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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Vertical Farming

AeroFarms to Go Public Via SPAC Deal

Large-scale vertical farming company AeroFarms announced today it will go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. Once the deal goes through, AeroFarms will become publicly traded on the Nasdaq under the ARFM ticker symbol. The combined company is expected to have an estimated equity value of about $1.2 billion.

Certified B Corporation AeroFarms also noted that the deal will help to fund things like expanding retail distribution, constructing additional farms, and further developing the technology that powers the company’s growing operations. 

Headquartered in Newark, New Jersey, AeroFarms grows leafy greens via indoor vertical farms that rely on LED light recipes, hydroponics, and software to grow plants. The company, which has raised $238 million to date, currently distributes products in the New York Metro Area as well as online via Whole Foods, FreshDirect, AmazonFresh, and Shop Rite.

The announcement comes not long after another controlled-environment agriculture company, AppHarvest, also went public via SPAC earlier this year. AppHarvest (also a Certified B Corp) completed a merger with Novus Capital Corp. and began trading on the Nasdaq on February 1. Its high-tech greenhouse model differs considerably from AeroFarms in terms of both the facility and the crops, but the end goal is similar — get pesticide-free, more locally grown produce to more people.

IPOs aside, it has been a busy month for the indoor farming space, with vertical farms Plenty and Bowery both expanding their retail footprint, Sweden’s Grönska raising $2.4 million, and Bablyon Microfarms closing a $3 million seed round.

AeroFarms said today that the merger has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both it and Spring Valley, and now just needs the approval of Spring Valley shareholders.  

Bowery Farming Brings Its Vertically Grown Greens to Albertsons Stores

Indoor ag company Bowery Farming announced today a partnership with Albertsons that will put Bowery’s vertically grown greens into hundreds of grocery stores. From today, Bowery produce is available at an initial 275 Albertsons-owned Safeway and Acme stores in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S.

To start, Bowery’s most popular products will be available at these stores. That includes a few different lettuce varieties as well as basil. All crops are grown in vertically stacked trays inside Bowery’s commercial-scale farms, which use a hydroponic system and a proprietary software platform that controls conditions inside the farm, such as temperature, humidity, and light intensity.

The system can also, through more advanced automation, detect potential problems with plants before they happen. This in turn can lead to better overall yields and higher-quality food that tastes better for consumers. 

Speaking of that technology. Bowery founder and CEO Irving Fain told me earlier this year that “The system [for] indoor farming that you choose has a direct impact on the crops you’ll be able to grow, on the margins you’ll be able to generate, and on the return profile of the business itself.”

Bowery is also at work on its most technologically advanced farm to-date, which will open in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania later in 2021.  

The company’s retail expansion comes at the same time indoor ag’s presence in mainstream grocery stores is on the uptick. Plenty, which operates commercial-scale vertical farms on the West Coast, just expanded its own Albertsons partnership in California. Kalera has partnerships with Publix stores around the U.S., and InFarm, based in Berlin, Germany, has come stateside in the last year via a deal with Kroger.

A demand for more local, traceable food is one reason for indoor ag’s increased presence in the grocery store. When we spoke, Fain noted that vertical farming can provide a more efficient, reliable way to get fresh produce into the hands of more customers.  

Bowery’s completion of its Pennsylvania farm, which is slated to be the company’s largest to date, will allow for further expansion into grocery stores around the East Coast. 

Eden Green Technology Nabs $12M for Its Vertical Farm-Greenhouse Combo

Vertical farming company Eden Green Technology announced this week it has raised $12 million from existing investment partners and broken ground on a new greenhouse in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. The new farm is located news next to Eden’s R&D center, and will produce about 500 tons of leafy greens annually, the company said in a press release.

Eden’s approach to controlled-environment agriculture is unusual in that it combines elements of both vertical farming and greenhouse growing. While plants are powered by a vertical hydroponic vine system (see image above), the farm relies largely on the sun for light, rather replicating sunlight with LEDs, as most large-scale vertical farming companies do. Accompanying software, what the company calls its “micro-climate technology,” controls humidity and temperature levels for each plant. 

