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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Modern Farmer

Fifth Season Launches a Direct-to-Consumer Program for Vertically Grown Greens

Vertical farming company Fifth Season, which just opened its first commercial-scale farm outside Pittsburgh, PA, announced today the launch of its direct-to-consumer e-commerce platform and a new partnership to assist the company with expansion.

Fifth Season’s farm uses hydroponics, AI, and robotics to grow what the company hopes will be 500,000 pounds of leafy greens and herbs annually. The robotics element is especially interesting because it allows the company to automate tasks on the farm that would otherwise be difficult for humans to perform — climbing multiple stories to retrieve grow trays, for example. Human still work on the farm, but the addition of robotics brings down some of the labor costs.

The new direct-to-consumer program sells the greens grown on this farm to customers via the company’s new e-commerce site. Products include packs of leafy greens as well as BYO salad kits. And as far as pricing goes, the goods are on par with what you would find in the grocery store: $7.99 for two 5 oz. packs of greens and $17.50 for two salad kits.

Since one of the key points of large-scale vertical farming is to connect consumers with more local produce, right now the e-commerce site only ships to the Pittsburg area. They are also available at a number of Whole Foods and Giant Eagle stores.

The company plans to expand its farming locations into additional parts of the U.S. at some point in the future, although there’s no official timeline for that yet. One thing that may help is a new partnership the company just struck with NHL Hall of Famer and co-owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mario Lemieux. According to today’s press release, the partnership will “accelerate Fifth Season’s expansion plans.”

Large-scale vertical farming continues to attract investment dollars. Earlier this year, Boston, MA-based Freight Farms raised $15 million and also partnered with Sodexo to bring its container farms to U.S. schools. North of the border, Elevate Farms just netted a $10 million investment to bring vertical farming to remote, food-insecure areas of Canada. And Singapore startup SinGrow, which just joined AgFunder’s investment portfolio, aims to grow more than leafy greens, starting with its own proprietary strawberries.

Fifth Season itself has attracted its fair share of investments. It raised a $35 million round in October 2019 led by Drive Capital and including additional investors with ties to Carnegie Mellon University, where the idea for the company was originally born. 

Researchers Hope Sprayable ‘Barcoded’ Microbes Provide Better Food Traceability

While interest in the topic of food traceability has intensified due to a certain pandemic, tracking down the origin of food has been a puzzle scientists were trying to solve long before any of us heard of COVID-19.

Whether it’s food blockchain or edible food sensors, there’s been no shortage of ideas over the last few years for better food provenance. And now, thanks to a team of Harvard researchers, we have a new approach: using sprayable inert bacteria or yeast spores that could act like DNA “barcodes” to help identify us the source of food.

Here’s how the team described their discovery:

We created a synthetic, scalable microbial spore system that identifies object provenance in under 1 hour at meter-scale resolution and near single-spore sensitivity and can be safely introduced into and recovered from the environment.

What’s interesting to me is how durable the spores are, detectable all the way to the consumer plate as they withstand the cooking process.

To test out their idea, the researchers tested the microbes across various surfaces and put them through the paces of washing, frying and more.

From the New Scientist:

The team then sprayed the spores on various surfaces including sand, soil, carpet and wood. They were able to detect them three months later even on surfaces that were swept or vacuumed, or subjected to simulated wind or rain.

Next the spores were sprayed on plants growing in pots. A week later, the team were able to identify which pot a leaf came from. To their surprise, the spores remained detectable even after washing, boiling, frying and microwaving. So if unique spores were sprayed on crops at different farms before harvesting, authorities could rapidly find out where any specific produce came from.

While the idea of putting inert spores on food holds significant potential as a way to help during outbreaks of food-borne disease, unlike other approaches like blockchain, this approach would not give us visibility into the myriad stops a food travels on its way to the consumer plate beyond its original source of origin. That said, it’s a promising new approach as we move towards a post-COVID world where food source tracking is fast becoming a requirement.

