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USA - Pennsylvania: Container Farm To Be Delivered To School In Oakmont
CEA Advisors announced today that they have delivered another custom-built 40’ Growtainer® Vertical Farm to the Riverview School District in Oakmont, PA. Unlike other school’s container farms that can only teach one method of production, this farm is specifically designed to teach the students about multiple growing methods
CEA Advisors announced today that they have delivered another custom-built 40’ Growtainer® Vertical Farm to the Riverview School District in Oakmont, PA. Unlike other school’s container farms that can only teach one method of production, this farm is specifically designed to teach the students about multiple growing methods.
The Oakmont Growtainer has three distinct chambers to provide a real hands-on experience for the students, including a classroom/lab/germination area, an LED-lit multi-level soil chamber, and an LED-lit multi-level hydroponic system.
Glenn Behrman, President, and founder of CEA Advisors, a global controlled environment consulting firm and the manufacturer of Growtainers worked with the school’s staff to design a cost-effective system that could provide various levels of a learning experience as well as providing fresh leafy greens for the cafeteria for their students of all ages.
“Due to Corona virus supply chain issues, the school couldn’t wait for our Growracks to arrive from our manufacturing partner in Holland. So we designed and built a custom multi-level racking system for the ebb and flood hydroponic installation including automatic irrigation and water monitoring and dosing.”
The soil side is also a multi-level design with LED lighting and an irrigation system. The climate is independently controlled in each chamber including de-humidification. In the next month or so the entire campus, including the Growtainer will be powered by solar.
For more information:
CEA Advisors LLC
Glenn Behrman, Founder, and President
gb@cea-advisors.com
www.cea-advisors.com
23 June 2021
Robots Take Vertical Farming To New Heights
Braddock, Pa., is where Andrew Carnegie first mass-produced steel. The city, now one-tenth its former size, is home to a new kind of industry: robotic farms that grow greens inside buildings
Braddock, Pa., Is Where Andrew Carnegie First Mass-Produced Steel. The City, Now One-Tenth Its Former size, Is Home To A New Kind Of Industry: Robotic Farms That Grow Greens Inside Buildings.
June 28, 2021
A decades-long decline of industry in Braddock has left the western Pennsylvania town in ruins. Ten miles upriver from Pittsburgh in the Mon (Monongahela) Valley, most of the city’s factories, businesses and homes were abandoned long ago and leveled. Among the ruins, a sprawling steel mill, built by Andrew Carnegie in 1874, is still producing slabs of steel, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s stained blue walls and maze of giant, rust-colored pipes and vents stand in contrast to the brand-new, block-long, gleaming white structure directly across the street. The mill’s neighbor is Fifth Season, a vertical farm growing greens indoors by stacking racks of plants on top of each other.
Fifth Season is the brainchild of brothers Austin and Brac Webb, and co-founder Austin Lawrence. “We view vertical farming as really a smart manufacturing system,” says Austin Webb. “We just happen to manufacture living organisms.”
The partners consider their fledgling enterprise as more than a means to feed people, but also a chance to work with a community in need. Almost none of the old steel plant’s employees live in Braddock. Conversely, everyone hired to work at Fifth Season lives close by and in the surrounding communities. “We’re creating a workforce of the future,” Webb says. “It’s an entirely new ag-manufacturing job that hasn’t existed before.”
Since the collapse of the steel industry in Braddock, the borough has struggled to attract new business and residents.(David Kidd/Governing)
Automated City Farming
Two shifts of 20 people oversee operations at the vertical farm. And like the steel maker across the road, the work never stops. Dressed in blue scrubs and lab coats, with heads covered and gloves on their hands, workers inside the plant look more like medical research professionals than farmers. The entire process, from seed to harvest, is controlled robotically. “What we have built is the industry first, and industry only, end-to-end automated platform,” says Webb.
Fifth Season’s proprietary software allows efficiencies otherwise not attainable. Spinach, arugula and other greens move around the 60,000-square-foot facility in plastic trays, each with its own unique ID. Sensors are constantly monitoring everything from nutrient mix, carbon dioxide levels and light spectrum, in order to ensure that the greens follow their prescribed grow recipe. Every plant can be traced from any point in the process, at any time.
Webb is quick to tout the advantages of vertical farming. Fifth Season uses up to 95 percent less water and 98 percent less land than conventional farming. Water from the municipal system is filtered and proprietary nutrients added before getting to the plants directly through their roots. “It means you can replicate any form of soil environment,” he says. Whatever water is not used by the plants is retreated and recirculated, with nutrients added as needed. A peat mix is used to support the roots, but all the nutrients are in the water, not the “soil.”
“We use no herbicides and no pesticides,” Webb says. “And that’s because we have hermetically sealed environments.” The possibility of contamination is all but eliminated. Fifth Season recently received a perfect score from the Safe Quality Food (SQF) program, an international, independent body that certifies food safety management. “The second time in 25 years they gave 100 percent,” he says.
With only their faces exposed, employees work among the various conveyor belts that crisscross the high, white-walled rooms of Fifth Season’s production floor. But there are no humans in the adjacent grow room, where tightly spaced racks, supporting trays of plants, are stacked 30 feet high, bathed in an otherworldly purple-magenta glow. The dramatic color comes from the LEDs that replicate the most useful parts of the spectrum of sunlight. “You can’t control the sun,” Says Webb. “But what you can control are LEDs.”
Fifth Season’s proprietary systems allow more plants to be grown in less space. The purple-magenta LED lighting replicates the most useful parts of the spectrum of sunlight, improving growth of the greens.(Fifth Season)
Every few minutes, a robot glides forward and back along a raised guideway that runs down the center of the room, dividing the stacks in half. The machine is not much more than a plain box, just a few feet tall. A metal beam rises from its back, extending to the ceiling. Its task is to place and remove trays of plants, taking its instructions from the all-knowing software. Because they are so tightly spaced, more trays can be stacked on top of each other, resulting in greater production.
“Compared to some other vertical farms out there, we have a lot more density,” says Webb. “We’re able to have more racks that grow inside the same space.” Moving trays is a task well-suited to a machine. Not only does the robot fit into places no human could, it always knows where every tray of greens should be, and for how long.
Vertical Farming Comes to Braddock
After a five-year career in finance, Austin Webb enrolled in an MBA program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “I believe that robotics will possibly disrupt every industry in the world,” he says. “And so I went to C.M.U., specifically because it’s the No. 1 school in computers, science and robotics.”
There he met Austin Lawrence, who shared his interest in controlled environment agriculture. Together they visited a few vertical farms, coming to the conclusion that what was needed was an entire robotic platform, something the two of them could not accomplish on their own. Webb’s brother Brac, a self-described engineer and entrepreneur, was soon recruited to help. Their new business was incorporated in 2016, initially as RoBotany, which later morphed into Fifth Season.
With financial backing in hand, the partners looked for a place to build, quickly settling on nearby Braddock. They broke ground in May of 2019, were installing equipment less than a year later and were at full production before the end of 2020. “I think there’s a lot of opportunity for resurgence in a place like this,” says Webb. “A lot of folks that stayed are passionate around Braddock being able to grow and thrive and we want to be a part of that.”
In the foreground, Fifth Season’s new structure stands in contrast to the steel plant behind it that still dominates the town.(David KIDD/Governing)
Andrew Carnegie’s mill was the first of many that would proliferate in the Mon Valley, making it the nation’s steel capital. The churches, schools, stores and restaurants that served the town’s 20,000 inhabitants are mostly gone now. Shops and services are few and far between for the 2,000 that remain. “The nearest grocery store is up the hill, two towns over,” says Braddock Mayor Chardae Jones. “And most people don’t have cars.” It’s a hot day in June when a few of the locals gather in a brand-new park along Braddock Avenue. Everyone agrees the park is nice, but it’s no consolation for the hospital that used to stand on the site.
Many years ago, steelworkers and their families lived close to the mill.(David Kidd/Governing)
A few blocks away, an ever-present din still emanates from Carnegie’s steel mill, and a parade of trucks continues to roll past the boarded-up stores and empty lots that line the borough’s main thoroughfare. “We have a lot of vacant buildings,” says Mayor Jones. “That’s our biggest issue.” But there are signs of a revival among the ruins.
Present Day Braddock
Against the backdrop of empty and dilapidated storefronts, “The Ohringer,” a former furniture store built in the streamline moderne style of the 1940s, has recently been completely rebuilt and modernized as apartments and studio space for artists. Applicants are expected to present their work for review and answer a few questions, one of which is “why are you interested in becoming part of Braddock’s resurgence?”
Not only does Braddock lay claim to Andrew Carnegie’s first steel mill, but also the first Carnegie library, dedicated in 1889. Narrowly escaping demolition in the 1970s, the impressive stone structure is today undergoing a comprehensive restoration and modernization. Bright yellow notices of this year’s street sweeping schedule are affixed to telephone poles near the library and all over town, an indication that the local government is still functioning.
A repurposed furniture store now provides updated living and studio space to area artists.(David Kidd/Governing)
Further up the avenue, more official-looking signs are attached to random telephone poles. “NOTICE, WRITE MORE LOVE LETTERS” says one. “NOTICE, LOVE IS FREE,” says another. The signs were placed there, unofficially, by Gisele Fetterman, wife of former mayor and current Lt. Governor John Fetterman. Among her many initiatives to improve the lives of people in Braddock, she founded the Free Store nine years ago, a place where “surplus and donated goods are received and redistributed to neighbors in need.”
Fifth Season is a regular contributor to the Free Store, having recently given them a new refrigerator and donating 100 pre-packaged salads every Thursday. “We’re treated like we’re a customer,” says Gisele Fetterman. “We’re not getting things that didn’t sell, or surplus. Our families get to come in and choose. They can feel like they are at a grocery store. There is great dignity in the process of being able to choose.”
Offering “produce grown in soil by humans in Braddock,” workers at Braddock Farms do it the old-fashioned way.(David Kidd/Governing)
There are more signs along Braddock Avenue. “BE ALERT: VEGETABLES AHEAD.” Another simply says “TURNIPS.” Back in 2007, when John Fetterman was the mayor, he encouraged a nonprofit group of community gardeners to establish a farm in Braddock. Bisected by a side street, the organic farm has expanded to a little less than an acre in size, growing greens, tomatoes, onions, peppers and eggplant. This is Nick Lubecki’s fourth year as manager of the farm. “We’re here in Braddock, so the people in Braddock are our main focus,” he says. “We want to be useful.”
At best, the little farm on Braddock Avenue can produce 13 plantings of greens in a year. It is entirely different from the computer-controlled, machine-driven, non-stop production that takes place a few blocks away at Fifth Season, where a half-acre indoors can produce the equivalent of nearly 100 acres of farmland. But higher yields don’t matter as much if a significant portion is ultimately lost in transit to the table.
Serving a Market
Localized food production means less spoilage and waste. “If it takes anywhere from five to eight days to go from California to Pittsburgh, you’ve just lost five to eight days of shelf life,” says Austin Webb. Most of what Fifth Season produces is consumed in the Pittsburgh area. “The day after it was cut, not 10 days later.” Their ready-to-eat salads can be purchased at a local supermarket chain, or delivered directly to the consumer at home, a direct response to the pandemic. Local restaurants, hospitals and universities are also customers.
