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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Ag Tech

Farm.One Launches a New Vertical Farming Facility in Brooklyn

NYC-based indoor ag company Farm.One cut the ribbon on its new urban vertical farm recently, this one located in Brooklyn, New York. According to the Brooklyn Reader, the 10,000-square-foot facility and will start planting seeds in the coming weeks. The Brooklyn farm is the company’s second large-scale farm, following its existing one in Manhattan’s Tribeca neighborhood.

Farm.One started out supplying its vertically grown greens to New York City’s high-end restaurant scene. The original goal was to grow rare, unusual plants restaurant chefs could then use in their dishes, a plan that worked until the COVID-19 pandemic started shutting down restaurants last year. 

In response, Farm.One took the same direct-to-consumer route many companies shifted to in 2020. NYC-based consumers can now sign up for a Farm.One subscription and receive greens and a few other local goods delivered to their doorsteps. The company has also teamed up with Brooklyn-based indoor farming company Smallhold to sell “local luxury mushrooms.” An additional collaborations with Rawsome Treats provides smoothies and plant-based bottled milks. Farm.One uses bikes for all deliveries and packages all items in reusable containers the company retrieves once they are empty. The shift to this model proved so popular that there is currently a waitlist to even get products. 

Hence the new farm space in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights neighborhood, which opened at the end of last week. The space will grow various microgreens as well as herbs and some flowers. All crops are grown using the hydroponic method and artificial lighting, with plants harvested “hours before delivery,” according to the company. 

The Brooklyn farm will also include an event space where attendees can sample plants on “tasting tours” and attend lectures on food and agriculture. In future there may also be a daytime cafe as well as a cocktail menu.

Farm.One also licenses its technology out and currently has locations at the EATALY NYC Flatiron location and a Whole Foods in Manhattan. 

All of these offerings would classify as premium, targeting higher-end consumers. It remains to be seen if Farm.One’s demographic reach will widen as it adds more farms and is able to serve more parts of NYC and beyond. 

Wageningen University Launches the Third Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge

Netherlands-based Wageningen University is holding the third edition of its Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge, where international teams compete to grow crops in greenhouses using AI and automation. 

A first and second edition of the challenge grew cucumbers and tomatoes, respectively. For both of those crops, a level of autonomy was involved, though human intervention was still required during the grow process. The third edition, where teams will grow lettuce, differs in that participants must figure out how to grow their crops from seed using a fully automated algorithm.

Wageningen said in a post that the first and second editions of the challenge have shown “that artificial intelligence can potentially be superior to human intelligence, hence can potentially control indoor farming in the future. The goal of the third challenge will be fully automated control.”

Wageningen is one of Europe’s most well-known innovation centers when it comes to food, food tech, and food innovation. Scientists and researchers from here work on everything from alternative proteins to biodiversity initiatives to gene-editing technologies and, of course, greenhouse innovation.

One of the goals of the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge is to “connect the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and food production, create more knowledge, make this knowledge publicly available and thus contribute to the worldwide efforts of making our food systems more sustainable.”

Part 1 of the competition is an online challenge meant to test participants’ machine learning and computer vision skills, as well as attract talent from the realm of AI into the horticulture space. Part 1 is currently underway and will wrap on July 14 when a winner is chosen. Following that will be a 24-hour hackathon, which anyone can join, even if they did not participate in Part 1. Five teams will be selected from this session to go on to compete in Part 3, the actual greenhouse challenge.  

For the latter, each participating team will be assigned one compartment inside Wageningen’s high-tech greenhouse facility. All compartments are identical and have different actuators that control the grow conditions inside: heating and shading systems, lighting, water input, etc. Compartments are also equipped with sensors to measure temperature, CO2 levels, PAR light, pH and the electrical conductivity of fertigation water. Data from these sensors can be used to inform the algorithms to decide on the compartment’s control settings.  

Teams will be allowed to do a test cycle with a first crop before they must transition to growing the lettuce using fully autonomous algorithms “make choices with respect to the control settings, to remotely control crop growth.” 