What’s Next for Vertical Farming? Proprietary Strawberries and Other Non-Leafy Produce

Agtech investment firm AgFunder announced this week that it has added agtech company SinGrow to its investment portfolio for an undisclosed sum. AgFunder founding partner Michael Dean wrote in a post that SinGrow “isn’t just looking to be another vertical farmer selling leafy greens.” Instead, the company uses a combination of plant biology, hydroponic vertical farming, and other technologies to grow what it hopes will be a range of produce types, starting with its own novel varieties of strawberries. 

As Dean lays out in his post, SinGrow has developed a vertical farming solution that addresses every stage of a plant’s agricultural journey, from breeding to harvesting. (Most vertical farm solutions do not address plant breeding.) It breeds strawberry varieties adapted to humid weather, and has two proprietary strawberry cultivators specifically developed for Singapore’s tropical climate. Both of those things mean SinGrow’s system uses less energy because it needs less air conditioning pumped in to cool the facility and reach the ideal growing temperature for the strawberries.

The company also grows the plants on a strawberry-specific rack it has developed, where the plants grow outward instead of upward. That in turn allows a harvesting robot to to drive alongside the rack and simply snip the strawberries off rather than pick them. 

Why strawberries? Well, first, they’ve been a hobby of SinGrow cofounder Bao Shengjie, who has been cross-breeding strawberry seeds since 2016. That particular fruit was of interest to the founders because it’s difficult to actually get in Singapore, at least at an affordable price point. SinGrow lists expense, poor taste, and an unstable supply chain as reasons strawberries are difficult for the average consumer to buy in that region.

The company has this neat explainer video that delves more into the specifics on how it grows its strawberries.

Singapore also relies on imports for about 90 percent of its foods, hence the Singaporean government’s 30x30 initiative launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Singapore should have 30 percent of its foods produced domestically by 2030. 

On that note, SinGrow hopes to soon move beyond strawberries to grow grapes, saffron, and other crops, according to Dean’s post.

A (very small) handful of companies are also exploring what else they can grow beyond the leafy green. UK-based Phytoponics is trialing a system for plants like cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. And a while back, San Francisco startup Plenty said it wanted to grow “exotic” produce on its farm Tigris. To date, though, the company’s website still offers only leafy green varieties.

If a company like SinGrow can show others how to use biology, technology, and farming to grow a greater assortment of produce items, it could change vertical farming’s role in our system from an add-on method to a primary source for getting certain fruits and vegetables. It’s early days yet, but the technology looks to be moving in that direction. 

GrowSquares Will Personalize Your Garden With Data Science, Microbiology, Feathers

“High-tech gardening” usually brings to mind the automated indoor vertical farming devices everyone from startups to major appliance makers are pushing these days. Those are great for time-strapped folks or those who tend to just kill plants. But for people who want to keep their hands in the soil, technology in the smart garden will need to play a different role — that of assisting the human rather than automating their entire process.

NYC-based GrowSquares has found a way to leave the human element in the gardening process while still taking advantage of tech to improve the grow process. 

“We’re the opposite of automated gardening,” GrowSquares CEO Zachary Witman said over the phone last week.

The company uses data science (advanced LIDAR and location data) as well as microbiology to determine the best plants for a specific user’s space as well as the most optimal elements to include in the soil. An accompanying app then helps the user monitor the plants, though watering and feeding them are still manual tasks.

“We look at sun, wind, taxonomy of the soil. We capture those things and then using a lot of data science we create a microenvironmental profile and say, ‘Based upon this, the attributes of your space, (time of year, etc.) these are the plants that will grow best,'” Witman explained.

Users see a scoring system where plants are rated Optimal, Good, Fair, and Poor based on location data. For example, in Nashville, TN, Basil grown at my address gets a score of 93 for this time of year, which means it’s an optimal plant for growing right now. Spinach, on the other hand, just scores 51, making it a bad fit for my backyard at the moment.

