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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Vertical Farming

iFarm Raises $4M for Its Automated Vertical Farming System

Finnish vertical farming company iFarm announced today it has raised $4 million for its automated indoor farming operation, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. The round was led by existing investor Gagarin Capital with participation from Matrix Capital, Impulse VC, IMI.VC, and several angel investors.

iFarm makes a turnkey vertical farming solution that can be deployed in a number of different-sized settings, from large warehouse farms to shelf-like grow modules in supermarkets. The company offers four different automated technologies: one for growing a variety of crops on a vertical farm; one for growing strawberries on a vertical farm; iFarm Cropper, a standalone module for growing greens; and iFarm Growtune, a SaaS platform for managing the vertical farms.

Using machine learning and computer vision, the iFarm Growtune tool, which powers the other technologies mentioned above, can detect a plant’s weight as well as any growth deviations or pathologies. It also prompts farm staff when it is time to adjust the “climate” settings inside the vertical farm.

According to today’s press release, iFarm has over 50 ongoing projects with clients in both Europe and the Middle East, including an industrial vertical farm in its homeland of Finland that’s due to launch sometime in 2020.

Vertical farming has seen a steady stream of developments over the last six months, from Farmshelf releasing its first consumer-facing grow system to SinGrow’s proprietary strawberries to Wilder Fields building an industrial vertical farm inside an abandoned Target shop. All of which is to say, vertical farming is no longer just a large-scale endeavor done by a few companies, but rather, a grow method appearing in many shapes and sizes, whether in the warehouse or the grocery store.

Because of the variety iFarm offers in terms of automated grow technologies, the company seems poised to serve multiple markets as it further develops its system. The company says it will use the new funds to further develop iFarm Growtune and quadruple the number of plants available to grow via the system. It will also further build out the automation aspect of its system and experiment with growing strawberries, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, radishes, and other crops.

Publix Has Ambitious Plans to Get More Hydroponically Grown Greens in Its Stores

Back in 2019, we predicted that hydroponically grown greens would soon become a mainstay of grocery stores in the U.S. We did not predict that a global health crisis would disrupt the supply chain and make consumers hyper-aware of where their food comes from and what goes into growing it, but that’s exactly what happened. The result? Hydroponic farming’s march into the grocery store has been accelerated.

Perhaps no one is pursuing this shift more seriously than grocery retail chain Publix, whose Greenwise brand has partnered with Brick Street Farms to locate a shipping-container-turned vertical farm at one of Greenwise’s brick-and-mortar markets in Florida. 

The 40-foot shipping container (see image above) sits outside the Greenwise market in Lakeland, Florida. Like other vertical farming operations, it uses hydroponics to grow leafy greens without the use of soil or pesticides. Greens are packaged onsite and travel mere feet to reach the produce section of the store.

Speaking on the phone this week, Curt Epperson, Business Development Director of Produce and Floral for Publix, and Albert Gottuso, Category Manager for Produce at Publix, highlighted the advantage of this method over traditional means of getting produce in the store. Most of Publix’ conventional leafy greens are grown in California and have to travel thousand of miles before they reach store shelves. Besides the obvious lower carbon footprint, growing greens onsite also uses less water than traditional farming and means fresher greens on store shelves compared to those that are harvested shipped, and hydrated before they ever reach the produce section.

But hydroponic greens were on the Publix agenda long before the deal with Brick Street Farms. During our call, Gottuso said the company has maintained relationships for years with local hydroponic farmers to sell greens in its stores. For instance, Livingston, TN-based Tanimura & Antle sells its butter lettuce at Publix stores in that state.

“This hydroponic product out of nowhere became our best seller for leafy lettuce,” he said. That in turn led the chain to consider how it could supply hydroponically grown greens to more of its locations. 

Multiple efforts are currently underway. Earlier in 2020, Publix partnered with Vertical Roots on a mobile vertical farm customers could interact with. In March, the chain teamed up with large-scale vertical farming company Kalera.

All of these efforts fit into Publix overall hydroponic program, which Epperson says is still testing different techniques in terms of getting indoor greens to local stores. 

Gottuso added that the chain is expanding this hydroponic program so that every state has a grower with an indoor farm supporting local stores in its area. “Our goal is that every store that we service has a local hydroponic program that can offer an assortment of variety of blends,” he said. 