Convinced they have successfully demonstrated the viability of their proprietary technology, the three partners are looking to expand beyond western Pennsylvania. “We can build these anywhere… even larger than what we have here today,” says Austin Webb. “And we don’t have to re-create the wheel. It’s not like it would take us another five years.”
Conversations are already taking place about licensing the technology, proceeding in partnership with someone else, or going it alone. “That will allow us to build a facility just like we built in Braddock, in other parts of the U.S., and other parts of the world, even faster.”
A Job You Can Walk to
Andrew Carnegie built his steel mill in the Mon Valley because he needed the river, the raw materials, and access to labor. His plant was expressly designed to use the Bessemer Process, the first method to inexpensively mass-produce steel. Nearly 150 years later, the Webb brothers and their partner Austin Lawrence chose the exact same location to showcase their own new manufacturing technology and to fill a need in the community. “Knowing that we could build these anywhere, we wanted to build in Braddock because we knew that we could create jobs,” says Austin Webb. “That we could create this new workforce of the future.”
Employed since January, John Davis lives less than a block away from Fifth Season. “I have family in Braddock. They’re very happy I’ve got a job.”(David Kidd/Governing)
Braddock resident John Davis may or may not think of himself as part of the workforce of the future. But he’s happy to have a good job. Covered head to toe in his surgical outfit, he works in the seeding department at Fifth Season, a job he’s held since January. He’s lived here for 20 years, and this is the first job he’s had that didn’t involve a commute. He walks to work from his house, half a block away.
Davis is 32 years old and anxious to put the past behind him. “To have a job that you like, where you live, it’s comfortable,” he says. “And you can see that this is going to change Braddock for the better because it gives the residents jobs and new innovations. It’s going to bring life.”
While awaiting their fate, many of Braddock’s empty buildings provide space for murals and artwork.(David Kidd/Governing)
Lead photo: Greens leave the grow room at robot farm Fifth Season, ready for harvest. (Fifth Season)
Tags: Economic DevelopmentFood AssistanceTechnology
David Kidd is a photojournalist and storyteller for Governing. He can be reached at dkidd@governing.com.
Indoor Farming And The Prospects For Profitability
Concerns over climate change and food security have fuelled optimism over controlled-environment farming but operators face questions over their forecasts for profitability
29 Jun 2021
Concerns over climate change and food security have fuelled optimism over controlled-environment farming but operators face questions over their forecasts for profitability.
Growing fresh produce in a controlled indoor environment using technology inputs has, in some cases, been around for almost two decades. But it has only recently started to gain traction linked to climate change and sustainability concerns. However, what is the path to profitability for indoor farming? And can it be competitive?
Indoor or controlled-environment farming is a niche yet expanding sector, but questions have been raised over whether these operations are profitable, and are able to compete with traditional field-grown crops, given the capital-intensive nature of the industry.
Much, however, depends on individual operations, and the objectives in terms of scale – whether it be targeting mass-market consumers or local buyers, the geographical location, etc – whether the farm is in a hot or cold climate, along with the types of crops grown and, most importantly, the technologies employed to replicate the natural environment at the lowest cost possible.
Vertical farming, per se, is the most popular system where crops are grown on stacked units in a warehouse, underground tunnel, or even in shipping containers, requiring artificial lighting, usually through expensive LEDs to mimic sunlight. But some operators, particularly in hot countries such as the Middle East and Asia, are growing crops in high-tech greenhouses using mostly natural light.
Nonetheless, even the companies in those hot climates need LED lighting to supplement the daylight hours, and, generally speaking, all operators within controlled-environment farming are similar in terms of the inputs such as labour, ventilation, irrigation, and cooling. And all require huge capital investment to purchase land, build the farm, put in the appropriate technology, and run it.
Despite the costs, indoor farming is viewed through a longer-term lens to address environmental concerns like the decreasing availability of land, unpredictable weather patterns and climate change, and the limited resources on hand to feed the world’s growing population.
Securing future harvests
Fraser Black, the CEO of UK-based Crop Health and Protection (CHAP), one of the country’s agri-tech centres and funded by Innovate UK, a government-backed agency, gives his interpretation of the current landscape.
“I think it is going to be a while before you see millionaires in vertical farming,” Black says. “It’s still at that point where you are justifying the costs and developing the market.
“I think there are enough people around now that are breaking even and starting to become profitable, but we are not there yet. Look at electric cars, we are sort of following that same trajectory.”
Controlled-environment farming comes with advantages: less water than regular agriculture and without the need for pesticides, and higher yields linked to year-round production. And, from the consumer perspective, better-quality produce because the nutrient inputs can be controlled, and freshness, because the crops tend to be grown close to the source.
For food importers like those in the Middle East and some parts of Asia, the technology offers food security, too.
All those benefits stack up through the eyes of private equity and venture-capital funds, which are ploughing vast sums of money into the sector.
This is no doubt in the hope of reaping profits when indoor farming has reached scale and matured beyond the current leafy greens and herbs – although soft fruits such as strawberries and blueberries, and tomatoes, cucumbers, and mushrooms, are starting to emerge.
Black also addresses the consumer angle and how controlled-environment farming is likely to develop over the coming years.
“The first decades are going to see people getting involved, learning how to do it, and leading the charge, and it will be niche. But, as they learn and as they build, and they learn how to get the costs down, and control the costs, the more mainstream it will become, and then more people pile in and the bigger the scale.
“There are other points of differentiation people are picking up on, which I think will project it forward until such time that the volume is big enough and people recognise all of the benefits that it will become profitable like other systems.
“Trying to compete with the major growers and put it all in the major supermarkets right now is more difficult because they don’t have the volume. But I think those sort of trends are starting to shift.’”
Sky Greens in Singapore is one of the oldest vertical-farming businesses in Asia, founded in 2012 by Jack Ng to grow leafy greens under glasshouses using hydroponic systems and natural light. While Ng points out that labour is the biggest operational cost, he also says that Sky Greens saves money by not employing LEDs, enabling the business to focus on yield and productivity.
“Our energy use is similar to traditional farming, so we can save about 75% on labour,” Ng says. “Our running costs are cheaper than traditional farming, the only thing is the investment cost. Because our output is ten times higher than traditional farming, the investment costs average out.”
He adds: “We have proven in Singapore that we can grow and sell mass-market vegetables. The reason many vertical farms aren’t competitive is because they are using artificial lighting, which is a high energy cost, so your payback is high and your overheads are high, plus you have the replacement costs because LED lights only have a two to three-year lifespan.”
Ng says that the price of locally-grown crops is important given that Singapore is an import-dependent economy when it comes to food, having to contend with cheap products coming in from Malaysia, Indonesia, and China, but its optimum yield gives Sky Greens the ability to compete.
“Our farm operation is profitable. Using our system, based on studies, the payback is about five years but your crop price has to be at a certain level. Therefore, what we produce is usually the higher-end vegetables like pak choi, which is, in a sense, a smaller market.”
Indicative of the costs, Plenty Unlimited in California, a vertical-farming business set up in 2014, has raised $500m to date from investors as it seeks to scale up production of leafy greens such as lettuce, kale, and rocket, along with tomatoes and strawberries.
Others, like AeroFarms, established in 2004 in New Jersey, and Infarm in Berlin founded in 2013, are turning to special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, to raise funds and gain public listings.
AeroFarms, which grows leafy greens, herbs, blueberries, and raspberries using aeroponic systems, recently entered a SPAC deal with Spring Valley Acquisition Company valued at $1.2bn, which will give the business access to more than $300m in cash to invest.
Infarm is also proposing a SPAC, said to be valued at $1bn, to expand from herbs and greens into chillies, mushrooms, and tomatoes, all grown using hydroponic technology. The company has so far raised around $400m.
Expensive seeds to sow
Nonetheless, the chief executive of Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) in Scotland, a tech firm that designs and patents controlled-environment platforms using artificial intelligence and robotics, with a particular focus on productivity and efficiencies, is critical of the sums being raised relative to the individual revenues generated, and the technologies employed.
IGS CEO David Farquhar says many of the vertical-farm operators “are still a long way from being profitable”.
“The first important thing is to get our positioning in the market right. There are a lot of very big and noisy companies that have had to raise a huge amount of money because they are trying to reinvent the wheel,” he explains.
“There is no one magic bullet that makes these things economically competitive. It is a combination of about six subsystems. There are two major costs in commercial agriculture in an enclosed environment.
“One is energy and the other one is labour. If you can take the labour out, and we’ve managed to reduce it by about 80%, that is a major cost-saving and will make you much more economically efficient.”
Farquhar argues that there is no need to have numerous people tending to these farms, as is depicted on many a website, if AI technology and robotics are employed, which reduce costs and ultimately helps with the profitability of indoor farming.
He continues: “We give recipes of weather to the AI and the computer does all that work and the mechanical handling system does all that work. Once you have put the seed into the substrate, in the inserts that go into the growth trays, there is really no need for human intervention at all.
“And if you don’t put humans in, you are not going to introduce bugs and disease and things, and therefore you don’t need to use fungicides and herbicides, whatever. That means you don’t need to wash the crop, which means that you are saving more money but also you are going to increase the shelf life by about 50%-100% and you are also going to reduce waste.”
Dr. Nate Storey, a co-founder of Plenty, says it’s surprising how quickly a vertical-farm operator can become profitable, compared to those in field crops, but it’s more difficult for a “company that’s raised a couple of hundred million dollars – it takes time for them to grow into that investment than it does for a farm that you just stood up”.
“Agriculture has historically been a low-margin industry, especially field production. And one thing we want to correct as we move into a new era of agriculture is to make it much more profitable. Having a better margin also makes you more investable.
“If we can get the flywheel spinning, we can drive costs out of the business faster and pull capital into the business in a way that allows us to expand much more quickly than you could probably imagine today,” Storey suggests.
“We are on a cost curve, more so than some of the other folks in the space, because we have invested very heavily in R&D. That builds our own internal cost curve, which allows us to drive yield up by seven times and costs out by 50% over the course of two years. So we have this kind of crazy economic curve that we get to ride towards higher profitability.”
Storey says that Plenty is competitive with field crops: “I know that’s not true for everyone but again, people have some catch up to play. People are just waiting for these external cost curves to drive their costs down.”
Jonathan Webb, the CEO who founded US vertical-farming business AppHarvest in 2017, says that scale is key to profitability.
The company, based in Kentucky, grows a wide range of tomatoes in glass houses and has recently invested $60m to buy artificial intelligence and robotics firm Root AI, which has the technology to predict yields and evaluate crop health.
While Webb admits that one of its farms in the city of Morehead is a user of LED lighting, it mainly uses natural sunlight, and it also recycles rainwater to save on costs.
“If you are just in a warehouse then you can’t use sunlight. So, for us, the two free inputs would be sunlight and rainwater. We are only adding in technology when we need it,” Webb says.
“If you package all that and go at scale, which ends up getting our construction costs down and our operating costs down, we can compete with conventional pricing today. If you are not using sunlight and you are not using rainwater how are you possibly going to compete with conventional crops and keep your costs low? It doesn’t make sense.”
Webb adds AppHarvest’s new Morehead facility is going through the ramp-up stage and costs usually level out in year two. “Year three on is where you really start to drive profitability,” he concedes.
