoulin Island, April Folz is still awaiting the first harvest of the year. In about a week, Folz says, the community will have fresh produce: “Monte Carlo romaine lettuce, wildfire lettuce. We have a couple of variations of kale and spinach. I’m missing something,” says Folz, the economic development director at Sheshegwaning First Nation. “Oh, bok choy! I’m excited for that.”
Sheshegwaning First Nation, a two-hour drive from the mainland, is home to about 130 residents. There’s a convenience store in the community with a few grocery items, but the nearest grocery store is 40 minutes away. When COVID-19 hit, the community put up a checkpoint, and, Folz says, there was talk of closing the swing bridge to outsiders. That would have made it “tough to get food in,” says Folz. So, in response, community leaders came up with a locally grown solution.
In June, the community purchased a container farm from the Ottawa-based company
Growcer for about $300,000 (CAD). Folz describes the setup as a repurposed shipping container divided into six growing sections, with a separate room housing climate controls and a monitoring system. The growing sections are outfitted with shelving, LED lighting, and a hydroponic growing system in which plants grow with their roots in water rather than soil.
Sheshegwaning First Nation is growing produce, such as kale in spinach, in a repurposed shipping container. (Courtesy of April Folz)
The first harvest has been delayed due to issues with the system’s artificial lighting, which takes the place of sunlight, and a carbon-dioxide tank, says Folz. But, once the system is fully operational, she plans to start a weekly subscription box that members can sign up for to get fresh produce delivered right to their door.
Because they make it possible to grow food in harsh climates, container farms are often touted as a solution for food insecurity in remote communities. However, research suggests that the technology does little to address the true causes of food insecurity or the inability to access nutritious and affordable food, which is rooted in the ongoing effects of colonialism and climate change, among other things. “All of these stories make it sound like [container farms] are the solution to food insecurity, and they absolutely aren’t,” says Thomas Graham, PhytoGro research chair in controlled-environment systems at Guelph University.
Container farms (or, as Graham calls them, “growth chambers”) were initially developed as a research tool for growing food in space, he explains; only within the last few decades have they been marketed as a commercial solution: “You can’t have a greenhouse in space, but you can certainly have a growth chamber. And the next, most severe climate to space, as [my colleague] Mike [Dixon] would say, is a snowbank in Nunavut somewhere.”
More than half of on-reserve First Nations households across Canada experience food insecurity; 8.8 per cent of people elsewhere in the country experience moderate to severe food security. A number of complex issues cause the disparity: high levels of poverty amongst Indigenous populations, the inflated cost of food in remote communities, and decreased access to traditional foods, which are culturally and regionally specific but usually include such things as wild game.
The repurposed shipping container is divided into six growing sections. (Courtesy of April Folz)
“Food insecurity has been caused by colonialism in this country,” says Julie Price, a member of the Northern Manitoba Food, Culture, and Community Collaborative, which this year is working with more than 40 communities in northern Manitoba on food-related projects intended to improve access to healthy food. “Many of the communities that we work with have very clear, direct stories that illustrate it,” she says, citing the example of O-pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation.
In 1942, O-pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation, located 130 kilometres north of Thompson, Manitoba, built a commercial whitefish fishery on South Indian Lake. It produced approximately 1 million pounds of Grade A whitefish per year, making it the second most productive whitefish fishery in North America. Then, in the 1970s, the Manitoba government gave Manitoba Hydro permission to divert the Churchill River: that raised South Indian Lake by three metres and forced the relocation of O-pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation from its ancestral lands.
The flooding demolished the fishery, disrupted seasonal fish-spawning cycles, and forced wild game to migrate inland. It destroyed a community “that was so self-sufficient and happy, and healthy, and economically healthy,” says Price, adding that it now faces “serious challenges on all these fronts that were virtually absent prior to the hydroelectric development.”
Historically, Cree people were migratory and spent a lot of time searching, harvesting, preparing, and storing food, says Alex Wilson, a member of Opaskwayak Cree Nation, a community with roughly 3,200 on-reserve members near the Town of the Pas, in northern Manitoba. “That changed very quickly during colonization and settlement,” says Wilson, adding that the fur trade, the Indian Act, and the residential-school system rapidly changed “our relationship with food.”
Food-related projects at Opaskwayak Cree Nation include community gardens. (Courtesy of Opakwayak Culture and Healthy Living Initiatives)
Since 2014, Opaskwayak Cree Nation has been working with NMFCCC to develop a number of food-related projects, including beekeeping, community gardens, and a hydroponic container farm. Container farms may have their place in addressing food insecurity in First Nations communities, she says, but they would align better with Indigenous values if they produced culturally relevant foods, thereby enhancing the transmission of knowledge many Indigenous communities are trying to reclaim. “Not many people eat kale. Is there a way to grow things in there that would have more contextual meaning to people in the north?” Community-led approaches, she says, give northern communities agency over their food systems: NMFCCC is “not just mitigating, but trying to reverse” the damage caused by colonialism.