Besides building a farm in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, Eden also licenses its farms out as “turnkey” options for food producers, retailers and even whole cities. The 1.5-acre farms can grow a variety of leafy greens and herbs, strawberries, peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers, among other produce types. Eden says each farm can yield between 11 and 13 harvests each year, depending on produce type. The company manages the construction of each farm as well as staff training and technology customization. 

The vertical farming industry is right now split between commercial-scale farms like Plenty and AeroFarms, and those companies like InFarm or Babylon Microfarms, which are more focused on selling or licensing their hardware and software to other companies.

Eden Green Technology sits somewhere between those two areas, since it produces its own greens but also sells its technology to other organizations. The company’s use of sunlight rather than LEDs is another factor that sets it apart in the vertical farming industry. 

The company said in this week’s press release that it plans to expand its partnerships beyond Texas, to new locations both domestically and internationally. So far, more than 20 of these partnerships are predicted to be in place by 2024.  

Kalera Expands Its Vertical Farm Network to Minnesota

Vertical farming company Kalera today announced its plans to open a commercial growing facility in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is the eighth farm that is either open or in the works for Orlando, Florida-based Kalera. 

For a long time, Kalera primarily served the hospitality industry in Orlando with its HyCube vertical farming facility. The company broke ground on another and bigger location in that city in 2019. At the time, the company planned to focus mainly on the Southeastern region of the U.S.

The pandemic, of course, changed all that. With most restaurants shut down or fulfilling lower order volumes, Kalera pivoted to retail via a partnership with grocery store chain Publix in 2020. The company also started expanding beyond the Southeast U.S. and is now, in terms of geographical footprint, one of the fastest-growing commercial vertical farming companies. 

Kalera’s controlled environment farms use a mix of hydroponics, sensors, LEDs, and some automation to grow a variety of leafy greens. Besides the two facilities in Orlando, the company also operates a farm in Atlanta, which just opened. Facilities in Houston, Denver, Columbus (Ohio), Seattle, and Hawaii are currently under construction. The company says that once all of these farms plus the Minnesota facility are open, Kalera will have a total projected yield of “tens of millions of heads of lettuce per year, or the equivalent of over 1,000 acres of traditional field farms,” according to today’s press release.

Kalera’s announcement comes just days after a slew of other new developments in the controlled environment agriculture space. Last week alone, Babylon Microfarms and Grönska both announced funding rounds and Plenty expanded into new grocery retailers in California. Prior to that GoodLeaf Farms announced plans to expand across Canada and InFarm unveiled its modular commercial-scale farms.

For its part, Kalera also recently acquired Vindara, a company that develops seeds specifically bred for indoor farming environments.  

Sweden’s Grönska Raises $2.4M to Expand Its Vertical Farming Operation

Swedish vertical farming company Grönska announced today it has raised 20.5 million SEK (~$2.4 million). Investors in the round include 82an Invest, PEAS Industries, Rite Ventures, Martas Explorers, Daniel Sachs AB, and Investor Group led by Tectonic Shift.

There are two different parts of Grönska’s business. The company grows leafy greens in a fully controlled vertical farming environment, then sells the produce via retailers and restaurants, including Coop, ICA, and Urban Deli. 

The company also recently launched its GrowOff cultivation system, which is a smaller, five-story controlled-environment grow system. Grönska ships pre-seeded trays to users, who can track plant growth from a corresponding smartphone app. While theoretically the system could work anywhere, its size — on par with Farm.One and Babylon Microfarms — is probably best suited to a grocery store or restaurant environment. 

Europe has historically been known more for greenhouse technology than the massive vertical farms rapidly expanding across the U.S. However there is a growing number of startups in Europe now using the vertical method. Last year, Nordic Harvest struck a deal with Taiwan-based Yes Health Group to build out a massive vertical farm outside of Copenhagen, Denmark. On a smaller scale, Berlin, Germany’s InFarm has expanded its pod-like vertical farms across numerous grocery retail stores in the U.S. and Europe. Meanwhile, Finland’s iFarm licensees its grow system to other companies in Europe and the Middle East.

Grönska said in today’s press release that it is seeing high demand for GrowOff. Moving forward, the company’s focus will be on increasing sales and production in Sweden and around Europe. This week’s funding round will also allow Grönska to further develop the technology powering both its farm and its GrowOff systems.