The system can actually get even more granular in terms of a users’s location than just their city. Using a customer’s geo-coordinates, the company then uses data science and machine learning models to determine which plants are best for that particular user’s garden. The recommendations may or may not be the same as the person two doors down.

“We break down each individual client’s soil. Fidelity of our data showcases the difference between you and your neighbor.”

Once a user has purchased the right plants, GrowSquares sends the necessary seeds along with optimal spacing and depth and a soil formulation for your individual garden. That might include green sand, coconut husks, feather, alfalfa, or other elements the company uses to formulate soil. Meanwhile, the app also sends notifications for when it’s time to water the plants and time to harvest them.

The actual squares in which the plants grow are made of palm leaf that naturally decomposes over time. Since it’s a modular system, users can add more squares over time, and the squares can be configured to fit different environments, balconies, backyards, and rooftops among them. Since the squares decompose, they actually replenish the soil. 

Like other consumer-grade smart garden companies, GrowSquares has seen an uptick in sales thanks to the pandemic. Witman told me the company started out servicing just three cities, Boston, New York City, and Los Angeles. Because of COVID-19, demand spiked and GrowSquares went national — a decision that’s temporary stressed the supply chain. Right now, new users must reserve their GrowSquares and wait, though Witman told me it would not be too long before things return to normal. 

He was also cautious to attribute too much of the product’s popularity to the pandemic. “I think everybody has their own reason for why they want to garden,” he said. The pandemic is one, but so is a desire to eat locally or the wish to avoid industrial-scale farming companies. And for some, going out to the balcony or backyard to grab some herbs is just easier than ordering them via Whole Foods or going to the store.

Rise Gardens Raises $2.6M in Fresh Funding for Its At-Home Hydroponics Platform

Chicago-based startup Rise Gardens has raised $2.6 million in seed funding for its indoor grow system, according to TechCrunch. The round was led by True Ventures. 

Rise is one of a growing number of companies making self-contained indoor farms designed not for mass production of leafy greens, but for the average person’s home or apartment. The hardware-software system looks like a piece of furniture, requires minimal setup by the user, and is controlled via a smartphone app. In theory, at least, that means you don’t need a degree in agricultural studies or even a good track record with gardening to grow herbs and lettuces for your own personal meals.

That’s where the Rise Gardens app comes into play. When we spoke in January of this year, Rise’s Head of Product and Strategy, Diego Blondet, explained how the app automates tasks in the growing process a farmer would normally do, such as calculating the temperature of the farm, determining nutrition and pH levels, and figuring out when to water. Rise’s app works with a sensor that automates those calculations and notifies users when it’s time to water or feed their plants.

Blondet also said he believes automated indoor farming will make its way into the design of most kitchens at some point in the future. In fact, that’s already happening, with 2020 so far being a year when startups and large appliance-makers alike have unveiled indoor farming devices designed for the average home. Seedo, Verdeat, the Planty Cube, LG, and GE are all on that list. 

As The Spoon’s Publisher Michael Wolf pointed out not long ago, the COVID-19 pandemic could accelerate average folks’ adoption of indoor farming. The recent panic buying spree reminded us that grocery store supplies aren’t infinite, and that there are glaring issues with our current food supply chain. As Mike said:

“As the coronavirus has forced all of us to think more about our food supply, some consumers have gone beyond just buying a little extra food to store away. Now they are thinking about how we could ensure access to food independent of breakdowns in the system.”

Rise Gardens’ founder Hank Adams told TechCrunch that since shelter-in-place orders landed in the U.S., the company has seen a 750 percent increase in sales. 

Heads of lettuce won’t feed a family of four, of course, but according to Adams, Rise looks at itself as more of a supplement to your weekly groceries, rather than a replacement. Which is, frankly, one of the more honest takes on indoor vertical farming, an industry that’s often been praised as being the future of agriculture but still can’t grow a root vegetable. 