“As the industry matures and scales, we are going to see our costs for lighting come down, you’ll see costs for steel and glass come down, and then it becomes that self-fulfilling prophecy because, as the industry scales, your material costs are going to be lower and the business models themselves will be fine-tuned to better perform.”
Smart applications of technology
In the Middle East, Pure Harvest is growing tomatoes and strawberries in high-tech glasshouses using natural sunlight and only uses LEDs to a small degree because they have more daylight hours and more intense sunlight than other parts of the world.
The business, founded in 2016 in Abu Dhabi, is about to move into leafy greens, with capsicums, cucumbers, and other berry fruits in the pipeline.
Majed Halawi, the vice president for growth at Pure Harvest, says that “it’s completely uneconomical” to use artificial lighting, although LEDs are used for “control and steering… but only to supplement the natural light”.
However, Pure Harvest doesn’t use stacked units like vertical-farm operators, and the company is very different in its objective, which is mainly to address food security and reduce the Emirates’ reliance on food imports.
“Where we compete and where we position ourselves is that we are this local, very high-quality product that is at a discounted price to what comes from Europe and outside of the market,” Halawi explains.
“We have a lot of similarities to a vertical farm in terms of climate management, however, our operating strategy and our set up of the greenhouses and the facilities is different. We find we have a more efficient set-up.
“Vertical farms bank on selling their produce at a very high cost, assuming the customers would pay them a premium for the fact they are grown on a vertical farm.
“However, what we find in this market in the Middle East is it doesn’t make any sense to be growing using vertical farms because firstly, the consumer is very price-conscious, so you need to be able to compete with your traditional farms and imports, and, secondly, we have such an abundance of natural light.”
AppHarvest’s Webb believes that controlled-environment farming has a bright future, given the unpredictability of the weather and climate change, and will eventually become a necessity to ensure the long-term supply of fresh produce. As the sector expands and scales, the cost of borrowing is likely to come down too, he says.
“We feel we are really at that tipping point. Over the next ten years, our estimation is you will see tens of billions of dollars flood into controlled-environment agriculture globally, and it’s because of the need. You will see scale and you will see profitability immediately because the industry can be profitable if you design the right facility in the right region.”
This feature was initially published in the June 2021 issue of Just Food magazine.
VIDEO: France’s First ‘Vertical Farm’ Sets Its Sights On Sustainability
There’s no soil and no sunshine, just stacks of boxes of microgreens and herbs, robot sprinklers and LED lights at France’s first ‘vertical farm’
There’s no soil and no sunshine, just stacks of boxes of microgreens and herbs, robot sprinklers and LED lights at France’s first ‘vertical farm’. The aromatic plants grown by Jungle company in a hangar in the northern French town Château-Thierry will soon supply the national supermarket chain Monoprix. Eventually, it is expected to produce eight million plants a year without any of them ever seeing the light of day.
Click here to watch the short video of the news.
Source: Yahoo News
Photo: Screenshot from the video on Yahoo news
Can Vertical Farms Be Profitable?
Basically, we’re skeptical of both the economics and the save-the-world ethos that many companies preach. We enlisted an industry insider to help us separate the wheat from the chaff
Earlier this year, we covered a couple of indoor farming companies going public through mergers with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Neither seemed very appetizing for retail investors, with negligible revenues to date. As we predicted, more indoor farming startups (referring to both large-scale greenhouses and vertical farming operations) are jumping on the SPAC crazy train. The latest is a Montana company called Local Bounti that had generated little buzz until this month’s announcement, which included news that Cargill is providing $200 million in debt financing in the deal.
In this article, we want to take a step back and look a little more closely at the indoor farming industry, sometimes referred to as controlled environment agriculture (CEA), particularly on the vertical farming side of things. Basically, we’re skeptical of both the economics and the save-the-world ethos that many companies preach. We enlisted an industry insider to help us separate the wheat from the chaff.
Saving the World from BS
Mark Korzilius
Mark Korzilius is the founder and chief strategy officer of &ever, a vertical farming startup based in Germany, with its first mega-farm located in the desert of Kuwait. Korzilius was also the co-founder in 2002 of a chain of fast-casual Italian restaurants, Vapiano, with more than 200 locations in about 30 countries. He reached out to us, as founders sometimes do after reading a story that didn’t include them, to tell us about all of the cool things their company is doing. In the case of Korzilius, he also wanted to set the record straight on all of the things that competitors like AeroFarms and other indoor vertical farming companies aren’t doing despite claims to the contrary.
Obviously, Mr. Korzilius is biased, but he also confirmed one of our chief suspicions: Many indoor farming companies claim they are on a mission to help feed the world, which seems incongruous with the fact that most are growing leafy greens, herbs, berries, and maybe tomatoes. Hardly the sorts of staples that are going to keep the estimated 800 million people in the world from going hungry at the end of the day. He also argues that claims of automation using artificial intelligence and sensor-rich environments are also overblown.
“We truly believe to become farmers and to be successful farmers for some crops, we can prove that [vertical farming] is, in the end, a way forward,” he says. “Hopefully, we can find some technologies to really overcome some issues that have been created by others … that will help solve problems that have been the result of technologies that have been created 50 years ago.”
In the second half of that comment, Korzilius is obviously referring to the modern industrial farming system, with its reliance on pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers that deplete and poison soils and water supplies. That’s why you see so many companies developing natural fertilizers using microbes or biomanufacturing solutions for non-chemical pesticides. Outdoor agriculture is also water intensive, especially for products like almonds, which require one gallon of water per nut. Various technologies are in development to use water more efficiently, from soil sensors to aerial imagery from drones and satellites. Vertical farming gets at the root of the problem by moving the growing operation indoors, employing LED lights and hydroponics to deliver nutrients using only water rather than soil. That eliminates both pesticides and many traditional fertilizers, and reportedly cuts down on water usage by as much as 95%. Let’s take a look at the specific technology behind Korzilius’ company.
Creating the Right Climate for Vertical Farms
Founded in 2015, &ever (formerly known as Farmers Cut) has raised an undisclosed amount of money, originally through bootstrapping and Seed funding, before raising a Series A from partners in Kuwait for its mega-farm, a joint venture with a local investment company called NOX Management. Korzilius said &ever is currently raising a Series B but declined to offer any details.
There are two key parts to the company’s technology, as we understand it: Dryponics and climate cells.
Dryponics is a new riff on hydroponics, which involves growing plants without soil. The company uses a proprietary growth substrate to keep the roots dry. In effect, the root system stays on top of the substrate, while absorbing the nutrients in the water. This setup reportedly has several advantages, including using 68% less water than common hydroponic systems and 37% less water than aeroponic systems, which grow plants in the air using a mist environment or similar system. Less water means the basins underneath the substrates are flatter, allowing more compact layering of crops.
Each crop requires different growing conditions, Korzilius explains, so his team developed climate cells – microenvironments optimized for temperature, light, humidity, and CO2, among other factors. Controlling the environment also helps control energy costs, especially in the large structures that house many of today’s vertical farms, including the company’s flagship facility in Kuwait.
Credit: &ever
“Within the same premises, we can create different climates. In our Kuwait farm, we have four climate cells next to each other. So, we could potentially create California climate next to Denmark climate next to Singapore climate,” he explains. “By creating climate cells within one premise, we save energy [and] only climatize what needs to be climatized.”
Take spinach, a notoriously difficult plant to grow indoors that took the company two years to figure out the right combination of substrate and climate. But that work has paid off by reducing the amount of growth time by 15%, which translates into 18 grow cycles a year, which is good enough for Popeye to be an investor (if only he hadn’t blown his retirement on canned spinach).
Betting the Farm on Indoor Farming
The value proposition is that products from &ever leave the farm as living plants with the roots intact, continuing to grow while staying fresh and retaining maximum freshness, according to Korzilius. The Kuwait farm is the first large-scale effort to prove the business model, though the company also has smaller grow towers for on-site retail locations like grocery stores, including one in Munich. A second mega-farm is in development in Singapore.
A &ever grow tower. Credit: &ever
The Kuwait farm, which went live shortly before the Rona hit, is designed to grow up to 250 varieties of greens and herbs. The 30,000-square-foot facility can reportedly produce up to 1,200 pounds of green stuff. Korzilius says the pandemic continues to hinder full-scale operations of the farm, which is overseen by just six employees. However, he claims the vertical farm is profitable from an operations standpoint (in other words, without accounting for the original capital expenditure). “So, we are not selling below cost. Yes, it’s a prototype, but it’s working nicely.”
Tasty greens from a vertical farm in Kuwait. Credit: &ever
However, there is a reason why the mega-farm is located in Kuwait and not in Munich or elsewhere in Europe. Energy is simply cheaper in the Middle East, so it was a no-brainer to plug into the grid there. In Singapore, where electricity doesn’t come as cheaply, the local government has stepped in with grant money to subsidize the project. Currently, Singapore imports more than 90% of its food, so the government is motivated to find ways to be more self-sufficient, especially in the wake of the pandemic.
The bigger implication is that vertical farms will require cheap sources of energy to be economically viable. That goes against the current narrative of locating large-scale operations in the middle of big urban centers where electricity is usually pretty expensive. Of course, there are other economics to consider: Centrally located growing facilities will incur lower shipping costs and can theoretically deliver fresher, tastier products to consumers, who may be willing to pay the premium for what Korzilius calls harvest on demand.
“I strongly believe in consumers being at the center of all activities,” he says. “The consumer, in the end, has to pay for this. And, if he doesn’t, then all of this is just a stupid bubble.”
Conclusion
The bubble is certainly ballooning. The three indoor farming companies that are going (or have gone) public that we are aware of are valued at nearly $4 billion. Last year, the top three indoor farming startups in 2020 funding brought in more than $400 million between them, according to AgFunder News. These companies claim to be building a sustainable food system, but it seems unlikely that a business built on microgreens can be sustainable at that scale and cost. As always, the market will decide which model will succeed.
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Novel Practices of Indoor, Urban And Vertical Farming Set To Grow
The Association for Vertical Farming (AVF) and the German Agricultural Society (DLG) are hoping to promote the ‘fields’ of urban, vertical, and indoor framing in Germany, and worldwide, both companies announced recently
June 29, 2021
‘Urban’, ‘vertical’, and ‘indoor’ are not words usually associated with farming but that looks set to change as two farming-related organisations plan to promote these novel practices.
The Association for Vertical Farming (AVF) and the German Agricultural Society (DLG) are hoping to promote the ‘fields’ of urban, vertical, and indoor framing in Germany, and worldwide, both companies announced recently.
The terms urban farming, vertical farming, indoor farming or ‘plant factories’ may differ in the detail, but the focus remains the same: production of plant-based food in urban spaces with limited spaces that are partially closed.
Both companies explain that production in these conditions is more intensive, as, with less space, environmental influences need to be precisely controlled.
At the same time, the use of water, nutrients, and plant protection is reduced or sometimes – as in the case of plant protection – completely eliminated.
This is only possible if the plants are isolated from pathogens and pests.
For example, some systems are ‘hermetically sealed‘ to prevent the entry of undesirable substances. This also means that air supply, water circulation, and even control of illumination must be technically regulated and managed.
In welcoming the organisations’ cooperation, Christine Zimmermann-Lossl, chairwoman of the AVF said:
“AVF’s goal is to promote sustainable growth and development within the international vertical farming industry and community.