Oishii Raises $50M to Raise More High-End, Vertically Grown Strawberries

Vertical farming company Oishii has raised $50 million in Series A funding, according to a press release sent to The Spoon today. The round was led by SPARX Group’s Mirai Creation Fund II, with participation from Sony Innovation Fund, PKSHA Technology, Social Starts, and several angel investors. It brings Oishii’s total funding to date to $55 million.

With the new funds, Oishii will expand its flagship vertical farm, which is located just outside of New York City. Unlike the majority of companies currently in the vertical farming space, Oishii does does not grow the standard leafy greens and herbs. Instead, the company grows strawberries — specifically, the Omakase variety.

The Omakase Berry typically only grows for a short part of the year in a very specific region of Japan. Oishii founder and CEO Hiroki Koga decided, when building out his vertical farm, to attempt to replicate the elements of a perfect day in Japan (e.g., humidity levels, light) inside a controlled-environment farm in the U.S. The realist is an Omakase Berry that can grow 365 days per year.

The Oishii grow system combines the automation technologies found on many vertical farms today with traditional strawberry cultivation methods developed in Japan specifically for the Omakase berry.

Oishii first introduced its berries in 2018; they are currently available for pickup and delivery in New York City. As produce goes, these products aren’t cheap. A pack of eight strawberries goes for $50, not including delivery fees or tip. Berries are also available at select retailers around New York City, most of them high-end speciality food shops.

Given its price point and limited availability, Oishii’s Omakase Berry is probably not destined to reach huge numbers of consumers — the goal of many other controlled ag farming operations. Instead, the mission seems to be about providing U.S.-based consumers with the experience of tasting something they would ordinarily only be able to get in one tiny region at one time of year.

Oishii said that this week’s funding will go also go towards developing other varieties of strawberries as well as growing other types of produce, such as tomatoes.

The company joins SinGrow, Plenty, and others in moving vertical farming beyond leafy greens. 

Plenty Expands to More Stores in Northern California, Launches Text-a-Farmer Feature

Vertical farming company Plenty today announced an expansion to 17 more Safeway stores across Northern California, as well as a new tech feature that lets shoppers text Plenty’s farmers directly.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the Northern California expansion is part of the multi-year deal between Plenty and Safeway parent company Albertsons. Through that deal, leafy greens grown in Plenty’s controlled-environment vertical farming facility in the San Francisco Bay Area get shipped to Albertsons stores up and down California. The goal is to eventually get plenty’s produce into more than 430 Albertsons stores, including those under the Safeway and Vons brands.

Simultaneous to this expansion is the launch of what Plenty calls its Text-a-Farmer feature. The tool functions much like its name suggests. A sign in the grocery store’s produce section will display a number users can text questions to. Those questions can be about anything related to Plenty’s produce, from “How should I store my greens?” to “Is your packaging recyclable?” Plenty farmers answer the questions in real time via text with the customer.

The Text-a-Farmer feature will be available at stores selling Plenty’s produce. The idea is to give shoppers more information about their food while they are still in the store.

Commercial-scale vertical farming as a whole, meanwhile, continues to expand, raking in the investment dollars in the process. Bowery, based on the East Coast U.S., recently announced its most “technologically advanced” farm to date, while Orlando, Florida-based Kalera is building out facilities across the U.S., including Colorado and Texas. On the investment front, GoodLeaf just raised $65 million to expand across Canada, Stockholm, Sweden-based Urban Oasis raised $1.2 million, and Plenty itself nabbed $140 million. The latter happened this past October.

Around the time of that investment, Plenty also announced a partnership with Driscoll’s to grow strawberries via vertical farming. Plenty also operates a farm in Compton, California, to service southern parts of the state. 

GoodLeaf Farms Raises $65M, Plans Vertical Farm Expansion Across Canada

GoodLeaf Farms announced this week it has raised more than $65 million from food manufacturer McCain Foods and is set to embark on “an aggressive growth and expansion plan” for its network of vertical farms, according to an email sent to The Spoon.