Since leafy greens are difficult to ship because of their delicate nature, they’re an obvious area for vertical farming to target. Few at-home systems currently allow for the volume of greens the average family, or even the average person, would need in a given week. Since Rise’s system is a little bigger as well as modular (you can add shelves to it over time), it could provide a good blueprint for what at-home vertical farms should look like when they start to become the norm in kitchen design.

Chipotle Announces the Eight Ventures for Its Second Aluminaries Project Accelerator Program

Chipotle today unveiled the eight ventures selected for the second class of its Chipotle Aluminaries Project, the food-focused accelerator program the company does in partnership with non-profit Uncharted. This year’s company’s are all growth-stage startups addressing the problems currently facing young farmers and small farms, reliable access to farmland being a major one.

Around the U.S., the average price of farm real estate has more than doubled, according to the National Young Farmers Coalition. The Coalition also notes that over the next five years, almost 100 million acres of farmland will change hands, and that at least some of it will go towards non-agricultural uses. 

Given that diminished access to land, the bulk of the companies and organizations chosen for Chipotle’s Aluminaries Project 2.0 are developing solutions to address the land access issue:

  • Agrarian Trust is a land trust working to acquire and hold farmland and provide farmers access to it through long-term leases.
  • American Farmland Trust helps new farmers gain access to land through national and localized networks and services in order to transfer farms from one generation to the next.
  • Demeter Mobile uses an app to pair growers with service providers (harvesting, sweeping, etc.).
  • Farm Commons provides legal resources to farmers.
  • F.A.R.M.S also offers legal services to the farming community.
  • Rogue Farm Corps provides farm-training programs in agricultural communities across Oregon.
  • Sustainable Iowa Land Trust protects Iowa’s farmland.
  • Viva Farms provides bilingual training in organic farming practices, as well as access to land, infrastructure, equipment, marketing, and capital.

The selected companies participate in the seven-month-long program, which connects them with mentors, potential investors, and support from Chipotle executives as well as others from around the food industry. While most of the program is conducted virtually, there is a five-day in-person summit companies attend in Newport Beach, CA. There’s no cash investment involved, but participants do get free burritos. 

Chipotle launched the Aluminaries Project in 2019. It has so far seen participation from ImpactVision, Sophie’s Kitchen, and AgVoice, among others.   

 

GROW Accelerator Launches a New AgTech Program: Singapore Food Bowl

AgFunder’s Southeast Asia foodtech accelerator GROW announced this week the launch of a new program focused specifically on food security. Dubbed Singapore Food Bowl, the program invites startups working to build “more resilient, decentralized agrifood ecosystems.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed a lot of light on just how flawed the global food system is, from how we grow and raise food to how we get it across borders and into markets. “The lockdowns and disruptions triggered by COVID-19 have shown the fragility of people’s access to essential goods and services,” the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems wrote in April.

AgFunder highlighted the need for more localized food systems in its announcement this week, and that’s where Singapore Food Bowl comes in. Singapore is the second most densely populated country in the world and relies almost solely on imports to feed its people. The government in Singapore launched its 30×30 goal last year, which aims to produce 30 percent of the country’s food locally by 2030. And in April 2020, the government unveiled the 30×30 Express Grant that will boost local production of eggs, fish, and leafy greens via a $21 million (USD) fund.

Given that, Singapore Food Bowl is looking for companies that can contribute to those goals. The program has initial support from both Enterprise Singapore and Dole Packaged Foods.

As far as program participants, GROW is looking for companies developing new technologies that can “materially improve productivity in the areas aligned with Singapore’s 30×30 food pillars, namely protein production and leafy greens,” according to the program’s website. Think vertical farming solutions and alternative protein methods and ingredients.