Price feels the same. “We have seen these units have lots of benefits in communities that have done the research and then chose to try them out, but they’re not going to solve food insecurity alone,” says Price. “Selling northern people on eating more leafy greens is still trying to colonize diets further.”
Over the years spent working with NMFCCC, Price has learned — or as she puts it, has been taught — a few things about working with northern communities. It’s crucial, she says, to develop non-transactional, human relationships and to listen to the community’s vision and priorities: “I’ve never seen yet, where somebody from outside [the region] has solved a problem in the north. It usually makes it worse.”
Ontario Hubs are made possible by the Barry and Laurie Green Family Charitable Trust & Goldie Feldman.
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Charnel Anderson is TVO.org's northwestern Ontario Hubs reporter.
How Sodexo, Ford, And Others Use Sustainable Farming As CSR Platforms
More than ever, it’s important for companies to show that they don’t only just care for their customers and employees, but for the health, well-being, and prosperity of their community as well
4 Companies Championing
Social Responsibility With Sustainable Farming
More than ever, it’s important for companies to show that they don’t only just care for their customers and employees, but for the health, well-being, and prosperity of their community as well. We’ve seen many institutions use container farming as a way to provide people with access to healthy food, education, and jobs. See how four of our corporate customers–Sodexo, Everlane, SEFCU, and Ford–are using container farms in their corporate social responsibility initiatives. (Header image: Times Union).
1) Sodexo champions sustainability on campus
With over 420,000 employees at 34,000 sites in 80 countries, Sodexo is one of the largest multinational corporations. Over the past several years, Sodexo has dedicated countless resources to promoting nutrition, health, and wellness to its customers and employees.
One concrete way Sodexo works to bring sustainability and wellness to its global customer base is through the Better Tomorrow 2025 plan. The plan is Sodexo’s commitment to protecting and rehabilitating the environment, supporting local community development, promoting health and wellness, and developing their team to promote diversity. To achieve these goals, Sodexo partnered with Alliance for a Healthier Generation, Fair Trade USA, the Marine Stewardship Council, the Sustainable Food Lab, the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops, and Freight Farms.
“Our ‘Better Tomorrow Plan’ specifically focuses on individuals, our communities, and our environment…Freight Farms has given us a great opportunity to have that engagement with students on a higher level, especially with sustainability.”
— Heather Vaillete, District Manager, Sodexo Campus Services & Independent Schools
Since 2016, Sodexo has worked with multiple universities and high-school customers (Clark University and Cumberland High School to name just two) to place Freight Farms on their campuses. The presence of the farm on these campuses is a sure way to add sustainable and fresh produce to students’ everyday diets. Sodexo found that using Freight Farms container farms can continuously provide students healthy fresh food options year-round without reliance on resource-inefficient fresh food supply chains.
2) Everlane & Saitex provide employees with food-safe greens
Everlane is a relatively new company (founded in 2010) which is taking huge strides in reforming the fashion industry. With a focus on “radical transparency”, Everlane’s mission is to sell high-quality clothing with fair pricing and ethical sourcing practices from factories around the world. In doing so, they seek to forge a stronger connection between the end purchaser and the people making the luxury goods in the hopes of instilling consumers with a greater sense of community and transparency.
While Everlane commits to its values all year round, they go above and beyond for their Black Friday Fund. On a day where other retailers focus on making profits, Everlane dedicates Black Friday shopping proceeds to benefit one of their factories.
In 2016, they used the Black Friday Fund to donate motorcycle helmets to workers at the Saitex denim factory in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to protect them while commuting.
In 2017, Everlane and Saitex raised $300,000 for the Black Friday Fund and used the money to gift Saitex factory employees Freight Farms containers.
Everlane video to promote Black Friday Fund donations to benefit the workers at Saitex Denim in Vietnam.
The hydroponic farms serve an important function for the factory employees. As a result of virtually non-existent regulations, Vietnamese food supplies have been repeatedly doused with dangerous pesticides that are unsafe for consumption (see source). The hydroponic container farms are protected from pests and require no pesticides, making the fresh crops growing inside much safer to eat. With the three hydroponic container farms, Everlane will make a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of Saitex employees by providing them with two fresh and pesticide-free meals a day. You can learn more about the initiative in our joint press release!
Since 2017, Everlane has continued to champion important causes. In 2018, the company partnered with the Surfrider Foundation clean up across the U.S. In 2019, they continued on the theme by partnering with Oceania to help reduce single-use plastic.
3) SEFCU & Boys & Girls Club educate kids about farming & nutrition
SEFCU is a powerful name in the banking world. Established in 1934, it is one of the 50 largest credit unions in the United States, with more than $3 billion in assets. Not only does SEFCU have a lot of money – they also have a lot of heart. From their headquarters in Albany, NY, they are dedicated to making a positive difference in the communities they serve. They assist thousands of organizations through their 2008 Banking with a Purpose initiative and give millions of dollars towards community financial education programs.