This push towards local, more sustainably grown greens is happening across the grocery sector. Kroger has a partnership with Berlin-based InFarm, which puts its vertical farming pods in the store’s produce section. And just this week, San Francisco-based Plenty announced a partnership with Albertsons to sell its greens (which are grown offsite in a warehouse) at that retailer’s store.  

Publix doesn’t plan to stop at leafy greens. Though they are by far the most popular product to grow hydroponically, Epperson suggests there is potential for cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers, among other produce types. 

As to whether or not hydroponic farming could ever replace traditional farming, at least in terms of leafy greens, Epperson noted that the jury is still out. “It’s very difficult to get the yield you would get in conventional growing,” he said. Calling it “blue sky” thinking, he pointed to a day when Publix might have vertical farms located next to all of its distribution centers. And that idea isn’t exactly unattainable — Square Roots is already doing something similar with Gordon Food Service. 

The introduction of technology to the greenhouse could also play a big role in making hydroponics more widespread in the grocery sector. Gottuso says technology allows companies to build greenhouses in areas where they historically haven’t been (like the Southeast). These large greenhouses also provide the scale needed to supply the shelves of a major grocery retailer because they are “adept to growing larger amounts of produce.”

If Publix’ ambitions around hydroponics can do likewise and scale effectively, we can expect many more locally grown greens — and other produce types — to hit store shelves in near future.

Unfold Raises $30M to Innovate on Vegetable Varieties in Vertical Farming

Today, Leaps by Bayer, an investment arm of Bayer AG, and Singapore-based investment firm Temasek announced the creation of a new company that will develop new varieties of vegetables best suited to grow in vertical farms. The new company, dubbed Unfold, raised $30 million from Temasek and Bayer in its initial funding round and plans to use the money for building out R&D operations in the U.S. 

Unfold is taking a slightly different approach to the vertical farming concept. Whereas most vertical farming companies focus on developing new technologies to improve the grow process of plants (building more automation into the growing and harvesting processes or finding the perfect light “recipe” for a crop), Unfold will channel its resources into seed genetics to develop seed varieties specifically tailored to the vertical farming environment.

So far, vertical farms typically use seeds developed for other types of grow environments — greenhouses or open fields, for example. Unfold, which has entered into agreement for some rights to germplasm from Bayer’s vegetable portfolio, will breed seeds tailor-made for the vertical farming environment, which uses LEDs in place of sunlight and, typically, hydroponics or aeroponics.  

Speaking in today’s press release, Unfold CEO John Purcell said the company will combine seed genetics with ag tech methods to improve things like flavor and appearance of vertically grown greens. The company also aims to develop seeds that can mature faster and yield more edible product. To start, the company will work on lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes. 

Approaching the vertical farming process at the seed level, so to speak, is the exception rather than the rule at the moment, though Unfold isn’t quite the only company trying this. In Singapore, a company called SinGrow has developed its own breed of strawberries, which it grows on its own proprietary vertical farming racks.  

Unfold’s Purcell told CNA this week that vertical farming is “an important player in the food ecosystem.” But the model has yet to prove itself as a food-growing method that can feed millions and deliver a return on investment. Focusing on seed genetics can help farmers cultivate more varieties of vegetables that taste better and grow faster may provide more answers to the question of vertical farming’s overall scalability and its long-term role in the food system.

AppHarvest Raises $28M as it Builds Out a Massive Greenhouse in Appalachia

Ag tech company, AppHarvest, announced yesterday that it has raised a $28 million Series C round of funding. The round was led by J.D. Vance’s Narya Capital, with participation from Lupa Systems and Rise of the Rest among others. This brings the total amount raised by AppHarvest to $150 million.

AppHarvest is in the midst of building out the worlds largest greenhouse facility in Morehead, KY. When completed, it will be a 2.76 million-square foot indoor faming facility that will use hydroponics and vertical farming to grow 45 million pound of fresh produce a year. The greenhouse is scheduled to open this fall and will employ roughly 300 people.

AppHarvest’s facility is within a day’s drive of 70 percent of the U.S. population, so it will be able to provide fresh produce to grocery stores in Appalachia, as well as surrounding states.

In June of this year, AppHarvest partnered with the State of Kentucky as well as the Dutch government and several universities. These partnerships were designed to create a series of research programs and develop the greenhouse as a “center of excellence” for agtech innovation.