Even without automation in play, lettuce is typically a more “hands off” crop than tomatoes or other vegetables. The competition seems not so much about automating indoor farm labor as it is about showing the public the benefits automation can bring in terms of growing plants faster and at higher yields without sacrificing quality. It will also produce more data, which experts have long agreed indoor farming needs more of. 

In the case of Wageningen’s challenge, the public will be able to follow crops’ growth along in real time via a website, and the datasets will eventually be released to the public. The winner of the competition will be the team with “the highest net profit in the end,” according to the challenge rules. 

 

BrightFarms Launches R&D Hub for Its Growing Network of Greenhouses

BrightFarms, which operates a network of greenhouses in the U.S., is launching an innovation and research hub at its Wilmington, Ohio headquarters, according to an announcement sent to The Spoon. Dubbed BrightLabs, the research facility will build on BrightFarms’ existing work growing leafy greens in a greenhouse setting aided by tech.

The company calls BrightLabs “one of the most advanced biotechnology ventures in the indoor farming industry” and one that will develop ways to improve the flavor, texture and yield of plants the company grows in its five greenhouses. Tech experts along with microbiologists and plant scientists will join the BrightLabs team, which will be led by Matt Lingard, formerly a Bayer greenhouse scientist. Lingard has recently joined BrightFarms as the VP of Agriculture.

One of BrightFarms’ biggest achievements to date is that it’s mastered the notoriously difficult task of growing spinach in a greenhouse (or any indoor ag setting). Spinach is especially susceptible to a certain kind of water mold, presenting a challenge for greenhouse and indoor ag operations that rely on hydroponic systems. BrightFarms says it already has proprietary research on the process of growing spinach indoors, and, via BrightLabs, aims to double the production of that particular crop.

Another notable aspect of BrightLabs is that the hub will allocate significant energy to studying plant microbiome, the natural bacteria that influences plant health. The company says it can do this because the greenhouses are powered by sunlight and so there is not a need to spend abundant R&D dollars on artificial lighting solutions (e.g., LEDs). “So instead of spending R&D dollars on finding expensive and energy-intensive artificial lighting solutions, we can zero in on how to simply grow better plants,” BrightFarms CEO Steve Platt told The Spoon. He added that BrightLabs plant scientists are developing proprietary ecosystems that will optimize plant microbiome to help crops flourish. “By putting the microbiome to work, we can do more of what we do best: grow great lettuce,” he said.

A recent survey found that many growers plan to add more LEDs in the future as well as climate control systems, and post-harvest automation tech. Plant microbiome did not factor into the report, and BrightFarms is still rather unique in its decision to focus on that as a means of increasing and improving yield.

BrightFarms said that the launch of BrightLabs means 10 percent of the company is now dedicated to developing “patented growing solutions” that will be applied across the company’s network of greenhouses. As noted above, there are currently five such facilities, one each in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, North Carolina, and Virginia. The company says that by the end of the year, its leafy greens will be available at over 3,500 stores.

S2G Ventures Unveils the First Five Investments for Its Oceans & Seafood Fund

S2G Ventures has invested in five different companies as part of the inaugural investments for its $100 million Oceans & Seafood fund. The point of the new fund is to support companies and entrepreneurs building new systems, solutions, and processes geared towards the “blue economy.”

The World Bank defines the blue economy as “the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of ocean ecosystems.” In other words, it calls for a more sustainable approach to doing business when it comes to our oceans and the life within them. Multiple areas are touched by the blue economy, including maritime transport, renewable energy, fisheries, and waste management strategies. Even tourism could play a role.

Via a statement, S2G Managing Director Kate Danaher called sustainably managed ocean ecosystems “a pillar of global environmental recovery, a driver of economic growth, and a foundation for food security and human health.” The firm says its Oceans & Seafood fund is the largest in North America. It will invest in companies helping to “build marine ecosystem resilience, de-risk the ocean supply chain, maximize the value of natural resources and support animal and human health.”