The 12-week program is completely virtual, and participants should expect to commit 1–2 hours per day, three days a week, for program work. According to the announcement, prospective applicants should be incorporated in Singapore or come from the Asia-Pacific region. They will also need a minimum viable product to be accepted into the program. 

In addition to curriculum, program participants get access to mentors and potential investors, as well as the chance to participate in a virtual demo day at the end of the program. There is also the opportunity to secure future investment from AgFunder and its co-investment partners. 

Applications are open until June 7, 2020.    

Elevate Farms Gets a $10M Investment to Build Vertical Farms in Remote, Food-Insecure Corners of Canada

Canada-based Elevate Farms has entered into an agreement with North Star Agriculture Corp. for an initial buildout commitment of $10 million (USD) to bring Elevate’s vertical farming technology to isolated parts of Northern Canada. The two companies will develop a series of large-scale automated vertical farming facilities in the Yukon and other Canadian territories. The farms will produce about 1 million pounds of leafy greens per year.

Elevate uses a proprietary vertical farming system that relies on hydroponics, patented LED technology, and automation to grow leafy greens and herbs in climate-controlled environments. Like other vertical farming companies, the company claims its indoor agricultural methods use less resources (e.g., water) and require less human labor, which is in major shortage in the agricultural industry right now.

The company closed a $1.8 million seed round led by Brightspark Ventures in February of this year.

Elevate founder and CEO Amin Jadavji said in this week’s press release that the buildout of these new farming facilities will bring more food security and nutrition to “particularly isolated and vulnerable regions of Canada.”

Food security in Northern Canada is a major issue, as communities tend to be remote and food distribution is more difficult and expensive than it would be in more densely populated regions. There’s also the fact that you can’t grow produce outdoors 24/7 based on the climate of the area. North Star Agriculture Group, which is based in the Yukon city of Whitehorse, has been especially active in raising the volume on the dialogue about food insecurity and looking for ways to bring more agricultural infrastructure to the region.

While leafy greens by themselves can’t save an insecure food system (man cannot live by basil alone), of all the produce types, they tend to be the most delicate and perishable, which makes them a priority when it comes to providing food locally. 

At the same time, vertical farming is at a point where it needs to prove itself in terms of its ability to provide fresh, local food to surrounding communities at affordable prices. To do that, companies will need to be able to scale to the levels of producing millions of heads of lettuce without incurring astronomical expenditures themselves. 

Up to now, most large-scale vertical farming operations are in or nearby large cities and supply grocery stores and specialty food markets. If the partnership between Elevate and North Start Agriculture Corp. proves plentiful (literally and figuratively), it could be the blueprint for a new use case for large-scale vertical farming, and further evolve the technology’s role in the future of the agricultural system.

Dairy Farmers of America Unveils the 9 Companies Selected for Its Latest Accelerator Cohort

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) announced this week the companies chosen to participate in the 2020 cohort of its food-focused startup accelerator. Nine companies were chosen for this cohort, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Among them are a company that makes premium spirits from whey and one that uses excess milk to make t-shirts.

The DFA itself is a cooperative of family farmers that was formed in 1998 and now counts about 13,000 members from dairy farms around the U.S. The accelerator program works with companies using technology to improve aspects of the farming system. Past participants include ripe.io, which uses blockchain to improve supply chain transparency, and Labby, whose AI-powered smartphone app can test milk onsite and save farmers the time and money it takes to send samples to a lab.

Besides giving companies a foothold in the agtech industry, the program also connects DFA with startups, which are typically more agile and innovative than traditional agricultural companies. “[We] needed a way to partner with someone who could [get us] on the right path and get in front of some new technologies,” DFA’s director of innovation Doug Dressler told me last year.

Program participants receive mentorship and guidance around product development, marketing, and business development, connect with potential investors, and participate in a demo day at the end of the cohort.

The program runs for 90 days and is typically a combination of offsite, virtual programming and onsite work at the DFA headquarters in Kansas City, KS. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, virtual programming is particularly important to this cohort. The DFA said in its email to The Spoon that the first program will kick off remotely and rely heavily on “digital training tools and resources” for at least the start of the cohort.