“The AVF promotes this through research projects, cooperation, events and the establishment of a network of companies, experts and research institutions that is actively involved in the vertical farming industry.”
Tobias Eichberg, managing director (MD) of DLG’s exhibitions department added:
“The production of plant-based foods in urban areas represents a global growth market.
“In Asia, in particular, where urbanization is progressing faster and more intensively than in Europe, such farms are already economically viable.”
Vertical farming practices are still in their infancy in Europe, and Germany, he added. However, Germany is at the forefront of research and is accompanying the trend toward indoor production of specialty crops away from agricultural land, the MD said.
What Is Driving The UK’s CEA boom?
The main findings of the panel were that the UK has been lucky with its well-established greenhouse industry which offers a great foundation for vertical farmers to understand the CEA space
“In the UK, fruits and vegetables are quite cheap in comparison to other European countries and other parts of the world. In the UK, the market has been squeezed by supermarkets that squeeze out the margins of the supply chain,” said Andrew Lloud, COO at Intelligent Growth Solutions, during a panel at the Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit.
During the session, three UK-supplier panelists elaborated on the topic. Joining were, Andrew Lloud, COO at IGS, Ben Crowther, Co-founder and CTO at LettUs Grow, Jen Bromley, Head of Plant R&D at Vertical Future, and Oscar Brennecke with Rethink Events who led the conversation.
The main findings of the panel were that the UK has been lucky with its well-established greenhouse industry which offers a great foundation for vertical farmers to understand the CEA space.
However, at the same time, it's quite costly to produce indoors given the high electricity and transport costs. This might change over time, due to several renewable energies coming into the market that will allow for cheaper production. Later on, the panelists will elaborate on the differences between the US and Europe, being monocropping whereas EU farmers grow more different varieties at the same time.
What makes the UK CEA space unique?
Andrew noted that UK consumers are willing to pay a certain price for fruits and vegetables. However, indoor ag bring along high electricity costs, whereas UK transport costs are high as well. Next to that, the economic and political dynamic being post-Brexit and currently battling the pandemic has highlighted its challenges. “Technology can economically viable grow a wide variety of crops, forming part of the food mix in the UK and in other parts of the world.”
73% of the surface area available for farming, said Ben Crowther, Co-Founder and CTO at LettUs Grow, a UK-vertical farming supplier, however, the UK still imports half of the produce.” He claimed that there’s an opportunity to make things more sustainable and efficient. Jen Bromley, Head of Plant R&D at Vertical Future, said that it’s not always about growing at a large scale, but that it differs per crop. “It’s always about pushing boundaries to see where the economics can work for the crop.”
Opportunities
More renewables and power generation are coming in, so there’s the opportunity to drop in things like vertical farms according to Andrew. “The real trick is to see if you can get a tariff from the energy provider so that the price per kw/h consumed is optimized to grow plants in the cheapest way.
Jen added that there are some obvious low-hanging fruits that can be taken within the market. Such as leafy greens, herbs, and fruits, given they work really well with the infrastructure. “However, there are also markets we can go deeper into, such as proteins, high-care products that can all be managed very well in the vertical farming space.”
Andrew added that a wide variety of crops will eventually be important, depending on your location. The difference in the US is that it’s a lot about monocropping, but they don’t tend to have the same diversity as seen in the UK or other European countries. I’ve seen it here, but I expect it to come to America as well.”
UK greenhouse- vs vertical farming market
Ben notes that “because of the well-established UK greenhouse industry, we can better understand the vertical farming market.” Berries are a great example, in the UK there has been a 10% market growth. It drives how people are looking for rootstock in these markets, specifically in greenhouses. As well as looking into year-round growing to complement their off-season. The idea translates into more traditional farmers, looking for a more consistent, lower-risk way to make their business more resilient.
Jen said that a traditional farm is a long-term play as they’re handed down by generations. In a vertical farming system, it’s an infrastructure that has to last. Whereas, Andrew claimed that the seasonal variation will be smoothed out by multi-tenant farmers using the same facility for different crops for different points in the year.
Consumer perception
“On the whole, there’s a growing understanding I think,” says Ben. He explains that there are some products available at various retailers already. Jen noted that branding is far more developed in the US, given the produce brands they have. Whereas Andrew affirmed that the elephant in the room in the UK and Europe is the use of the word organic. In the US, vertically farmed produce can be labeled as organic, however, in Europe, we’re still looking at what post-organic looks like. It’s confusing for the consumers, however, we’re at the beginning of educating people, starting with kids.
Other topics discussed were subsidies and barriers in vertical farming in the UK.
For more information:
Intelligent Growth Solutions
www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com
For more information:
Vertical Future
info@verticalfuture.co.uk
www.verticalfuture.co.uk
For more information:
LettUs Grow
info@lettusgrow.com
lettusgrow.com
For more information:
Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit
www.indooragtechnyc.com
29 Jun 2021
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© HortiDaily.com
Kalera – Curtis McWilliams Proposed As A New Member of The Board of Directors
McWilliams, the former President and CEO of the nation’s largest restaurant REIT and a seasoned independent director of a number of publicly-traded corporate boards, brings a wealth of experience as Kalera prepares for rapid domestic and international expansion
June 28, 2021
McWilliams, the former President and CEO of the nation’s largest restaurant REIT and a seasoned independent director of a number of publicly-traded corporate boards, brings a wealth of experience as Kalera prepares for rapid domestic and international expansion
ORLANDO, Fla., June 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kalera (Euronext Growth Oslo ticker KAL, Bloomberg: KSLLF), one of the fastest-growing and largest vertical farming companies in the world and a leader in plant science for producing high-quality produce in controlled environments, today announced the proposed appointment of Curtis McWilliams to its Board of Directors. In addition, it is expected that McWilliams will chair Kalera’s Audit Committee responsible for oversight of the financial reporting and disclosure process. An executive with deep experience in mergers & acquisitions, real estate, corporate governance as well as financial accounting and analysis, McWilliams brings nearly 40 years of executive leadership and experience to the Kalera board. After an extended career in investment banking with Merrill Lynch, McWilliams transitioned to the CEO of Trustreet Properties where over the course of the following 10 years, he oversaw the growth of the company from under $100 million to over $3 billion when it was sold to GE Capital in 2007. He presently is the non-executive chair of Ardmore Shipping Corporation (NYSE: ASC), an independent director for Braemar Hotels & Resorts (NYSE: BHR), and lead independent director for Modiv Inc. McWilliams has previously chaired the audit committee for CNL Bank and presently serves as chair of the audit committee for Braemar Hotels as well as serving on the audit committee for Ardmore Shipping.
The addition of McWilliams to the board coincides with Kalera’s rapid expansion into several new markets and its acquisition of Vindara Inc., the first company to develop seeds specifically designed for use in vertical indoor farm environments as well as other controlled environment agriculture (CEA) farming methods.
“We are thrilled and honored to have Curtis McWilliams join Kalera’s Board,” said Bjørge Gretland, Chairman. “Curtis has been tremendously successful as a CEO and has extensive experience chairing Audit Committees. He also brings valuable expertise doing M&A deals. I am confident he will be a strong contributor to Kalera’s success.”
In addition to his aforementioned business experience, McWilliams also has served on numerous civic and non-profit boards including the Orlando Museum of Art and Young Life. McWilliams received his BSE in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and his MBA from the University of Chicago with a concentration in finance.
“There has never been a more pressing need for vertical farming than there is today. I’m honored and excited to have the opportunity to join the Board at Kalera, the leader in this innovative and disruptive industry,” said Curtis McWilliams. “I look forward to working with Kalera as they continue to grow and expand domestically and abroad.”
Kalera currently operates two growing facilities in Orlando and a newly opened facility in Atlanta and is building facilities in Houston, Denver, Columbus, Seattle, Minnesota, and Hawaii. Kalera is the only controlled environment agriculture company with coast-to-coast facilities being constructed, offering grocers, restaurants, theme parks, airports, and other businesses nationwide reliable access to locally grown clean, safe, nutritious, price-stable, long-lasting greens. Kalera uses a closed-loop irrigation system which enables its plants to grow while consuming 95% less water compared to field farming.
The appointment of Curtis McWilliams as a member of the Board of Directors will be presented for approval by Kalera’s shareholders at a general meeting and is expected to take effect upon completion of the contemplated merger between Kalera AS and the new Luxembourg parent for the group, which was announced previously.
For further information:
Bjørge Gretland, Chairman
Email: bgretland@kalera.com
About Kalera
Kalera is a technology-driven vertical farming company with unique growing methods combining optimized nutrients and light recipes, precise environmental controls, and cleanroom standards to produce safe, highly nutritious, pesticide-free, non-GMO vegetables with consistent high quality and longer shelf life year-round. The company’s high-yield, automated, data-driven hydroponic production facilities have been designed for rapid rollout with industry-leading payback times to grow vegetables faster, cleaner, at a lower cost, and with less environmental impact. To learn more visit www.Kalera.com.
This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
Sowing Season For Vertical Farms
Growing fresh produce in a controlled indoor environment using technology inputs has, in some cases, been around for almost two decades. But it has only recently started to gain traction linked to climate change and sustainability concerns. However, can it be profitable and competitive?
June 29, 2021
Concerns over climate change and food security have fuelled optimism over controlled-environment farming but operators face questions over their forecasts for profitability. Simon Harvey digs into the sector’s prospects.
Growing fresh produce in a controlled indoor environment using technology inputs has, in some cases, been around for almost two decades. But it has only recently started to gain traction linked to climate change and sustainability concerns. However, can it be profitable and competitive?
Indoor or controlled-environment farming is a niche yet expanding sector, but questions have been raised over whether these operations are profitable, and are able to compete with traditional field-grown crops, given the capital-intensive nature of the industry.
Much, however, depends on individual operations, and the objectives in terms of scale – whether it be targeting mass-market consumers or local buyers, the geographical location, etc – whether the farm is in a hot or cold climate, along with the types of crops grown and, most importantly, the technologies employed to replicate the natural environment at the lowest cost possible.
Vertical farming, per se, is the most popular system where crops are grown on stacked units in a warehouse, underground tunnel, or even in shipping containers, requiring artificial lighting, usually through expensive LEDs to mimic sunlight. But some operators, particularly in hot countries such as the Middle East and Asia, are growing crops in high-tech greenhouses using mostly natural light.
Nonetheless, even the companies in those hot climates need LED lighting to supplement the daylight hours, and, generally speaking, all operators within controlled-environment farming are similar in terms of the inputs such as labour, ventilation, irrigation, and cooling. And all require huge capital investment to purchase land, build the farm, put in the appropriate technology, and run it.
Despite the costs, indoor farming is viewed through a longer-term lens to address environmental concerns like the decreasing availability of land, unpredictable weather patterns and climate change, and the limited resources on hand to feed the world’s growing population.
Securing future harvests
Fraser Black, the CEO of UK-based Crop Health and Protection (CHAP), one of the country’s Aagri-tech centres and funded by Innovate UK, a government-backed agency, gives his interpretation of the current landscape.
“I think it is going to be a while before you see millionaires in vertical farming,” Black says. “It's still at that point where you are justifying the costs and developing the market.
"I think there are enough people around now that are breaking even and starting to become profitable, but we are not there yet. Look at electric cars, we are sort of following that same trajectory.”