They don’t limit themselves to just helping with financial matters but also work hard for food reform to prevent obesity and food insecurity. Over the past three years, they purchased two hydroponic container farms. One resides at the Albany office, where it grows food for the employee cafe and various non-profits in the area. The company also introduced a Produce Shuttle to transport donated fresh food from the farm, restaurants, and food pantries to those in need.
SEFCU’s second farm was donated directly to the Boys & Girls Club chapter in Troy, NY to give kids access to healthy and fresh food, teach them about farming, and–eventually–become a revenue driver for the program.
4) Ford Motors & Cass Community Social Services provide important community access to fresh food.
In 2017, the Bill Ford Better World Challenge awarded $250,000 to the Ford Mobile Farm Project in Detroit. The project involved donating a Freight Farms container farm (named the Ford Freight Farm) and a Ford F-150 pickup to Cass Community Social Services (CCSS) with the goal of bringing fresh food access and nutrition education to at-risk Detroit residents. CCSS was founded in 2002 to fight poverty in the Detroit area. The non-profit focuses on democratizing food access, health services, housing, and jobs to Detroit residents living below the poverty line.
“The greatest feature for us is the ability to have fresh, free, organic food all year long.”
— Reverend Faith Fowler, Executive Director of CCSS
The contents of the Ford Freight Farm will be used to supply the CCSS community kitchen with a variety of fresh leafy greens to provide important nutritional benefits to the 700,000+ meals served each year. In addition to supplying the kitchens, the Ford Freight Farm will provide part-time employment to adults with developmental disabilities. Starting in 2019, CCSS has been using the farm as a revenue stream to fund other projects, selling high-quality greens to restaurants in the area.
Containerized Vertical Farming Company Freight Farms Secures $15 Million
Freight Farms — a global innovation leader of containerized vertical farming — announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding
By Noah Long ● February 15, 2020
Freight Farms — a global innovation leader of containerized vertical farming — announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding
Freight Farms — a global innovation leader of containerized vertical farming — announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Ospraie Ag Science. Spark Capital also participated in the round. Including this funding round, the company has raised over $28 million.
“It’s a big step forward for the industry when financial markets recognize and champion the value of creating a distributed food system,” said Freight Farms CEO Brad McNamara. “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.”
Freight Farms’ Greenery is able to produce over 500 varieties of crops like calendula at commercial scale year-round using 99.8% less water than traditional agriculture. Four rows of the company’s panels on a flexible moving rack system are able to house more than 8,000 living plants at once thus creating a dense canopy of fresh crops.
This round of funding will be used for advancing the Freight Farms’ platform through continued innovation with new services designed to benefit its growing global network of farmers and corporate partners. And this 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,'” added 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.”
Launched in 2010 by McNamara and COO Jon Friedman, Freight Farms debuted the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container called the Leafy Green Machine with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food. And 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,” explained Friedman. “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.”
Freight Farms has been an integral part of scientific and academic research studies in collaboration with industry-leading organizations, including NASA (exploring self-sustaining crop production) and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (exploring the integration of CRISPR seed genetics and vertical farming to create commercial opportunity).
The company’s customers hail from education, hospitality, retail, corporate, and nonprofit sectors across 44 states and 25 countries, and include independent small business farmers — who distribute to restaurants, farmers’ markets, and businesses such as Central Market, Meijer, and Wendy’s.
This New Starbucks Is Made From 29 Shipping Containers
Whether you’re building an urban farms, an off-the-grid getaway, or an all-in-one pool, a shipping container fits the bill.
The Container Trend Continues
By Liz Stinson October 8, 2018
Photo via Starbucks
Whether you’re building an urban farms, an off-the-grid getaway, or an all-in-one pool, a shipping container fits the bill. Made from the thousands of surplus containers that sit on docks around the world, these homes can be an eco-friendly alternative to traditional materials. Still, it’s not often that we see an international powerhouse like Walmart or McDonalds choose a container as its building material.
That’s changing as Starbucks builds its 40th shipping container store, this time the company’s first location in the Asia Pacific. Designed by Kengo Kuma, a Japanese architect known for his considered approach to materiality, in the past Kuma has designed museums from concrete and sculptures from air purifying paper. Now he’s designing Taipei’s first Starbucks from shipping containers.
Photo via Starbucks
Kuma arranged 29 used shipping containers into an angular, two-story building complete with drive-thru. Designed to evoke the “uneven foliage of coffee trees,” the structure is a series of cantilevered rectangles that jut out at perpendicular angles.
Many of the white-washed containers have large skylights and windows cut into them, making the interior feel light and airy despite being built from blocks of metal.
The Taipei store is among the first in Asia to be built under Starbucks’ new “greener stores” policy, an initiative from the company that aims to construct stores as sustainably as possible. This isn’t the first time Starbucks has opened a shipping container store—but it’s a coffee container store with an impressive architecture pedigree.
Via: Designboom