It’s a tactic currently being used by other startup accelerators, including Food-X and the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator. How much of the DFA’s program will be virtual versus onsite remains to be seen. Program coordinators hope to have onsite work available by July. 

Today’s press announcement describes the nine chosen companies as follows:

  • Armenta (Ra’anana, Israel): a non-invasive technology for antibiotic-free treatment of bovine mastitis.
  • Capro-X (Ithaca, N.Y.): a sustainable solution for whey waste from Greek yogurt production.
  • Livestock Water Recycling (Calgary, Alberta, Canada): a manure treatment technology, which recycles 75% of manure into clean water while segregating manure nutrients for precision fertilizer application.
  • Mi Terro (Los Angeles, Calif.): a sustainable fashion brand that uses excess milk to make men’s and women’s t-shirts.
  • Chank’s Grab-N-Go (Millville, N.J.): a handheld snack company featuring pizza cones, philly cheesesteak cones and more.
  • GoodSport (Chicago, Ill.): a sports drink made from milk which uses only natural ingredients and has naturally occurring electrolytes and vitamins.
  • SuperFrau (Cambridge, Mass.): electrolyte drinks made from upcycling surplus whey, with real ingredients and no added sugars.
  • Wheyward Spirit (Eugene, Ore.): premium spirit made from whey.
  • Yaar Nordic Quark Bar (London, U.K.): Nordic chilled dairy snacks made with fresh quark, a mixture of cow’s milk and natural lactic acid.

The 2020 cohort is currently in session and runs until the July 30 demo day.

Hydroponics Startup Phytoponics Raises £500,000 to Grow More Than Leafy Greens

Phytoponics, a UK-based company that designs and deploys hydroponic farming systems, announced this week it had completed a £500,000 (~$627,352 USD) equity financing round. The round was led by existing shareholders with match funding provided by the Development Bank of Wales, according to a brief from AgFunder News.

The company designs and manufactures deep water culture hydroponic systems for commercial farmers growing plants in controlled environments. With the deep water culture growing methods, plants’ roots are suspended in “rafts” of nutrient-enriched water, eliminating the need for any soli during the grow process. Phytoponics has its own proprietary design of this method, which the company says is suitable for large scale commercial crop production. 

Phytoponics CEO Andy Jones told AFN that one of the advantages of deep water culture is that it allows for “much more consistent control of the root zone” for plants, which helps avoid oxygen depletion and can in turn generate more plant growth.

Importantly, the company is also trialing its system for what Jones calls “energy-dense crops” such as cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers. To date, indoor hydroponic farming is mostly used for growing leafy greens and herbs, which require less space and resources per plant to grow. That limitation, however, has long called into question the overall usefulness of hydroponic farming as a key part of the future food system. It’s all well and good to say that these controlled-environment farming systems will help feed the growing global population. But man cannot live by basil alone.

One metric that could be key to growing non-leafy-green crops is whether methods like deep water culture actually do save resources. Most companies, Phytoponics included, tout sustainability as a benefit. As yet, though, we have no extensive data about how much water and energy the method saves, nor how cost-effective it is to do at scale. If we want to grow more cucumbers indoors, we need more data about what works and what doesn’t.

Phytoponics currently has a few different controlled-environment farms where it is using its own deep water culture systems to test out growing more energy-dense crops. The company says it will use the funds for further trials of its technology. 

Farmshelf Unveils Its First Consumer-facing Vertical Farming Unit

Farmshelf, the vertical farming company best known for outfitting restaurants with its high-tech indoor farms, today unveiled its first-ever consumer-facing product, according to a company press release.

Dubbed Farmshelf Home, the new product is similar to the company’s commercial model championed by high-profile chefs like José Andrés. It’s roughly the size of a bookcase and uses a combination of sensors, cameras, software, and custom LEDs to automatically deliver the correct levels of water, light, and nutrients to each plant growing in the farm.