AppHarvest isn’t the only indoor farming startup partnering with a local government. AeroFarms and the World Economic Forum partnered with the City of Jersey City and as my colleague, Jenn Marston wrote last week:

This is the first partnership between a city municipality and a vertical farming company in the U.S. Through it, AeroFarms will build 10 vertical farms in senior centers, schools, public housing, and municipal buildings around Jersey City. Collectively, the farms are expected to produce 19,000 pounds of vegetables annually, according to AeroFarms. Greens will be free of charge to residents, and the initiative also includes healthy eating workshops and quarterly health screenings.

Hopefully projects like AppHarvest and AeroFarms can use their tech platforms to help create a more equitable food system for everyone.

Vertical Field to Launch a Geoponic Vertical Farm Inside New York’s Evergreen Market

More vertically grown greens are coming to the grocery store. The Evergreen Kosher Market, a well-known food retailer in Monsey, New York, announced this week it will soon debut a vertical farm from Israeli ag tech company Vertical Field. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the farm will use technology and geoponics to provide shoppers with onsite greens at the grocery store.

Vertical Field’s farming indoor solution consists of “living walls” where plants grow vertically inside controlled environments and sensors regulate temperature and humidity levels to create ideal grow conditions for each type of plant. Since the environment is sealed off from the outside world, it is free of the usual pests that can infiltrate crops and therefore free of pesticides. And Evergreen being a Kosher market, a partnership with Vertical Field makes sense, as the company’s greens are all Star-K Kosher Certified.

The company’s use of geoponics is unusual in today’s world of vertical farming, where the majority of companies use hydroponics or aeroponics to grow plants. Vertical Field’s system is proprietary, and the company claims on its website that its use of geoponics means lower initial and operating costs, better quality plants, and more crop variety than one would get using hydroponics.

All that said, Vertical Field is, like most others, still focused on leafy greens, which would likely be the only plant type to fit on the company’s wall-like garden structure (see image above). Still, leafy greens are delicate, and more likely to be damaged in shipping than, say, heartier fruit or root vegetable. Placing the farms inside grocery stores removes the distribution portion and therefore several steps from the process between harvesting greens and getting them to consumers. 

While the concept of in-store vertical farms is relatively new, Vertical Fields’ new installation at Evergreen isn’t alone. Berlin, Germany-based InFarm has its pod farms at grocery stores in Canada, Denmark, and at Kroger stores in the U.S. Orlando, Florida-based Kalera works with Publix in the Southeastern U.S. to place farms in stores.

For its part, Vertical Field serves a variety of organizations around the world, including the campuses of Big Tech companies like Apple, Intel, and Microsoft. 

Vertical Farming Could Help Us Build a More Equitable Food System

One of the recurring questions vertical farming companies face is how they are going to get their locally grown, supposedly healthier wares to more than just those with disposable income. So far, the answers have been few and far between, but that could be changing. Towards the end of last week, ABC7 reported that New Jersey-based AeroFarms and World Economic Forum have partnered with the City of Jersey City to distribute greens free of charge to communities in need.

While AeroFarms actually hinted at the news back in June, it’s worth reiterating here because it underscores the point that vertical farming can — and should — play a much bigger role than simply providing greens to high-end groceries and restaurants. 

This is the first partnership between a city municipality and a vertical farming company in the U.S. Through it, AeroFarms will build 10 vertical farms in senior centers, schools, public housing, and municipal buildings around Jersey City. Collectively, the farms are expected to produce 19,000 pounds of vegetables annually, according to AeroFarms. Greens will be free of charge to residents, and the initiative also includes healthy eating workshops and quarterly health screenings.

The idea, of course, is to get healthier foods and food habits to those in food-insecure communities.

Speaking to ABC7, Jersey City Director of Health and Human Service Stacey Flanagan said that while food security has always been an issue, “with COVID it’s just exacerbated that.”

Her point is an important one. We talk about the ways in which the pandemic has forced us to rethink our eating choices and habits. Thanks in no small part to the pandemic, plant-based foods are on the rise, consumers are vying for space on CSA waitlists, and vertical farming companies are now releasing models of their high-tech systems for individual homes. But it’s a small number of consumers that have the time or money to explore those options.

For many, a $10 pack of alt-meat or a $500 at-home farm remain out of reach in terms of accessibility and affordability. As JourneyFoods’ CEO Riana Lynn reminded us recently, our eating is not equal, and lack of access to food is less the issue as lack of access to nutritious food: “Even when we are braced with an overwhelming lot of food options, they almost always lack the nutrient-density need to curb away from negative outcomes.” 