Thus far, companies in S2G’s group of inaugural investments are:

ReelData. Based in Canada, the company makes software it says can increase land-based aquaculture’s profitability, sustainability, and scalability. Initial products include AI-informed feeding systems, biomass estimation and health/stress analytics.

ViAqua Therapeutics. The Israel-based biotech producer makes orally administered RNA-based treatments for shrimp to improve their resistance to disease. S2G says the company has the potential to apply its technology across “all aquaculture species and platforms where cost-effective RNA production and novel delivery systems (such as nano and micro encapsulation) are needed.”

Moleaer. U.S.-based Moleaer has nanobubble tech that can treat water systems, including removing harmful pathogens and increasing recoveries of natural resources. 

Additionally, S2G has invested in two undisclosed companies. One is an “ocean surveillance company” that will track dark vessels and illegal maritime activity. The other is a “fishmeal and oil technology company” based in the U.S. that holds proprietary zero-waste fishmeal technology that could be applied to other parts of protein production in fisheries.

The focus of the overall fund will be divided into three areas: ecosystem resillience, resource optimization, and consumer centricity. S2G said it believes focusing on these areas will improve ocean health while still “generating above average financial returns.”

Babylon Micro-Farms Gets $1M Grant to Further Develop Its Software for Controlled Ag

Babylon Micro-Farms, which operates a network of indoor grow systems in foodservice venues around the U.S., has received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, with the potential for $750,000 more in follow-on funding. The grant money will go towards further development of BabylonIQ, the company’s platform that remotely manages its distributed network of farms. 

This grant follows a 2019 Phase 1 grant of $225,000, also from the National Science Foundation, that enabled the company to start trials of its technology designed to capture growth and health metrics for plants. 

Babylon Micro-Farms started in 2016, originally in Charlottesville as a project at the University of Virginia. Over the last five years, the farm itself has gone from a tabletop model to the 15-square-foot controlled-environment farming module that’s now in numerous hospitals, cafeterias, and senior living residences. The goal is to be able to remotely manage this distributed network of farms, collecting the kind of data that can inform better growing conditions for all Babylon farms. 

BabylonIQ uses machine learning and computer vision components to capture data from the farms that can optimize both plants’ grow recipes (light levels, temperature, etc.) and best practices across the Babylon Micro-Farms network. The company says the platform will eventually be able to learn from itself and improve processes over time, which in turn would hopefully lead to better-tasting greens, higher yields, and a higher nutritional profile per plant.

The emphasis on improving the software that powers farms is in keeping with something Babylon Micro-Farms CEO, Alexander Olesen, told The Spoon in 2020: that the company isn’t “necessarily interested in the hardware aspect going forward.” One potential direction the company could pursue is that of focusing primarily on software and bringing that expertise to a partnership with a separate hardware company. Nothing more has been officially said about that, though today’s news seems to point along that path. 

Meanwhile, a central “brain” for a network of smaller, module farms is still somewhat unique among controlled environment agriculture companies. Larger operations like Bowery or Plenty or even Square Roots have made much of their software systems that can remotely manage a network of farms. Babylon Micro-Farms is one of the first to do so for smaller-size farms found in cafeterias, hospitals, and other facilities that serve food. Farm.One is another such company.

Babylon Micro-Farms says this week’s Phase 2 grant also provides “financial resources to accelerate commercialization.”

Food Tech News: Vanillin Made From Plastic Waste, Plant-Based Pâté, and Strella Biotechnology’s Win

The sun is sweltering, the flowers are in full bloom, and food tech news is coming in hot. In this week’s roundup, we have news on the launch of a plant-based pâté, the winner of GS1 US Startup Lab Pitch Competition, scientists transforming used plastic into a food flavoring, and a fully compostable coffee pod.

Plant-based pâté launches in U.S.