Controlled-environment farming comes with advantages: less water than regular agriculture and without the need for pesticides, and higher yields linked to year-round production. And, from the consumer perspective, better-quality produce because the nutrient inputs can be controlled, and freshness, because the crops tend to be grown close to source.
For food importers like those in the Middle East and some parts of Asia, the technology offers food security, too.
All those benefits stack up through the eyes of private equity and venture-capital funds, which are ploughing vast sums of money into the sector.
This is no doubt in the hope of reaping profits when indoor farming has reached scale and matured beyond the current leafy greens and herbs – although soft fruits such as strawberries and blueberries, and tomatoes, cucumbers, and mushrooms, are starting to emerge.
I think it is going to be a while before you see millionaires in vertical farming.
Black also addresses the consumer angle and how controlled-environment farming is likely to develop over the coming years.
“The first decades are going to see people getting involved, learning how to do it, and leading the charge, and it will be niche. But, as they learn and as they build, and they learn how to get the costs down, and control the costs, the more mainstream it will become, and then more people pile in and the bigger the scale.
“There are other points of differentiation people are picking up on, which I think will project it forward until such time that the volume is big enough and people recognise all of the benefits that it will become profitable like other systems.
“Trying to compete with the major growers and put it all in the major supermarkets right now is more difficult because they don't have the volume. But I think those sort of trends are starting to shift.’”
Sky Greens in Singapore is one of the oldest vertical-farming businesses in Asia, founded in 2012 by Jack Ng to grow leafy greens under glasshouses using hydroponic systems and natural light. While Ng points out that labour is the biggest operational cost, he also says that Sky Greens saves money by not employing LEDs, enabling the business to focus on yield and productivity.
“Our energy use is similar to traditional farming, so we can save about 75% on labour,” Ng says. “Our running costs are cheaper than traditional farming, the only thing is the investment cost. Because our output is ten times higher than traditional farming, the investment costs average out.”
He adds: “We have proven in Singapore that we can grow and sell mass-market vegetables. The reason many vertical farms aren't competitive is because they are using artificial lighting, which is a high energy cost, so your payback is high and your overheads are high, plus you have the replacement costs because LED lights only have a two to three-year lifespan.”
Harvesting time at the Sky Greens farm. Credit: Sky Greens
Ng says that the price of locally-grown crops is important given that Singapore is an import-dependent economy when it comes to food, having to contend with cheap products coming in from Malaysia, Indonesia, and China, but its optimum yield gives Sky Greens the ability to compete.
“Our farm operation is profitable. Using our system, based on studies, the payback is about five years but your crop price has to be at a certain level. Therefore, what we produce is usually the higher-end vegetables like pak choi, which is, in a sense, a smaller market.”
Indicative of the costs, Plenty Unlimited in California, a vertical-farming business set up in 2014, has raised $500m to date from investors as it seeks to scale up production of leafy greens such as lettuce, kale, and rocket, along with tomatoes and strawberries.
Others, like AeroFarms, established in 2004 in New Jersey, and Infarm in Berlin founded in 2013, are turning to special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, to raise funds and gain public listings.
AeroFarms, which grows leafy greens, herbs, blueberries, and raspberries using aeroponic systems, recently entered a SPAC deal with Spring Valley Acquisition Company valued at $1.2bn, which will give the business access to more than $300m in cash to invest.
Infarm is also proposing a SPAC, said to be valued at $1bn, to expand from herbs and greens into chillies, mushrooms, and tomatoes, all grown using hydroponic technology. The company has so far raised around $400m.
Expensive seeds to sow
Nonetheless, the chief executive of Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) in Scotland, a tech-firm that designs and patents controlled-environment platforms using artificial intelligence and robotics, with a particular focus on productivity and efficiencies, is critical of the sums being raised relative to the individual revenues generated, and the technologies employed.
IGS CEO David Farquhar says that many of the vertical-farm operators “are still a long way from being profitable”.
“The first important thing is to get our positioning in the market right. There are a lot of very big and noisy companies that have had to raise a huge amount of money because they are trying to reinvent the wheel,” he explains.
“There is no one magic bullet that makes these things economically competitive. It is a combination of about six subsystems. There are two major costs in commercial agriculture in an enclosed environment.
"One is energy and the other one is labour. If you can take the labour out, and we've managed to reduce it by about 80%, that is a major cost-saving and will make you much more economically efficient.”
Farquhar argues that there is no need to have numerous people tending to these farms, as is depicted on many a website, if AI technology and robotics are employed, which reduce costs and ultimately helps with profitability.
He continues: “We give recipes of weather to the AI and the computer does all that work and the mechanical handling system does all that work. Once you have put the seed into the substrate, in the inserts that go into the growth trays, there is really no need for human intervention at all.
“And if you don't put humans in, you are not going to introduce bugs and disease and things, and therefore you don't need to use fungicides and herbicides, whatever. That means you don't need to wash the crop, which means that you are saving more money but also you are going to increase the shelf life by about 50%-100% and you are also going to reduce waste.”
The IGS ‘Growth Towers’ use a multitude of technologies. Credit: IGS
Dr. Nate Storey, a co-founder of Plenty, says it’s surprising how quickly a vertical farm operator can become profitable, compared to those in field crops, but it’s more difficult for a “company that's raised a couple of hundred million dollars – it takes time for them to grow into that investment than it does for a farm that you just stood up”.
“Agriculture has historically been a low-margin industry, especially field production. And one thing we want to correct as we move into a new era of agriculture is to make it much more profitable. Having a better margin also makes you more investable.
“If we can get the flywheel spinning, we can drive costs out of the business faster and pull capital into the business in a way that allows us to expand much more quickly than you could probably imagine today,” Storey suggests.
“We are on a cost curve, more so than some of the other folks in the space, because we have invested very heavily in R&D. That builds our own internal cost curve, which allows us to drive yield up by seven times and costs out by 50% over the course of two years. So we have this kind of crazy economic curve that we get to ride towards higher profitability.”
Storey says that Plenty is competitive with field crops: “I know that's not true for everyone but again, people have some catch up to play. People are just waiting for these external cost curves to drive their costs down.”
Jonathan Webb, the CEO who founded US vertical-farming business AppHarvest in 2017, says that scale is key to profitability.
The company, based in Kentucky, grows a wide range of tomatoes in glass houses and has recently invested $60m to buy artificial intelligence and robotics firm Root AI, which has the technology to predict yields and evaluate crop health.
While Webb admits that one of its farms in the city of Morehead is a user of LED lighting, it mainly uses natural sunlight, and it also recycles rainwater to save on costs.
“If you are just in a warehouse then you can't use sunlight. So, for us, the two free inputs would be sunlight and rainwater. We are only adding in technology when we need it,” Webb says.
“If you package all that and go at scale, which ends up getting our construction costs down and our operating costs down, we can compete with conventional pricing today. If you are not using sunlight and you are not using rainwater how are you possibly going to compete with conventional crops and keep your costs low? It doesn't make sense.”
Webb adds AppHarvest’s new Morehead facility is going through the ramp-up stage and costs usually level out in year two. “Year three on is where you really start to drive profitability,” he concedes.
“As the industry matures and scales, we are going to see our costs for lighting come down, you'll see costs for steel and glass come down, and then it becomes that self-fulfilling prophecy because, as the industry scales, your material costs are going to be lower and the business models themselves will be fine-tuned to better perform.”
Smart applications of technology
In the Middle East, Pure Harvest is growing tomatoes and strawberries in high-tech glass houses using natural sunlight and only uses LEDs to a small degree because they have more daylight hours and more intense sunlight than other parts of the world.
The business, founded in 2016 in Abu Dhabi, is about to move into leafy greens, with capsicums, cucumbers, and other berry fruits in the pipeline.
Majed Halawi, the vice president for growth at Pure Harvest, says that “it's completely uneconomical” to use artificial lighting, although LEDs are used for “control and steering… but only to supplement the natural light”.
However, Pure Harvest doesn’t use stacked units like vertical-farm operators, and the company is very different in its objective, which is mainly to address food security and reduce the Emirates’ reliance on food imports.
Over the next ten years, our estimation is you will see tens of billions of dollars flood into controlled-environment agriculture.
“Where we compete and where we position ourselves is that we are this local, very high-quality product that is at a discounted price to what comes from Europe and outside of the market,” Halawi explains.
“We have a lot of similarities to a vertical farm in terms of climate management, however, our operating strategy and our set up of the greenhouses and the facilities is different. We find we have a more efficient set-up.
“Vertical farms bank on selling their produce at a very high cost, assuming the customers would pay them a premium for the fact they are grown on a vertical farm.
"However, what we find in this market in the Middle East is it doesn't make any sense to be growing using vertical farms because firstly, the consumer is very price-conscious, so you need to be able to compete with your traditional farms and imports, and, secondly, we have such an abundance of natural light.”
AppHarvest’s Webb believes that controlled-environment farming has a bright future, given the unpredictability of the weather and climate change, and will eventually become a necessity to ensure the long-term supply of fresh produce. As the sector expands and scales, the cost of borrowing is likely to come down too, he says.
“We feel we are really at that tipping point. Over the next ten years, our estimation is you will see tens of billions of dollars flood into controlled-environment agriculture globally, and it's because of the need. You will see scale and you will see profitability immediately because the industry can be profitable if you design the right facility in the right region.”
For BrightFarms, Indoor Farming Model Brings Big Growth
The company is unique among producers for its indoor hydroponic farming model, which is highly sustainable and cost efficient, allowing the company to offer its greens at an affordable price point
By Bridget McCusker -
June 28, 2021
Unlike most large lettuce and greens providers, BrightFarms is not a West Coast company. Instead, it’s headquartered in the village of Irvington. Its greenhouses are more remote, on the East Coast and in the Midwest, and provide fresh produce to nearby major metro areas, cities and towns.
Lightfoot
The company’s founder, Paul Lightfoot, is a former tech and software CEO for BSG, a company that operated software businesses to improve distribution and productivity in retail. About a decade ago, he decided to bring his supply-chain management expertise to the mission of providing healthy, local, sustainably grown food to stores at an accessible price point.
“Through my career in supply-chain management, I had been programmed to live, breathe and eat efficiency,” Lightfoot said. “As I approached my 40th birthday, I had an epiphany that I needed to follow my passion, making sure people have access to delicious and nutritious food … I dug into the produce supply chain and found a system that seemed like it was at odds with itself and not as efficient as it could be. I was compelled to build a better supply chain that helps deliver fresher, tastier and more nutritious leafy greens at an accessible price point.”
The company is unique among producers for its indoor hydroponic farming model, which is highly sustainable and cost efficient, allowing the company to offer its greens at an affordable price point.
“We implement environmentally friendly practices, first, by relying almost entirely on natural sunlight for energy,” Lightfoot said. “This keeps energy bills and carbon emissions low. In fact, our costs are much lower than vertical farming methods for that very reason. Our greenhouse model also uses 85% less light, 90% less land and 95% less water than conventional farming methods.”
If you’ve ever tried BrightFarms products around the Westchester and Fairfield region, available at its regional partner Stop & Shop supermarkets, they likely came from the company’s greenhouse in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, its 280,000-square foot facility that’s about a three-hour drive from the New York metro area.