As it is right now, vertical farming, because of its focus on leafy greens, can’t adequately feed a community in the sense of it providing a healthy balance of proteins, vitamins, and calories. But it can play a role in bringing more nutritious elements to that community, which is what AeroFarms’ new partnership seems to be about. And we’ve seen promising news in the recent past that shows these farms will grow more than arugula one day: strawberries and even wheat, for example. 

AeroFarms isn’t alone in trying to bring more food equity to the vertical farming sector. Boston-based Freight Farms works with Miami’s Lotus House, a facility and resource center for women and children experiencing homelessness. The farm works in tandem with Lotus House’s Culinary Center, supplying both food and education to residents.

Over in Chicago, Wilder Fields has taken an abandoned Target store located in a food desert and turned it into a massive vertical farming facility to supply 25 million heads of lettuce to local grocery stores. The facility will also house an educational and retail component, and sell greens for cheaper than you would find at, say Whole Foods.

North of the border, Elevate Farms and North Star Agriculture Corp. are building out farms in isolated parts of Northern Canada, where food insecurity is rampant. 

All of these efforts (and quite a few more) suggests vertical farming has a dual role to play in future. If it can prove itself scalable, which it seems to be doing so far, it can provide a healthier alternative to traditional farming. And it can help lead the charge for food and food tech companies when it comes to creating more equality in our food system.

PlantLab Nabs €20M to Open New Vertical Farming Locations

PlantLab, a vertical farming company based in The Netherlands, has raised €20 million (~$23,171 USD) in growth capital to  scale up its high-tech indoor farming operations and expand to new locations, including the U.S. (h/t Horti Daily) The round was led by De Hoge Dennen Capital. 

PlantLab said it would use the investment funds to open more locations and improve its technology. As with other vertical farming facilities, the tech controls the grow environment — everything from the light mixture to the temperature at the root zone of the plants to the level of humidity in the air. 

The company calls these grow environments “Plant Production Units,” and it has been perfecting the model since 2005. Right now, the company operates a facility in Amsterdam. It also struck a partnership with foodservice provider Van Gelder in 2019 to supply chefs working with the Van Gelder.

Since the start of the year, the vertical farming sector has seen a steady supply of investment dollars. Boston-based Freight Farms raised a $15 million Series B round, Elevate Farms nabbed $10 million, and Upward Farms, a combination vertical farm and aquaponics facility, grabbed $15 million. 

On top of all that investment has been a number of announcements for new commercial-scale facilities and a push to bring the vertical farming concept into new markets like grocery stores and the consumer kitchen.

All this activity isn’t surprising, given the times. Demand for vertically grown greens was already up before the pandemic. A couple panic-shopping sprees and a broken food supply chain later, and more consumers are prioritizing things like food traceability, buying locally, and having more control over where their food comes from. How high this demand reaches will depend on the variety of crops these farms can eventually grow (aka, more than leafy greens) and how well they can scale economically.

For its part, PlantLab has new facilities planned for the Netherlands, the U.S., and the Bahamas, among other locations. 

Food Tech News: Cell-Based Seafood and a New Documentary on Urban Farming

Whether your weekend plans involve golf, Instagram listening parties, or baking yet-another loaf of quarantine bread, add a side dish of food tech news to your agenda to get things started. Here are a final few bits from this past week. 

Call It Cell-Based Seafood

A consumer study by Rutgers University professor William Hallman has found that “cell-based” is the preferred term for describing seafood made from cells grown in a lab. Other labels up for consideration were “cultivated,” “cell-cultured,” “cultured,” and “produced using cellular aquaculture.” The final text of the study, which was funded by BlueNalu, a company in the cell-based fish game, will be published in the near future.

Stop & Shop Launches a Digital Nutrition Program

Joining in the trend of offering nutritionists for grocery shoppers, Stop & Shop this week announced its Nutrition Partners program. The free program will be 100 percent digital at first, connecting shoppers with registered dietitians. It will also offer webinars, recipes, cooking demos, and other nutritional education online. In the event we ever make it out of the pandemic, the program will eventually be available in-person.

JUST Heads to Canada

JUST, makers of the plant-based egg that uses mung bean as its main protein, announced its expansion into Canadian grocery stores. According to an email sent to The Spoon, the company will launch its frozen folded egg product in Whole Foods and Walmart stores in Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria, and Ottawa. JUST is also working with regulators to bring its pourable egg product into Canada, too.