Plantcraft shared in an email this week that its plant-based pâté has entered the U.S. market after launching in Erewhon’s (an organic grocer in the Los Angeles area) six locations. The plant-based pâté is made from a combination of ingredients including green banana flour, golden flax seeds, sunflower protein, and grapeseed oil. In the plant-based space, many companies produce meat analogs like burger patties, sausages, crumbles, and strips, but alternatives to charcuterie meats like pâté are uncommon. In addition to pâté, Plantcraft will also launch plant-based pepperoni slices, which will debut in August at the National Pizza Expo in Las Vegas, Nevada. If you do not live near an Erewhon, Plantcraft will be making its pâté available for foodservice locations and on its website in the upcoming months.

Strella Biotechnology wins first prize in lab pitch competition

Strella Biotechnology is an ag-tech startup that uses sensors to measure produce maturity, and it was recently announced the winner of the third-annual GS1 US Startup Lab Pitch Competition. The startup won the first prize of $10,000 and will be writing a white paper with GS1 about supply chain practices and how technology can be used to improve them. The company has recently been focused on is expanding its apples and pear packing business, where it monitors the storage of these perishables for packers. Additionally, Strella has gotten involved in monitoring shipping containers traveling overseas filled with perishable produce. Katherine Sizov, the founder of Strella, said the company is currently hiring and looking to partner with more retail chains.

Scientists convert post consumer plastic to vanillin

A team of scientists from the University of Edinburgh has discovered a novel method of converting post-consumer PET plastic to vanillin, an organic compound often used as a flavoring agent in the food industry. For the conversion, the team engineered the bacteria E. coli to transform a molecule derived from PET, called terephthalic acid. This transformation resulted in the molecule that gives real vanilla its taste and smell. Vanillin, produced from various sources such as wood pulp, raw petrochemical materials, or biomass, is cheaper and easier to come by than real vanilla, which is a product of orchids. The researchers believe that the vanillin they produced could be consumed by humans, but more research needs to be conducted to confirm.

NEXE launches fully compostable coffee pods

NEXE Innovations, a material company that develops plant-based products, shared this week about the launch of its new coffee products packaged in compostable pods under the brand XOMA Superfoods. The coffee pods can be used in a Keurig, and varieties include mushroom-infused, MCT-infused, and high-fat Keto coffee. The pod packaging is made from plant fiber, compostable polymers, and a bamboo casing, and is fully compostable in as little as 35 days. NEXE encourages consumers to dispose of the pods in the green commercial composting bins, but also says that pods can be added to your backyard composting set up. The pods are currently available for purchase, and the Xoma variety pack consists of 12 pods that costs $11.99.

InnerPlant Raises $5.65M to Turn Plants Into “Living Sensors” and Mitigate Crop Loss

Agtech company InnerPlant, which is changing plant DNA to create “living sensors” that mitigate crop loss, has raised $5.65 million in pre-seed and seed funding, according to an official announcement sent to The Spoon. The round was led by MS&AD Ventures, the investment arm of Japan’s MS&AD Insurance Group. Bee Partners, Up West, and TAU Ventures also participated in the round. 

InnerPlant created its technology platform to spot threats to plant growth — pests, nutrient deficiencies, water stress, etc. — quicker than is possible via traditional farming methods. To do that, the company recodes plant DNA to include a fluorescent safe-for-human-consumption protein that lights up the leaves of a plant when there is a problem. Essentially, it is turning the entire plant into a living signal that can “talk” to the farmer when there is a problem. Different colored lights indicate different issues.  

Since these signals are invisible to the human eye, farmers can use InnerPlant’s augmented reality system to photograph their fields and view potential problems via an iPhone or iPad. The signals can also be detected via a drone flying overhead or even a satellite.

This handy explainer video goes into more detail:

According to the company, it only takes tens of these sensor plants to protect an entire field. Once the signal plants send off a distress signal, a farmer can address the impacted area before it spreads to the whole crop. For example, if a harmful fungi breaks out in one area of a field, a farmer can get rid of only the impacted plants, instead of spraying the whole field with fungicide. Think of it as on-demand crop protection.  