Another benefit of indoor growth is a high level of control over pests and disease that could affect the crops. This means that no pesticides are necessary and none are used; nor are any insecticides, herbicides or fungicides, which is a step further than USDA organic standards.
BrightFarms’ greenhouse.
With no pesticides used and a hydroponic model, which means the plants are grown from water and sunlight — no soil — there is no need to wash the produce after picking or at home, eliminating another usual step before packaging. And even though it is just water used to grow the greens, the process actually uses much less water than typical farming practices, about seven times less, and produces no runoff.
The proximity of greenhouses to their targeted markets makes it possible for the greens to be delivered and become available to consumers less than a day after being harvested. Compare that to greens shipped in from the West Coast, which can take up to a week to make it to shelves across the country. Over 98% of leaf lettuces in the country are grown in just two states, California and Arizona.
Aside from the need for freshness, this short transport time saves on both costs and total energy used.
Usually, to find locally grown produce, consumers have to go to farmers markets or order directly, but BrightFarms partners with grocery stores, making products accessible to consumers who primarily buy produce at the grocery store. Likely, this model is also part of what will position the company to become a national brand.
The setup is also easily replicable; according to Lightfoot, it can be created anywhere in the country, which allows BrightFarms to expand into, essentially, any market it chooses.
The North Carolina greenhouse.
The most recent expansion was sizable, bringing BrightFarms into the southeast with a greenhouse in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The new facility is as large as its greenhouse in Pennsylvania, which was its biggest one so far. BrightFarms estimates that it will produce up to 2 million pounds of produce per year for its markets in the Carolinas.
The new greenhouse will up their customer base significantly, but the company intends to keep growing in new markets nationwide. Its last round of funding in the fall of 2020 brought in over $100 million with which to work.
“Our smart greenhouse model can be replicated anywhere across the country, and we have big plans to expand into every region in the next few years,” Lightfoot said.
“Next up, we’ll be expanding in New England, and move onto Texas later this year. By the end of 2021, we will double in size and production and surpass availability in over 3,500 stores — the most of any indoor farming player.”
The 5th AVF International Summit - The International Vertical Farming And New Food System Conference & Exhibition - 2nd - 3rd September, 2021 In Munich, Germany.
A hybrid event, it is designed to welcome back delegates and participants for in-person meetings, networking, and exchanges relating to innovations, investments, business opportunities, strategic partnerships, and cooperation in our vertical farming industry across the globe
The Association for Vertical Farming (AVF) in official partnership with the German State of Bavaria through its Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Food, Agriculture & Forestry announces the 5th AVF International Summit – The International Vertical Farming and New Food System Conference & Exhibition -- on 2-3 September 2021 in Munich, Germany.
A hybrid event, it is designed to welcome back delegates and participants for in-person meetings, networking, and exchanges relating to innovations, investments, business opportunities, strategic partnerships, and cooperation in our vertical farming industry across the globe.
We have prepared a two-day program of world-class keynotes, panels, roundtables, break-out sessions, and startup pitches to get everyone up to speed with the latest crucial developments and emerging trends in the various subsectors of our dynamic global industry. In addition, we are also organizing workshops on artificial intelligence, insect protein, robotics, automation, and sustainability certification.
And what’s more the city of Munich -- with its centuries-old culture, gastronomy, art, and architecture together with its vibrant, contemporary, and fun-loving modern incarnation – is eagerly awaiting your visit.
See You All In September
Click Here To Reserve Your Early Bird Tickets!
USA: VIRGINIA - Maker of Hydroponic Farming Systems Gets $1 Million Grant, Relocates Headquarters To Scott's Addition
The grant will help the company move further into commercialization. The company had been awarded a $225,000 Phase 1 grant in 2019 to conduct scientific trials of its technology
June 24, 2021
A startup company that makes indoor, hydroponic farming systems has opened its new headquarters and production site in the Scott’s Addition area of Richmond.
The opening of the Babylon Micro-Farms Inc. office comes after the company received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation with the potential for $750,000 in follow-on funding to continue development of BabylonIQ, its technology platform designed to operate decentralized, automated micro-farms.
The grant will help the company move further into commercialization. The company had been awarded a $225,000 Phase 1 grant in 2019 to conduct scientific trials of its technology.
Babylon Micro-Farms also completed a $3 million investment round in the first quarter of this year. Investors include Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology, Hull Street Capital, Venture South, and the CAV Angels Group.
The capital raised “helped us move here [to Richmond] and build our team,” Alexander Oleson, the company’s CEO who co-founded the business with Graham Smith, said Thursday as Babylon Micro-Farms hosted an open house at the headquarters.
“A lot of it is about switching from an R&D organization to a sales organization,” Oleson said. “We have a backlog of orders to fill.”
Babylon Micro-Farms was founded in Charlottesville in 2017 by Oleson and Smith, who were University of Virginia students. The company announced plans to move its headquarters to Richmond earlier this year.
The company now has more than 30 employees working in a renovated 7,700-square-foot building on Carlton Street. The facility serves as the company’s main office as well as a research and development site for its indoor farming units designed to grow more than 40 different types of leafy greens, herbs and flowers.
From the Scott’s Addition site, the company staff also can remotely monitor the functioning of more than 40 of its indoor farming units that have been installed at customer sites including retirement communities, universities, and corporate cafeterias.
Several of the company’s 8-foot-tall, climate-controlled farming units stand in the main lobby of the headquarters, growing plants such as basil, kale, lettuce, and bok choy.
In a research area of the building, Babylon Micro-Farms is testing growing other produce such as strawberries and peppers in its hydroponic systems.
“Our hope is to be in hundreds of locations by the end of next year, mostly in Virginia, but really casting our footprint nationally,” Oleson said.
Photos: John Reid Blackwell
Karen Sizer, an account manager for Babylon Micro-Farms Inc., spoke with visitors on Thursday about the company’s hydroponic, indoor farming systems. The company, founded in Charlottesville in 2017, hosted an open house at its new headquarters in Scott’s Addition.
Alexander Oleson, co-founder, and CEO of Babylon Micro-Farms stands by one of the company’s 8-foot-tall, climate-controlled hydroponic farming units.
Babylon Micro-Farms Inc., a maker of indoor farming systems, has its headquarters and research facility on Carlton Street in the Scott’s Addition area of Richmond
(804) 775-8123
GreenFire Energy June Updates: How Geothermal Energy Could Power The Future
We are excited to share the new CNBC video “How Geothermal Energy Could Power the Future
We are excited to share the new CNBC video “How Geothermal Energy Could Power the Future.” Katie Brigham, a CNBC producer, reached out to Joseph Scherer, CEO, GreenFire Energy, in early April to learn about geothermal and GreenFire Energy’s solutions. The powerful video features Joseph Scherer and other industry experts: Jamie Beard, GEO, University of Texas at Austin; Catherine Hickson, Geothermal Canada; Tim Latimer, Fervo Energy; John Redfern, Eavor Technologies; and Barbara Burger, Chevron Technology Ventures.
From the video: “Geothermal anywhere is futuristic. Geothermal in great locations is a present opportunity that can be expanded dramatically. And with retrofits, the capital expenditures are relatively low and the payback is relatively fast because you don’t need to drill a well,” says Joseph Scherer. “Geothermal at scale, leveraging the entire oil and gas industry, literally solves energy,” says Jamie Beard.
Our View of the Industry
In May the International Energy Agency released its roadmap to Net Zero by 2050. Getting to net zero requires a “massive deployment of all available clean energy technologies–such as renewables, EVs, and energy efficient building retrofits–between now and 2030 and clean energy investment to more than triple by 2030.”
The effort to propel geothermal is making headway in many countries. Japan’s government is relaxing regulations to push geothermal forward, as part of a broader renewable energy initiative. The UK is looking at the decarbonization opportunities of geothermal energy. Geothermal energy can make a significant contribution to reducing CO2 according to a study released by researchers of the University of Bayreuth in Bavaria, Germany.
While we are seeing significant interest in geothermal investment, geothermal energy, with its tremendous potential to produce clean energy, is currently underutilized. Here is a cogent article on the issues that the industry needs to address.
Hollis Chin - hollis.chin@greenfireenergy.com
Read Geothermal Energy Is Critical to Biden’s 100% Carbon-Free Grid, Why Is It Currently Underutilized?
UNITED KINGDOM: The Secret Underground Farm In The Middle of Sheffield With An Important Mission
Mr. Ellis, from Sheffield, has been growing greens beneath the streets of Sheffield's Kelham Island since last December, after developing an interest in sustainable hydroponic growing techniques
June 20, 2021
Luke Ellis Grows Plants Underground
Using Hydroponics And Artificial Light
Sheffield has its very own underground farm growing microgreens and veg (Image: coloboque (Pixabay)
Luke Ellis used to be a builder, but now he spends his days underground growing sustainable vegetables.
Mr. Ellis, from Sheffield, has been growing greens beneath the streets of Sheffield's Kelham Island since last December, after developing an interest in sustainable hydroponic growing techniques.
Hydroponics replace the need for a conventional soil and sunlight approach to growing vegetables, using water-based growing techniques instead.
This inventive method of growing means that Mr Ellis can produce a huge amount of leafy greens year-round, without needing to wait for the right season or growing conditions to become available.
Mr. Ellis' business, named 'Leaf + Shoot', now grows a wealth of leafy greens, microgreens, herbs, houseplants, and mushrooms for the people of Sheffield to enjoy - with very little food miles, zero pesticides, and no water waste.
On his business website, Mr. Ellis said: "We are a vertical bioponic farm in the heart of Sheffield, underneath 92 Burton Rd, Kelham in an old spring factory.
"Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do, in fact, it's why we started in the first place. Born out of a desire to produce nutrient-dense, tasty produce with minimum food miles and zero water waste.
"We grow 10 x as much food in the same space as traditional farming twice as quickly, year-round. Reducing the need to import seasonal produce and increasing the nutrient density and freshness."
All of Leaf + Shoot's produce is grown with organic principles, which means that there are no pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers or other chemicals used.
And the delicious and eco-friendly produce is sold around the city, with many businesses benefitting from Mr. Ellis' innovative underground farm.
And individuals can also purchase the fresh produce as Leaf + Shoot regularly sell their harvested greens at pop-up shops outside their farm on Burton Road, where people can bag freshly harvested salad mixes and house plants.
Have you ever tried Leaf + Shoot greens? Let us know in the comments!
How A Malaysian Company Born During The Pandemic Is Championing Harvest-To-Table In Kuala Lumpur
The brainchild of founders Shawn Ng, 28, and Sha G.P., 27, The Vegetable Co. aims to deliver fresh greens within three to four hours after harvest to their customers in various parts of Klang Valley
27 June 2021
BY KENNY MAH
Harvest-to-table vegetables have arrived in Malaysia, courtesy of The Vegetable Co. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
PUCHONG, June 27 — The vegetables we eat and where we get them from can be a quagmire of questions: Is it organic? Local or imported? Is it safe? Is it fresh?
Getting your daily intake of healthy greens shouldn’t be this stressful, I reckon.
Enter The Vegetable Co. This fledgling harvest-to-table startup was launched early last year and is based on sustainable vertical farming concepts and in-house, customized technology.
The Vegetable Co. founders Shawn Ng (left) and Sha G.P. (right). — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
The brainchild of founders Shawn Ng, 28, and Sha G.P., 27, The Vegetable Co. aims to deliver fresh greens within three to four hours after harvest to their customers in various parts of Klang Valley.