2-Min Trailer for "Hearts of Glass – A Vertical Farm Takes Root in Wyoming"

Watch: New Documentary Follows Urban Farm Workers With Disabilities

A new documentary, “Heart of Glass,” will air on over 200 TV stations this month to coincide the 30th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act (July 26). The film details the story behind the creation of Wyoming indoor vertical farm Vertical Harvest, which provides employment for persons with disabilities. Check the trailer above and mark your calendars.

Wilder Fields Turns an Abandoned Target in Chicago Into a Vertical Farm

A large space in Chicago that formerly housed a Target but has been sitting empty for five years will get a new life growing greens, thanks to a vertical farming company. The Chicago Tribune reported this week that Wilder Fields will turn the 135,000-square-foot space into a vertical farm that grows kale and other leafy greens in the Calumet City area of south Chicago.

Once completed, the facility will house seven acres of vertical farm housed in 24 separate cleanrooms, and produce 25 million heads of lettuce annually that can supply local grocer stores. The site will also include a retail spot and education center where local residents and others can learn how vertical farming works.

In the case of Wilder Fields, its vertical farming works with quite a lot of technology. In addition to the controlled environment that regulates light, humidity, temperature, and other factors that help crop growth, company founder Jake Counne has also introduced robotics to the mix. Instead of human workers having to scale the massive towers of grow trays, an automated lift collects the plants. Robotics in vertical farming isn’t completely unheard of (see Iron Ox’s autonomous vertical farm), but it’s still the exception at this point, which makes Wilder Fields one to watch. The company’s new farm will also use cameras and AI software to regulate the grow environment, so it can automatically adjust the aforementioned light, temperature, etc. 

The farm’s location is significant. Parts of the Calumet area are considered a food desert. While the USDA’s definition around food desert mostly relates to a population’s proximity to the grocery store, others include access to affordable, healthy food as part of the description. 

Of course, it’s one thing to locate a vertical farm in a food dessert. It’s another to actually sell the products near residents, at a price point they can reasonably afford. The Tribune notes that Wilder Fields’ greens sell for $2.99 to $3.99 per pack. The retail store that will accompany the facility will also provide an outlet for local residents to purchase greens. The facility will also create about 80 new jobs.

Kalera to Build the Largest Vertical Farm in Texas

Vertical farming company Kalera announced today that it will open a high-tech facility in Houston, Texas in the spring of 2021. According to today’s press release, this will be the largest vertical farming facility in the state.

The announcement follows recent news that Kalera is also opening a facility in Atlanta, Georgia in 2021. The company already operates one in its hometown of Orlando, Florida.

Over the last couple years, Kalera has made a name for itself supplying greens grown via vertical farms to the hospitality sector. As of the end of last year, the company’s HyCube system was supplying the Orlando World Center Mariott resort with greens, and had plans with several grocery retailers and restaurants. It opened a second facility in Orlando in March of this year.

Then, as so many narratives go these days, the pandemic hit, and it’s a little hard to service produce to restaurants that are closed down. So Kalera struck a deal with Publix to sell its greens at 165 of the grocery retailer’s stores. 

“We were very fortunate to be able to quickly pivot and focus more on the retail side and benefit from the slowdown.,” Kalera CEO Daniel Malechuk told me over the phone in April, at the time of this pivot. 

The company didn’t name grocery specifically in today’s release, but given the current situation in Texas around COVID-19, retail seems a more likely destination than restaurants for greens coming out of Kalera’s new facility. Once open, the new site will be able to service not only the Houston area but also Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Austin, and New Orleans. 

Kalera’s high-tech vertical farming system uses IoT, data analytics, AI-powered process automation and cleanroom technology in its facilities to monitor plant growth and create the optimal recipe of lights, nutrients, and water for crops. Right now, the company grows leafy greens, which Malechuk said in April take less time to transport. “Other produce and fruit is probably extremely cost prohibitive in dense urban settings and situations,” he said.

The last few weeks have seen a surge of news in vertical and indoor farming, both in commercial-scale farming and at-home devices. AppHarvest has partnered with the Dutch government to turn the Appalachian region of Kentucky into something of an indoor farming powerhouse. Farmshelf launched its first-ever at-home vertical farming until for consumers. And SinGrow, a Singapore-based company that actually is trying to grow more than leafy greens, is getting a lot of attention of late for its proprietary strawberries and vertical farming tech.