InnerPlant says its entire concept is merely piggy-backing off the natural signals plants send to one another when they are in distress. Recoding the DNA to include the protein is “amplifying” these natural signals, so that farmers can spot problems faster. It also frees them from what InnerPlant founder and CEO Shely Aronov calls “the pesticide treadmill,” which is our increasing use of chemicals and pesticides that harm waterways, impact microbial diversity in soil, and are linked to some cancers.

It remains to be seen how consumers will feel about eating produce with recoded DNA, or how that message will get effectively communicated. And since InnerPlant is a relatively new company (it released its first product, the InnerTomato, in 2020), it is too soon to have much data on how effective these living plant sensors are compared to other modes of crop protection. 

The technology does, however, show us yet-another possibility for improving crop yields and mitigating loss in the food system at a time when the world’s population is growing. 

InnerPlant says it is currently working on a new product, InnerSoy. Funds from the seed and pre-seed rounds will go towards developing other products in future. 

California Giant Berry Farms and OnePointOne Team Up to Grow Berries Indoors

More than once in the last few months, indoor farmers have named berries the next important crop for controlled environment agriculture (CEA). California Giant Berry Farms added further weight to that claim today by announcing a partnership with OnePointOne, a technology company that specializes in vertical farming. 

The eventual goal of the partnership is to increase berry output as well as grow crops closer to consumers. To do this, California Giant will work with OnePointOne to develop “an exclusive strawberry cultivar,” an aeroponic vertical farming system that will grow berries. OnePointOne will provide the tech, which includes AI and robotics, while California Giant will share its expertise and existing data for berry growing.

Speaking in a statement, OnePointOne CEO and co-founder Sam Bertram said that his company’s robotics, AI, and plant scientists will “identify the ideal moment for planting, pollination, flowering and picking that will result in strawberries of the highest quality and Brix levels.” The data from these learnings will then be shared with California Giant and potentially used in traditional field growing, too. 

California Giant joins the list of traditional berry growers currently partnering with indoor vertical farming companies. Driscoll’s announced a partnership with California-based Plenty towards the end of last year, and just a couple months ago, Chile-based Hortifrut launched a partnership with New Jersey-based AeroFarms. 

Berries being highly perishable fruits that can easily be damaged in shipping, they make for a logical choice when it comes to choosing crops for indoor farms located closer to consumers. Fully controlled environments, like vertical farms, largely eliminate the need to use pesticides, while close proximity to customers means the berries spend less time in transit. 

California Giant and OnePointOne currently have vertical farming structures in California and Arizona, and plan to expand across the U.S. over time. 

Survey: Indoor Ag to Expand, Add More Tech in 2021

Growers expect to add more technology to various forms of indoor farming for the rest of this year and into the next, according to indoor farm analytics company Artemis’ 2020 State of Indoor Farming report released yesterday.

The report, done in partnership with Startle, is based on a survey of 205 enterprise horticulture facilities, including those with high- and mid-tech greenhouses, indoor vertical farms, and container farms. Respondents answered a number of questions related to crop yields, labor, suppliers, and input. Underlying all of these things is the continued march of technology into the indoor farming space.

A commonly known point the report notes is that indoor ag typically requires more technology than traditional agriculture. For example, while glass greenhouses still use natural sunlight, the addition of LEDs can speed up the grow process for plants or provide more light in parts of the world where sunlight isn’t abundant. Meanwhile, more indoor ag companies these days are turning to tech that can help workers manage operations — an especially important point as farms get bigger and bigger.

To that end, survey respondents’ number one reason for implementing tech is “managing operations more efficiently” (39 percent of respondents). Lowering the cost of production (20 percent) and increasing yield (19 percent) were next. Getting better-quality crops, interacting with customers more effectively, and meeting food safety and compliance standards were also on the list.