Based in Ontario, Canada, GoodLeaf grows leafy greens inside a controlled-environment vertical farm via hydroponics and its own proprietary tech setup that controls light, temperature, and humidity levels, as well as other elements on the farm. The company opened its first farm in 2019 in Guelph, Ontario. According to this week’s press release, two more farms are slated to open in Canada 2021: one in the Eastern side of the country and one out west. Exact locations will be announced soon.

“It is our intention to build farms that support the Canadian grocery store network, food service industry and consumers,” GoodLeaf CEO Barry Murchie said in a statement sent to The Spoon. Currently, the company provides greens to a number of brick-and-mortar as well as grocery stores servicing Ontario, including Fortinos, Whole Foods, and Bondi Produce.

One of GoodLeaf’s goal with its farms is to produce greens closer to where Canadian consumers actually shop for food, rather than these consumers having to buy produce shipped from the U.S. and Mexico. It’s a goal echoed by other Canadian control ag companies, including Lufa Farms, which is growing greens on Montreal rooftops, and Elevate Farms, which is bringing vertical farming to food-insecure areas in the country. Bringing production closer to consumers also means fewer miles to transport the food, which is better for the environment.

With its forthcoming farms, GoodLeaf will serve more grocery outlets as well as foodservice businesses beyond Ontario and across Canada.

Kalera Acquires Vindara to Optimize Seed Breeding for Indoor Vertical Farming

Vertical farming company Kalera announced this week it has acquired Vindara, a company developing seeds specifically for the indoor vertical farming environment and other controlled environment agriculture methods. With this acquisition, Kalera says it can increase both crop yield and the speed of growth cycles in its current and future facilities.

Kalera currently has two commercial-scale vertical farms in operation, both in Orlando, Florida. The company is also expanding rapidly, with new locations across the U.S. in the works. Facilities in Atlanta, Denver, and Houston are slated to open in 2021.

Typically, seeds for outdoor farming are bred to resist things like disease and pests. The drawback of that method is that plant flavor, texture, and nutritional profile is often sacrificed in the process. But in a fully controlled indoor grow environment like a vertical farm, pests are nonexistent and growers and systems have better control over monitoring the danger of plant diseases. 

That gives companies like Vindara an opportunity to produce seeds bred for flavor, color, nutritional content, and better overall quality. The company combines genomics, machine learning and computational biology with traditional breeding techniques to get its seeds, which are non-GMO and which Vindara says take 12 to 18 months to develop, rather than the standard five to seven years.

With the acquisition, Vindara will become a “fully owned subsidiary” of Kalera and operate out of the latter’s headquarters in Orlando. For Kalera, the acquisition brings the potential to develop its own plant varieties and increase the output of existing ones. Right now those are just leafy greens, though Kalera hinted at spinach and strawberries for the future. 

InFarm to Launch a Network of Commercial-Scale ‘Modular’ Indoor Farms

InFarm, a company best known for bringing modular hydroponic farming units to grocery stores, today introduced its Growing Center facility, a combination high-capacity farm and distribution center. The company plans to build out 100 of these facilities by 2025 in major cities all over the world, with the total amounting to 1.5 million square meters of farmland, according to a company press release.

Berlin, Germany-based InFarm already operates a network of smaller, cloud-connected hydroponic farms across the world. These modular units are typically found in the produce section of major grocery retailers, from Marks & Spencer in the UK to Kroger in the U.S. to Aldi in Germany. The pod-like farms are modular, meaning they can vary in size depending on location. And because the leafy greens inside the farms are grown on-site, the buying public gets access to more freshly harvested produce that hasn’t traveled the length of a country to reach store shelves.

With its Growing Center initiative, InFarm is essentially scaling up the modular-farm concept. Dozens of InFarm’s modular units, each between 10 and 18 meters (about 33 to 59 feet) high, make up one Growing Center. InFarm says these facilities take six weeks to build and will be able to generate “the crop-equivalent of 10,000 m2 of farmland.”

InFarm’s existing units in grocery stores are all cloud controlled, so that environmental elements like CO2 levels, farm temperature, light and pH levels, and plant growth cycles can be set, monitored, and managed remotely across the entire network. In other words, if one combination of those elements works for, say, basil, that “recipe” can be replicated across the entire network.