Kalera said in today’s release that the Houston facility is just one in a string of planned locations around the U.S. and the rest of the world.

GROW Accelerator Unveils the 12 Companies Picked for Its Singapore Food Bowl Program

Singapore Food Bowl, a food-focused startup program backed by AgFunder’s GROW accelerator, today announced the 12 startups chosen for its first-ever cohort. While those companies vary in terms of what they do and offer, all of them are working towards the same underlying goal: to build a more sustainable food system that’s more decentralized and able to stand up to unexpected, unprecedented crises like COVID-19. 

That’s an especially urgent goal in Singapore, a country that relies on imports for about 90 percent of its food. To address this, the Singapore government recently created the 30 by 30 initiative, where the city-state aims to have 30 percent of its food grown locally by 2030. Reaching that goal will require a substantial amount of food tech and alternative farming methods, since Singapore has very little in the way of arable land. 

Hence, programs like Singapore Food Bowl which is tied to the 30 by 30 initiative and also supported by Enterprise Singapore and Dole Packaged Foods. 

John Friedman, director at GROW and AgFunder Asia, said in today’s announcement that the program is “providing a platform not only to accelerate innovation in the local agrifood tech ecosystem, but also to raise awareness across broader society of the need for transformation and greater sustainability throughout our food system.”

AgFunder unveiled the 12 chosen startups this morning: 

  • Augmentus: A code-free robotics automation platform built for use in settings like urban farming
  • CocoPallet: Makes shipping pallets from byproducts of coconut farming for use in the global logistics industry
  • Crust Group: Uses leftover bread from hotels, restaurants, and cafes to create craft beers and other beverages
  • DiMuto: Uses internet-of-things and blockchain to digitize the supply chain for better visibility for both suppliers and customers
  • Fortuna Cools: Uses coconut husks to make a cheaper and biodegradable alternative to traditional iceboxes
  • Invertigro: A modular indoor farming system with specialized crop recipes companies can integrate into their existing business models
  • ListenField: An IoT-enabled app that gives farmers actionable data on crop and climate analysis
  • Lleaf: Developing a polymer film that can be applied to greenhouse panels to increase crop yields
  • Mi Terro: Turns spoiled milk into an odorless, temperature-regulating fabric that can be used for clothes, bedding, and food packaging.
  • Organic Technology Holdings: Repurposes organic waste for pet foods, aquafeed, flavor additives, and health supplements
  • SingCell: Provides biotech development and manufacturing services to help cultured meat companies get to market faster.
  • Smoocht: A “r’ice cream” maker that uses organic brown rice milk to make plant-based desserts

Given the state of the pandemic, the 12-week program is completely virtual. It’s in session right now and will run through mid-September.

Aquaponics Company Seed & Roe Rebrands as Upward Farms, Announces $15M in Fresh Funding

Seed & Roe, an indoor farming and aquaponics company, announced today it has rebranded as Upward Farms and plans to build a new headquarter farm in Brooklyn, NY to increase production of both leafy greens and fish. Today’s announcement also comes just as the company has closed a $15 million funding round led by Prime Movers Lab. The company has raised $20 million total to date.

The company, which was called Edenworks before it was Seed & Roe, said in today’s release that it plans to open its Brooklyn facility in 2020 and increase production by more than 20x its original facility (also located in Brooklyn). 

That production includes both leafy greens and fish — striped bass, specifically. The forthcoming facility will farm these fish, which it says will be available to those in the New York area by 2021. Keeping the entire operation something of a closed loop, the water produced by fish feeds (which is nutrient-enriched) then goes on to feed the plants in the facility’s greenery. 

Upward Farms provided this handy diagram of the new facility to explain its operations:

It’s approach to indoor farming is somewhat unique in that most companies aren’t yet combining indoor vertical farming with any other type of farming. Though there is plenty of activity currently in the vertical farming space, thanks in no small part to the pandemic surfacing the many insufficiencies of our current food supply chain. Also this week, Hong Kong-based Aspara launched its high-tech indoor farm for consumers in the U.S. Over in Singapore, the government has allocated more than $40 million (USD) to aid agtech and aquaculture startups grow more food locally. Finally, here in the U.S. South, AppHarvest is building a vertical farming powerhouse to feed the Appalachian region.

Because of its Brooklyn location, Upward Farms will service consumers in the New York area for now, including Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. The company plans to expand in the future, though a timeframe is not yet clear.