Quality is a major differentiator. Ng explains, “Our vegetables are meant to be better than what’s available in the market due to their freshness and growing method. The indoor farming method ensures that they are delicious and pesticide-free while still reaching optimal size, taste, and nutritional value.”
Through their Controlled-Environment Agriculture farming method, the startup has devised and built an indoor, environment-controlled chamber that saves significantly on land and water consumption.
This indoor environment approach differs from conventional farming practices as they grow vegetables utilizing LED lights, vertical stacks, hydroponic systems, and environmental control to keep the internal atmosphere at an optimal constant that encourages optimal plant growth.
Ng adds, “The chamber is also an isolated environment, which prevents external contaminants from entering and as such mitigates the need for pesticide usage. Basically, we are farmers in lab coats, or plant scientists. Our aim is to grow food in the best possible environment to get the most nutrition and freshness onto your table.”
As with many startups, The Vegetable Co.’s overall ambitions and strategy are heavily influenced by the founders. The duo first met when they were doing their A-levels, and have been friends for well over a decade.
This meant they understood each other’s strengths and differences — Sha has a BSc in Economics from The University of Manchester while Ng received a Masters in Green Management and Sustainability from the University of Bocconi in Italy — and how best to complement each other.
Ng recalls, “Since college, we have always been young idealists who spent countless nights debating on the many ways in which we could contribute to the nation’s development. Generally, Sha is always pragmatic in nature, while I’m a bit of an optimist who dreams of a better future for the Malaysian people.”
Therefore, unlike many businesses that are driven solely by profit making, the two friends started their venture due to their burning need to drive change in a significant and tangible manner.
A sense of purpose was crucial, as Ng observes: “We both had work experiences prior to this, and they never fully aligned to our overarching goals and principles. By working on the business, we were given the opportunity to pursue and craft our own paths forward.”
But why vegetables?
Loyal customers have the 2015 film The Martian to thank. Ng explains, “It really intrigued Sha as the astronaut had to find a way to grow food in an extreme environment to survive. He began considering whether it could be feasible and commercially viable in the Malaysian context. He approached me with the idea, and the rest is history.”
Assembling their team was another piece of the puzzle they had to solve early on.
Ng says, “One of our most important hires remains our first farm operator, Bryan Lee. We hired him back in late 2019 when he was 19, and he has been with us since. Combining his love for plants with his mechanical and electrical engineering skills has made him essential for the work here, especially during the early stages.”
Plenty of care is taken in growing the vegetables, with the latest vertical farming technology. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
The Vegetable Co. also has an in-house Research & Technology team — comprising young Malaysians below the age of 30 from varying backgrounds — working to optimise their automated systems, fit-for-purpose farm designs, as well as the quality and nutritional value of their produce.
That last attribute, Ng notes, is a crucial factor to market acceptance: “Our customers can smell the fragrance of the basil when they first open the box. This, combined with the springiness of our lettuce, really drives a good impression on people.”
The key to the freshness of their produce lies in their harvest-to-table approach, typically within a three- to four-hour window.
Ng explains, “Our intention is to move away from mass industrial agriculture and long supply chains. Research has shown that vegetables travelling far distances tend to lose nutritional value over time, some as fast as within 48 hours. There are also the concerns of food waste, as a third of all food stuff is usually discarded in the beginning, generating methane through open decomposition and exacerbating climate change.”
A typical subscription box contains seven types of freshly harvested vegetables. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
As a result, The Vegetable Co. strives to grow within 20 kilometres of high populated districts within the Klang Valley, such as Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Subang, Puchong, and Shah Alam.
In doing so, Ng claims this will help preserve the maximum nutrients possible, cut down on transport emissions and increase transparency as they minimise the number of unknown variables between the farm and the consumers.
He adds, “During the past year, we also observed interruptions in supply and knee-jerk reaction price hikes due to inter-state logistical issues associated with Covid-19 restrictions and we believe our solution helps address these challenges by farming right in the middle of population centres.”
By growing in vertical stacks within urban areas, The Vegetable Co. purportedly mitigates around 95 times the land use through conventional farming methods. In the future, the duo also plans to activate unused urban spaces to further increase land use efficiency.
Given the constraints of each individual farm being able to only service a certain radius around it, The Vegetable Co. will leverage both localisation and decentralisation to scale up in a sustainable manner.
Ng explains, “The modularity of our farms enables us to install farms in every urban centre where there is demand. This is how we envision the growth of our company and the vertical farming sector here in Malaysia.
Sounds like a reasonable and promising business model, no? But as any seasoned entrepreneur would tell you, the journey is never a smooth nor swift one.
The Vegetable Co. was self-funded by the two co-founders at the beginning. Ng says, “We really had to dig deep into our coffers and commit all our resources into the start of the company — scraping for whatever savings or equipment we have in order to make things work.”
Harvesting time. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
Beyond a startup tendency to stay lean and agile, part of the scramble came from launching the business barely a month before the first movement control order (MCO) last year. Initial plans for pop-up booths and taste testing as a market education tool were immediately shelved.
With only a small number of early adopters, they decided to focus solely on promoting their subscription model. Ng explains, “This was what truly appealed to our first base of customers — those who were concerned about regular access to freshly-grown produce without needing to brave the supermarkets or fearing a shortage of supply.”
That gamble paid off handsomely as revenue grew by 300 per cent in the first few weeks alone. Both co-founders realised that customer satisfaction and confidence were critical for pushing the product to market, and have since made it part of their company promise: To reduce the time and distance for quality produce to reach their customers.
“Customers who took the chance on us in the early stages could immediately tell the difference,” Ng says, “From there the product sold itself by word-of-mouth. The popularity of the subscription service drove demand and allowed us to expand and to increase our capacity as we prepare for the launch of our next phase in July.”
Packing the just-harvested vegetables into subscription boxes. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
Since then, the duo has gotten the support of an angel investor as they expanded their operations. Ng adds, “Although we have no immediate fundraising plans, we’re looking at raising a bridging round sometime Q3/Q4 this year to continue our business expansion and technology consolidation.”
Part of that expansion would include gradually doubling the number of their produce variants as production capacity increases. Currently The Vegetable Co. has about 10 variants; a standard box comes with about seven variants, making every delivery a little surprise, not unlike CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes.
The Vegetable Co. aims to deliver fresh greens within three to four hours after harvest to their customers. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
According to Ng, by having fresh vegetables delivered to them on a frequent basis, many of their customers have changed their diets for the better: “Some of our customers have taken to snacking on our veggies and moving away from the bad habit of eating junk food. Fundamentally, we are in the business of encouraging healthy habits and lifestyles.”
Are vertical farming and vegetable subscription boxes the future of our dining tables? It is early days yet but The Vegetable Co. certainly makes a strong and admirable case for Malaysian harvest-to-table.
To borrow from a classic jingle: Any fresher and you’d have to pick these greens yourself.
The Vegetable Co.
Lead photo: A typical subscription box contains seven types of freshly harvested vegetables. — Picture courtesy of The Vegetable Co.
Web: thevegetable.co
USA: NEW JERSEY - Newark Farm Trying To Change The World
If the current movement to grow more food in urban settings by high-tech indoor methods follows the path that some predict, Newark's vertical farm on Rome street is the largest indoor farm in the world and will be an important part of the history
June 21, 2021
By George E. Jordan | For NJ Advance Media
AeroFarms Uses Aeroponics And
LED Lights To Grow Its Products
The company leased a shuttered steel beam supply company on Rome Street, tore down a rusted warehouse, and built a 70,000-square-foot building. It filled it to the ceiling with grow tables 80 feet long and stacked 12 layers to a height of 36 feet.
AeroFarms uses aeroponics and LED lights to grow its products. The company says it can produce up to 2 million pounds annually of kale, bok choy, watercress, arugula, red-leaf lettuce, mizuna, and other baby salad greens. It's all done without soil, sun or pesticides, and the company claims to use 95% less water than outdoor farms.
AeroFarms-branded leafy vegetables are sold in the northeastern U.S. at retailers, including Whole Foods Market, ShopRite, Amazon Fresh, and FreshDirect.
If the current movement to grow more food in urban settings by high-tech indoor methods follows the path that some predict, Newark's vertical farm on Rome street is the largest indoor farm in the world and will be an important part of the history.
"The vision long term for the company is to take a new understanding of agriculture to a new height and then feed people and to apply that knowledge to grow better plants," said David Rosenberg, AeroFarms' chief executive, who recently announced plans to expand its Newark headquarters.
AeroFarms operates nine indoor farms in four Newark locations, and one in Virginia, and a growth and research facility in Abu Dhabi as part of a $100 million investment by the United Arab Emeritus.
Rosenberg said the company plans to build a network of new high-tech indoor farms across the United States. The first is currently under construction in Danville, Virginia, on the North Carolina border in close proximity to more than 1,000 food retailers and approximately 50 million people within a day's drive.
AeroFarms has more than 150 employees in Newark, including grow-house workers, horticulturists, engineers, and data scientists who represent a dramatic shift from the scrap-metal yards and chemical plants and breweries that dominated the Ironbound.
Marc Oshima, AeroFarms' co-founder, and spokesman said the company offers computer and financial literacy training programs, and the workforce includes former criminal offenders and homeless people.
"The biggest impact we've had on the city is inspiring other tech firms to come to Newark," he said, describing how AeroFarms donated offices to Newark Venture Partners, a business incubator funded by Don Katz, founder, and chief executive of Audible.
Aaron Price, president of TechUnited, a non-profit that lures startups to New Jersey, said technology companies like AeroFarms figure in luring jobs and students and new residents to New Jersey's largest city.
"By leveraging technology, cities can thrive. Newark has embraced incoming technology companies and they are embracing Newark," he said. "Newark is having real job growth."
In addition to selling crops, AeroFarms announced various partnerships with governments, universities and Fortune 500 companies to help solve agriculture supply chain problems. For instance, AeroFarms will publish a study to improve leafy green production, flavor and nutrition next year with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, a non-partisan, non-profit funded out of the U.S. Farm Bill. The findings are aimed at helping the farming industry.
Agriculture is responsible for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and accounts for one-fifth of U.S. fossil fuel use, mainly to run farm equipment, transport food and produce fertilizer, according to Columbia University's Climate School.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says more than two-thirds of the world's freshwater is used for agriculture. And around the world, farmers are losing the battle for water for their crops as scarce water resources are increasingly being diverted to expanding cities.
Rosenberg compared AeroFarms' trajectory to the growth of Amazon, which began focused on books, and Tesla's development of batteries and focuses on autonomous vehicles after gaining a foothold in electric vehicles.
This press release was produced by the City of Newark. The views expressed here are the author's own.
Aquaponic Springworks Farm Expands With 26-Year-Old CEO
“I became interested in sustainable agriculture after seeing the impacts of agriculture in the ecosystems around me,” he said. “There was this visceral impact for me. A lot of people don’t get the opportunity to see some of the negative consequences of agriculture and the way that we eat.”
By AMY SOWDER
June 25, 2021
How A Teen-Now 26-Scaled Up His Aquaponics Firm, Springworks
Trevor Kenkel was 13 when the fish and frogs dying from nutrient pollution in his favorite creek by his Montana home motivated him to experiment with aquaponics.