In the next year, 19 percent of respondents said they plan to implement data and analytics, while 18 percent will add climate control systems and 17 percent will add labor tracking and cultivation management software. Following those items, growers plan to add more LEDs as well as post-harvest automation equipment and organic nutrients. Remote monitoring and automated scales for weight measurements were also mentioned.

The majority of growers, 73 percent, also plan to expand significantly over the next five years, with a combined expansion of 544 acres total. Mid-tech greenhouse companies — glass or polycarbonate greenhouses that use some tech but not “to the full extent possible” — will expand the most, at 206 acres, followed by container farms at 156 acres and indoor vertical farms at 84 acres.

Echoing this, numerous companies in the space have announced expansion plans in the last few months, from vertical farm company Kalera’s ongoing trek west across the U.S. to Square Roots’ expansion of its container farm network and a second 60-acre greenhouse from AppHarvest. In terms of acreage, greenhouses are likely to grow the most, since they typically don’t use vertical farming technology and often grow crops that require more space than the compact leafy greens that are so popular.  

And speaking of leafy greens, those along with herbs still account for almost half of all crops grown via indoor ag right now (26 percent and 20 percent, respectively). Microgreens (16 percent) are next, followed by tomatoes (10 percent). Other crops, such as strawberries, may become more prevalent as companies leverage new technologies and methods for growing indoors.

Red Sea Farms Raises $10M to Grow Crops in Saltwater

Red Sea Farms, a Saudi Arabia-based startup developing technology to grow crops in saltwater, announced today that it has raised $10 million in funding. According to a press announcement, the round was led by a group of Saudi and UAE investors including the Aramco entrepreneurship arm Wa’ed, the non-profit foundation Future Investment Initiative Institute, KAUST and Global Ventures, a UAE venture capital group.

Red Sea Farms is based out of King Abdullah University for Science & Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia. We just covered Red Sea Farms a couple weeks back, writing:

In a nutshell, Red Sea Farms is able to either irrigate land crops with saltwater or grow crops hydroponically using a mixture of 90 percent saltwater and 10 percent fresh water. Right now the company is growing tomatoes through a combination of plant selection, breeding and grafting (but not genetically modifying) in such a way that developed root stocks that can grow in saltwater.

Red Sea Farms is currently applying its technology to both indoor and outdoor trials in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and sells its own brand of tomatoes in markets in Saudi Arabia.

The work Red Sea Farms is doing could create entirely new agricultural possibilities around the world. Countries with abundant coastline and not as much fresh water could become more food independent.

In addition to growing crops in seawater, Red Sea Farms has also developed technology that uses seawater instead of freshwater in evaporative cooling systems to maintain proper temperatures inside greenhouses.

Red Sea Farms said it will use its new funding to build and retrofit more than six hectares of commercial farming in Central and Western Saudi Arabia.

Surge Alert Uses Climate Monitoring Devices and IoT Technolgy to Reduce Food Waste

Food waste occurs at every step of the supply chain from the farm to the consumer’s kitchen, and globally, approximately 30 percent of food produced for human consumption is lost somewhere within this chain. A company called Surge Alert aims to reduce food waste through its climate monitoring devices and 24/7 alerts.

Surge Alert produces what it calls beacons, which are small devices that can be placed in greenhouses, refrigerated transportation, restaurant walk-in fridges and freezers, or throughout a farm. The beacons most importantly measure temperature and humidity, which can quickly cause crops and produce to perish. Another variable measured is light, which effects the rate of which the plant grows and therefore If there is an environmental change (like the temperature getting too hot for example), wherever a beacon is placed, the user receives a notification on the Surge Alert app.

The company trialed the beacons and IoT technology on farms to determine how this solution could reduce food waste at the start of the food supply chain. One example from the trial came from a farm called Geneva Lakes Produce in Wisconsin, which used beacons to monitor a greenhouse. When the temperature dropped considerably on a winter night, the farmer received the temperature notification right away and was able to adjust the temperature before any of the crop spoiled.