For the average consumer, that means once the farm arrives, it’s a matter of plugging it into a wall, connecting it to wifi, setting seeds in pods, then remotely monitoring the hydroponic system from a corresponding smartphone app.

Farmshelf Home is available to pre-order through the company’s website. Though it ain’t cheap: the company lists the “exclusive pre-order price” at $4,950, while the standard retail price will be set at $6,450. There is a $100 deposit (applied to the price and also refundable) as well as a monthly $35 fee that covers seed pods, nutrients, and access to the Farmshelf software for monitoring plants. At the moment, those interested only need to hand over the deposit to sign up for a pre-order. According to the fine print, there is no firm delivery date yet.

Three months ago, I would have called the high price point a deterrent for most people. Certainly, the average American family won’t be purchasing a Farmshelf anytime soon.

But those in higher income brackets may. A global pandemic has revealed just how out of whack our food supply chain is and what happens when people panic shop in droves and grocery stores can’t keep up, factors that might justify the price point for some folks. The Spoon’s Publisher Michael Wolf pointed out recently that “As the coronavirus has forced all of us to think more about our food supply, some consumers have gone beyond just buying a little extra food to store away. Now they are thinking about how we could ensure access to food independent of breakdowns in the system.”

Now we have to see whether consumers will pay thousands of dollars to ensure that independence. More at-home vertical farming companies were coming to market even before the pandemic, with large appliance makers like Samsung, LG, and Miele announcing high-tech gardens meant for your kitchen or living room. They range in price from the hundreds to the thousands, though not quite as high as Farmshelf.

Currently, Farmshelf is in a number of restaurants and hotels, including NYC chain Tender Greens, Marriott Marquis Times Square, and the Condé Nast offices. Angel network she1K syndicated an early-stage investment in the company at the end of last year.

InFarm’s High-Tech Vertical Farms Head to Canadian Grocery Stores

InFarm is bringing its in-store vertical farming systems to Empire supermarkets across Canada, according to a press release from Empire. The partnership will launch this coming spring and put InFarms’s high-tech farm pods in stores across that country, including at Empire subsidiaries Sobeys, Thrifty Foods, and Safeway Canada. 

Berlin-based InFarm, which raised $100 million in June of 2019, has struck multiple deals with grocery store chains around the world over the last several months, including Irma in Denmark, M&S in the UK, and Kroger stores in the U.S. The company is one of many startups developing vertical and/or indoor farming solutions meant to shorten the food supply chain by growing greens closer to food stores.

With InFarm, that means growing those leafy greens and herbs inside the produce section of stores. The company’s indoor farms come in the form of enclosed pods that use the hydroponic grow method, meaning plant roots are submerged in a nutrient-enriched water supply and no soil is involved. Cloud-based software controls the temperature, watering schedule, and light and humidity levels of the farms, adjusting those elements based on plant type. 

There are two major benefits to this in-store approach to vertical farming. Zero pesticides are used in the grow process, and greens can be harvested onsite, reducing carbon emissions since food doesn’t have to be transported to the store from a distribution center. 

Better-tasting greens is another one of InFarm’s claims. By precisely adjusting light, temperature, water levels, and other elements, vertical farmers can create ideal growing “recipes” for each plant type meant to bring out the optimal amount of flavor.

Many vertical farming companies make this claim, along with those about reduced water usage and carbon footprint. What the indoor ag industry needs next is more public data backing these claims up. With other companies — notably Square Roots and Freight Farms — striking deals of their own to get vertical farms closer to food stores, more hard numbers will be needed to show us when, where, and how these high-tech farms can be most useful in the overall food system.

InFarm will launch a range of herbs at two Safeway stores in Vancouver this spring, according to the press release, and Empire will also put farms in stores across seven Canadian cities.