His teenaged tinkering in the garage led to founding Springworks Farm in 2014, while he was a freshman at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, studying biology.
“I became interested in sustainable agriculture after seeing the impacts of agriculture in the ecosystems around me,” he said. “There was this visceral impact for me. A lot of people don’t get the opportunity to see some of the negative consequences of agriculture and the way that we eat.”
Today, Springworks is headquartered in Lisbon, Maine, and counts 200 Hannaford stores, Whole Foods distribution centers, restaurants, and other companies as customers of its leafy greens.
And on June 19, Kenkel, Springworks CEO and president, sliced the grand-opening ribbon with golden scissors on his third greenhouse, totaling about 45,000 square feet of commercial production using the aquaponic farming technique in which fish and plants support each other’s growth in a closed system.
His sister, Sierra Kenkel, was by his side as vice president of the company.
At their company, the nutrient-rich water from raising tilapia is pumped into growing beds, which feeds the leafy greens. The plants, in turn, clean the water and return it to the fish. No chemicals are needed.
“We’re taking what would otherwise be a waste stream and turning it into a positive, as fertilizer,” Kenkel said.
From the start, Springworks greens were U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified organic, but the products were replacing conventional greens at local restaurants.
“We had to be at a competitive price point, and we also had to be able to articulate what our value proposition was: better shelf life, better quality,” he said. “We’re not relying on the USDA-certified organic label to add value, so much as our product being better than what our customer was buying.”
By 2026, the Kenkels want half a million square feet of aquaponic greenhouse operations on the Lisbon site.
“We’re able to produce a little under a million heads of lettuce a year, and we’ll be a little more than doubling that with the new facility,” Kenkel said the day before the grand opening of the third greenhouse.
Knowing that a mistake on a large scale is much more expensive, Kenkel started small and progressively expanded. At each step, he dealt with the new challenges associated with the scale and made improvements.
“We’ve been very intentional over the years at scaling up as we feel comfortable managing that size system, with where the technology is at and with our customer base,” he said.
The first few years, Kenkel and his team focused on water quality, fertigation, how to link the systems and updating infrastructure.
The product line is growing too, as the emphasis has transitioned toward more retail.
Springworks is the exclusive provider of organic green leaf lettuce to 200 Hannaford locations, which also carry the organic bibb lettuce and organic romaine pouch, the first three products launched for retail customers.
“Springworks checks every box when it comes to our lettuce supply needs and Zero Food Waste goals,” Hannaford produce category manager Mark Jewell said in a news release. “We also are impressed by their consistent quality and ingenuity. These factors, combined with their exceptional food safety practices, year-round availability and proximity to our distribution centers, made it an easy decision.”
Trevor Kenkel of Springworks Farm (left) with Mike Vail of Hannaford. (Photos and illustration courtesy Springworks Farm)
The aquaponics company has expanded to offer single-cut products for more convenience.
“They cut them once at the base and package them in a clamshell. You can pull out those leaves individually and make a salad with them, make a wrap,” Kenkel said.
Springworks also makes a salad mix.
“Consumers who value quality and transparency are asking supermarkets for organic products from local food producers,” said Sierra Kenkel, who handles sales and marketing as vice president for Springworks.
Kenkel’s goal is to be competitive with the product coming from the Southwest and to eventually replace it for his East Coast customers.
During the supply chain issues early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Springworks was able to fill the orders for regional customers that normally sourced from California, Arizona or Mexico.
Within the next decade or so, Kenkel sees a shift in the leafy greens industry from 95% centralized production in the Southwest to a more regionalized approach.
The product is naturally fresher when it’s grown near shoppers.
“Both in terms of the carbon footprint and the economics of it, this is a win-win,” Kenkel said. “Pricing will continue to get more competitive.
“And I think all of that is going to lead to that 95% number ending up a lot lower than that in the next decade or so, as more of these hubs of production start to develop closer to where the product is consumed.”
And what about those fish?
They sell the tilapia at a local fish market in Portland, Maine.
“With this process, you get a lot more volume in greens than you do fish,” he said.
USA: INDIANA - Delaware County Moves Ahead With Economic Incentives For Vertical Farming Company
Living Greens Farm, an indoor produce farmer based out of Minnesota, is looking to turn the space into its next produce facility. The company uses an aeroponics process, also referred to as vertical farming, to produce greens for sale in grocery stores
Muncie Star Press
MUNCIE, Ind. — Delaware County is moving forward with economic incentives for a vertical farming company looking to buy the Industria Centre shell building along Fuson Road.
The shell building, measuring 200,000 square feet, was built in 2014 by Garmong Construction. The nearly $8 million county-funded shell building had been unable to find a tenant in seven years.
This building is officially owned by Garmong, a Terre Haute-based company that's been a frequent partner with the county on shell buildings in the past.
►PREVIOUS: Indoor farming company could purchase Delaware County Shell building
The building is funded by the county and built on county-owned land.
Living Greens Farm, an indoor produce farmer based out of Minnesota, is looking to turn the space into its next produce facility. The company uses an aeroponics process, also referred to as vertical farming, to produce greens for sale in grocery stores.
BrightFarms Forms Research And Development Innovation Hub BrightLabs; Steve Platt And Matt Lingard Comment
BrightLabs places a key focus on developing proprietary and patented ecosystems for plants to thrive, increasing their flavor, yields, and texture in the process
June 24th, 2021
by Jenna Plasterer
IRVINGTON, NY - A new launch and a new leader? Tell me more! These are just a couple of the titillating details included in BrightFarms’ most recent announcement. The indoor greens grower has formed a new research and development (R&D) hub called BrightLabs at its Ohio growing facility. Matt Lingard, PhD, a former Bayer plant scientist with over 15 years of experience in biotechnology and greenhouse science, will be leading the BrightLabs team as Vice President of Agriculture and Science.
Steve Platt, Chief Executive Officer, BrightFarms“
The indoor farming industry is at an inflection point as local, indoor-farmed produce becomes a priority for retailers and consumers. Among competitors, we’ve developed the most profitable model for the production of indoor leafy greens, but it’s essential that we maintain our market advantage to stay ahead of the curve,” said Steve Platt, Chief Executive Officer. “We’ve built up a team of the best minds in indoor agriculture to officially launch BrightLabs, where we’ll develop the next phase of game-changing products and technology solutions for our operations.”
BrightLabs places a key focus on developing proprietary and patented ecosystems for plants to thrive, increasing their flavor, yields, and texture in the process. The team will bring together experts in technology, microbiology, and plant science to deliver breakthrough innovations in the salad category and beyond.
BrightFarms has formed a new research and development (R&D) hub called BrightLabs at its Ohio growing facility
This multi-million dollar R&D investment is launching as part of the company’s $100 million Series E Fundraise led by Cox Enterprises and represents a significant increase in the company’s research capabilities. Ten percent of the company is now dedicated to developing complex, patented growing solutions to be applied to BrightFarms’ burgeoning network of greenhouses.
Matt Lingard, PhD, Vice President of Agriculture and Science, BrightFarms“
No other indoor farming company is studying a plant’s microbiome, the naturally occurring bacteria that help determine its health, to the same degree that we are,” said Lingard. “Instead of pouring dollars into artificial lighting research, we’re developing cutting-edge biotechnology solutions to out-maneuver our competition with the most productive indoor farms in the industry. There’s no question that high-tech greenhouses that leverage natural sunshine have emerged as the most promising new generation of agriculture technologies, and optimizing the microbiome will allow us to unlock even more of a plant’s natural potential in our indoor farms.”
BrightLabs aims to double its production of its hydroponically grown spinach, and will build on the success of its best-selling Sunny Crunch variety with a new, antioxidant-rich lettuce, NutriGreens, set for release this June.
BrightLabs places a key focus on developing proprietary and patented ecosystems for plants to thrive, increasing their flavor, yields, and texture in the process
BrightOS, the company’s award-winning proprietary data system, will help the BrightLabs team accelerate their research with machine learning and advanced data analysis.
Stay tuned as we wait to see the incredible innovations to come.
Indoor Farming Indoor Ag BrightFarms Research Development Research and Development R&D Innovation Innovates Innovation Hub BrightLabs Launch New Launch BrightOS Steve Platt Matt Lingard
COMPANIES IN THIS STORY
BrightFarms
BrightFarms finances, designs, builds and operates greenhouse farms at or near supermarkets, cutting time, distance, and...
A SPAC Deal Sprouts For AgTech Company Local Bounti: What Investors Should Know
One of the company’s key investors is Cargill which is listed as a strategic partner and will invest in the company as part of the SPAC deal. Cargill will also provide a $200 million debt facility to help with Local Bounti’s expansion plans
Chris Katje, Benzinga Staff Writer
June 18, 2021
Agriculture technology continues to be a hot segment for companies seeking to go public with another SPAC deal in the sector announced Friday morning.
The SPAC Deal: Local Bounti announced a SPAC deal with Leo Holdings III Corp LIII 0.71% valuing the company at $1.1 billion.
One of the company’s key investors is Cargill which is listed as a strategic partner and will invest in the company as part of the SPAC deal. Cargill will also provide a $200 million debt facility to help with Local Bounti’s expansion plans.
Public LIII shareholders will own 24.8% of Local Bounti if the merger is approved. Shares will trade on the NYSE as LOCL.!
About Local Bounti: One of several companies in the controlled environment agriculture segment, Local Bounti is seeking to improve the production of fresh produce across the United States.
Controlled environment agriculture is the future of farming according to Local Bounti’s presentation. This practice includes year-round farming, using 90% less water, zero pesticides, and providing cost-competitive produce.
The company uses proprietary technology to grow leafy greens and herbs in an indoor environment. Current products include cut lettuce, living lettuce and living herbs such as basil and cilantro.
Local Bounti products are currently in more than 400 retail stores, according to the company.
Related Link: Indoor Farming Startup AppHarvest Aims For Wall Street With SPAC Deal
Growth Ahead: Local Bounti will use capital from the SPAC deal to build out its indoor farming facilities across the Western U.S.
It plans to double the size of its flagship Hamilton, Montana facility and to break ground on additional facilities by the end of 2021. The company’s pipeline includes eight facilities and a plan for 30 SKUs by the end of 2025.
Local Bounti lists the total addressable market size of $30 billion for vegetables and herbs in the U.S. with a $10.6 billion market in Western U.S.
“Today’s announcement takes Local Bounti to the next level in enabling local, sustainable production and delivery of fresh, delicious and nutritious produce, including in regions that traditionally don’t have access to local supply, starting in the Western U.S. and expanding globally,” Local Bounti co-founder and co-CEO Craig Hurlbert said.
Other long-term growth plans for Local Bounti include international expansion, subscription as a service, new products and franchising and licensing.
Local Bounti joins companies like Appharvest Inc APPH 1.29% and AeroFarms, merging with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp SV 0.1% to choose the SPAC route to go public.
Financials: Local Bounti highlights its low-cost operations and high yield thanks to a hybrid facility configuration and vertical farming.
The company hit its first revenue in 2020. Projections are for the company to hit $13 million in revenue for fiscal 2022 and $85 million for fiscal 2023.
By 2025, the company expects to hit over $400 million in annual revenue.
LIII Price Action: LIII shares are up 1.44% to $9.87 on Friday morning at publication.
(Photo: Local Bounti)