It is estimated that the value of food wasted globally is worth around $1 trillion in a single year. Besides Surge Alert, a few other companies are focused on similar climate monitoring solutions to reduce food waste. SensorPush and UbiBot are two competitors both offer a few different sensors that can be used for food, agriculture, in the home, for pets, and other various industries. Some indoor greenhouse companies, like Element Farms and BrightFarms for example, integrate their own technology to monitor light, temperature, and humidity to create optimal conditions for crops within greenhouses.

Surge Alert recently launched an e-commerce platform for its starter kits and additional products, and its customers include individuals, food companies, restaurants, farms, distributors, and buyers from other industries. Currently, the company is offering a special of three months of free cellular data and cloud storage with the purchase of a starter kit. Normally, the hardware for Surge Alert’s beacons starts around $110 with a $14.99 monthly fee for cellular data and cloud storage. In addition to specialized kits for the food and agriculture industry, Surge Alert also offers solutions for hemp growing and storage, wine, cigars, and heat monitoring for pets.

A Peek Inside AppHarvest’s 60-Acre High-Tech Greenhouse in Eastern Kentucky

Ag tech company AppHarvest may only be a few years old, but growth for both the operation and its tomato crops moves at a breakneck pace these days. After shipping its first harvest to stores in late January of this year, AppHarvest proceeded to go public at the start of February and has since broken ground on two more farms, acquired a robotics company, and announced it will soon grow leafy greens and strawberries in addition to tomatoes. 

And while it’s one thing to say the Morehead, Kentucky-based company operates a 60-acre (2.76 million square feet) greenhouse powered by tech and a deep sense of purpose, it’s another thing to actually stand inside the facility and see the future of agriculture changing before one’s very eyes.  

I had the honor of doing just that at the end of last week, when I drove up to Morehead, Kentucky and took a tour of the facility, which literally stretches into the Appalachian horizon as far as the eye can see. Here’s a look at what goes on inside:

Tomatoes grow in long rows like above. AppHarvest trains these Tomatoes on the Vine (TOVs) to grow in clusters of five.

The greenhouse relies primarily on sunlight for plants. Supplemental lighting, hanging above the plants, can be used when sunlight is weak or when the company wants to speed up the growing time of crops. At night, a sheet automatically unrolls to cover the roof so that surrounding neighbors are not disturbed by the lights.  

Tomato roots inside the growth media block. Since the entire greenhouse is hydroponic, no soil is used in the grow process.

Nutrient-enriched water is pumped to the plants via a hydroponic drip system that can deliver precise levels to plants as they need it. 

Autonomous carts shuttle cases of tomatoes to the packing room once the fruit is harvested. 

A high-level (literally) view of the tomato plants. AppHarvest grows about 800,000 plants at once in its 60-acre facility. A forthcoming farm in Richmond, Kentucky, will be almost identical in terms of layout and the amount it can grow.

Reservoirs and a UV filtration system for the facility’s water supply. AppHarvest relies solely on rainwater collected on the building’s roof. Water is pumped from a retention pond into this room before being delivered to plants via drip irrigation. 

The packing room, where tomatoes are assessed and made ready to ship to grocery stores and restaurants. AppHarvest ships to those within a day’s drive, which the company says is about 70 percent of the U.S. population.

As mentioned above, AppHarvest plans to open an almost-identical facility outside of Richmond, Kentucky, and a 15-acre farm in Berea for growing leafy greens. The company said it plans to have 12 farms up and running by 2025. 

The CEA sector as a whole, meanwhile, is currently getting more investment than ever before as companies build out different versions of indoor farms. Modular vertical farms, warehouse-sized vertical farms, at-home farms, vertical greenhouses, and massive operations like those of AppHarvest are all promising solutions that can exist alongside traditional agriculture. The consensus from my visit to AppHarvest last week is that in order to improve the food system and feed a growing global population, we’re going to need all those methods in the future. 

In the meantime, AppHarvest’s TOVs and Beefsteak tomatoes are available at Walmart, Kroger, and Meijer stores in certain parts of the U.S.