Growing Centers will plug into this network, so that the entirety of InFarm’s units are connected to “a central farming brain,” according to the company’s Chief Technology Officer Guy Galonska. “We’ve collected more than 300 billion data points throughout our farming network to date. These data enable us to perfect our growing recipes and improve yield, quality and nutritional value, while reducing the production price constantly,” he said in today’s press release.

While plenty of smaller vertical farms exist nowadays, much of the attention of late has been on larger, commercial-scale facilities that produce pounds of leafy greens that number in the millions. Last year, AeroFarms, Kalera, Plenty, BrightFarms, Nordic Harvest, and many others saw both major funding and significant expansion. Driving a lot of this activity is that commercial-scale farms can produce more delicate types of produce (e.g., leafy greens) closer to consumers, eliminating the need for lengthy shipping times that can damage plants.

All of these companies promise produce grown more efficiently, with less water and energy required than would be with traditional farming. However, at this point, most data is siloed within each company, so it’s difficult to find a truly universal, objective point of view when it comes to efficiency and energy savings. That doesn’t however, mean the numbers are all a smokescreen. In fact, of all the things the controlled ag sector did in 2020, proving itself as an important and viable part of the future farming system was the most important. While the role of this method will constantly evolve, its presence will remain a given for the foreseeable future.

For its part, Infarm says its Growing Centers will be located “in major urban centers.” So far, 15 are either planned or under construction across, London, Paris, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Vancouver, Seattle, and Toronto. InFarm has not said which of these facilities will open first.

Bowery’s Founder, Irving Fain, on the Future of Vertical Farming

At one point in the not-so-distant past, vertical farming’s role in our future agricultural system was far from certain. Growing leafy greens in warehouse-like environments controlled by tech seemed like a compelling business, but one that had yet to prove itself either economically or as an important source of food for a growing world population.

That, at least, was a common sentiment Irving Fain, CEO and founder of Bowery, met with when he started his vertical farming company five years ago. “There was a bit of skepticism around it,” he told me over a call recently, suggesting that five years ago, there were a lot more “ifs” than “whens” in terms of vertical farming’s future.

Fain, Bowery, and the entire vertical farming industry get a much warmer reception nowadays. Investment dollars are pouring into the space. Around the world, companies, scientists, and food producers are using the method to not just supply upscale grocery stores with greens but experiment with breeds of produce, feed underserved populations, and grow food in non-arable regions. As Fain suggested when we spoke, the last 12 months seem to have turned those “ifs” into definite “whens.” 

Bowery’s last 12 months also illustrate this change. Fain said that Bowery went from under 100 retail locations about a year ago to nearly 700 right now, and will be in more than 1,000 “in the coming months.” Its produce is in a number of food retailers around the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, including Whole Foods Market, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Walmart, and Weis Markets. And in 2020, the company experienced “more than 4x growth” with e-commerce partners.

While the pandemic is responsible for some of this popularity, Fain insists it is not the only reason for the eventful year. “It’s definitely bigger than the pandemic,” he said. “What you’re seeing is a food system that’s evolving and [people have a desire] to see transparency and traceability in the food system.” These, he says, are issues the traditional food supply chain isn’t really able to address right now, hence the opportunity for companies like Bowery, which effectively cut multiple steps out of the supply chain.

Bowery grows its greens (lettuces, herbs, and some custom blends) inside industrial spaces where crops are stacked vertically in trays and fed nutrients and water via a hydroponic system. Technology controls all elements of the farm, from the temperature inside to how much light each plants get. The company currently operates two farms, one in New Jersey and the other in Maryland. A third is planned for Pennsylvania.

Technology, in particular, is something Bowery has big plans for. On top of a retail expansion, Bowery also added some notable personnel to its staff, including Injong Rhee, formerly the Internet of Things VP at Google as well a chief technologist at Samsung. Having such technology chops onboard will be vital in order for Bowery to realize many of its ambitions around advanced automation, which has the potential to optimize many parts of the seed-to-store process for vertically grown greens. 

For example, Bowery’s farms are equipped with sensors and cameras that are constantly collecting data — “billions” of points, according to the company — that can be used to not just observe the current state of plant health but also predict the most optimal growing conditions for each crop. Elements like temperature, humidity levels, nutrient levels, and light intensity can all be adjusted, via the BoweryOS software, to create those optimal conditions. The end result is more consistent crop production, better yields, more flavorful food, and, ideally, a better nutritional profile for the greens compared to what conventional produce offers.

The system can also, through automation and AI, detect problems with plants. In a recent interview with Venture Beat, Bowery Chief Science Officer Henry Sztul used the example of butterhead lettuce yellowing at the edges during growth. Bowery’s system is technologically advanced enough at this point that it is starting to understand the conditions that create those yellowing edges. That foreknowledge, in turn, will allow growers to adjust the crop “recipe” (see above mixture of lights, temperature, etc.) to avoid the problem.

It took Bowery years to get to this point in terms of what its technology is capable of doing. “The system [for] indoor farming that you choose has a direct impact on the crops you’ll be able to grow, on the margins you’ll be able to generate, and on the return profile of the business itself,” said Fain. “And so being incredibly intentional and thoughtful about what technology you use is something we spent a lot of time on because it has an extraordinarily important economic impact.”

On a less technically complex note, controlled ag from Bowery and others also goes some way towards reinventing the supply food chain. Rather than greens being harvested in, say, Mexico and shipped via a complex distribution process all the way to Baltimore, they are packaged up at the farm and distributed to nearby retailers, usually those within a day’s drive “It is much more sustainable. It is much more efficient, and it’s more reliable, and those things have been important to consumers long before COVID,” said Fain.

Bowery will continue to innovate on both the technology and supply side of its business, as well as with the food itself. The company just launched a new specialty product line that will experiment with different flavors of greens and change frequently.

In terms of tech, Bowery’s latest farm, currently being built in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, will incorporate even more automation than the company’s two existing farms. That location is slated to open later in 2021. When it does, Bowery will be capable of serving nearly 50 million people within a 200-mile radius.

The company hopes to expand its geographic reach much wider some day, building farms near most major U.S. cities and beyond. Given the increased confidence in the vertical farming sector as a whole, now looks to be the optimal time to move towards those ambitions. 

Gardyn Raises $10M for Its Consumer-Grade Indoor Farm System

Bethesda, Maryland-based indoor farming company Gardyn announced today it is raising a $10 million Series A round led by JAB Holding Company. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the non-controlling investment, when finalized, will bring Gardyn’s total funding to date to $15 million. 

The new funds will allow Gardyn to accelerate the North American expansion of its consumer-grade vertical farm to meet what the company calls “the incredible demand” it is currently seeing for its product.

Gardyn’s at-home vertical farming system is geared towards consumers interested in growing their own produce who have neither space nor green thumb to do it the traditional way. The farm itself is a compact vertical tower that can grow up to 30 plants at once and easily fits inside a small apartment. Its accompanying software platform, dubbed Kelby, automates the majority of the grow process, including circulating the water and nutrients, monitoring plant growth, and notifying users, via a smartphone app. when it’s time to add water to the console or harvest the plants.

Currently, the device can grow leafy greens, herbs, some flowers, cherry tomatoes, and jalapeños. Customers have the option to also use their own seeds.

Gardyn is one of several companies developing indoor farms for the consumer home, a category that grew significantly in 2020. Gardyn itself said it experienced “double-digit month-over-month growth throughout 2020.” Others, including AeroGrow and Click & Grow, also reported surges in interest over the last year. Aspara, too, reported a spike in sales in Hong Kong, where the company is based. Aspara has since launched in the U.S. market.

“I am absolutely convinced we are going to see in the coming two years a total disruption in the way we grow things,” Gardyn’s founder and CEO FX Rouxel told me late last year. More than ever, there is greater demand from consumers for local foods with traceable origins and sans pesticides. The pandemic ushered in record levels of consumers buying produce directly from farmers; putting a farm in your house is the obvious next step.

For some, that is. Food sovereignty in the home is currently only possible for those that can afford it. In other words, farming systems for the home are still fairly expensive, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand depending on the company and model.

When we spoke, Rouxel was keenly aware of this point, and that the $799 price tag for Gardyn’s the base model is still too high for many. “We don’t want this to be only for well-off people,” he told me. “It’s important that we find ways that anyone can afford this.”

The hope is that some of this new funding and expansion can go towards making the grow-at-home movement possible for a wider swath of the population.