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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

BrightFarms

Cox Enterprises Acquires High-Tech Greenhouse Grower BrightFarms

Cox Enterprises has acquired indoor farming company BrightFarms, the two companies announced today via press release. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The companies noted that the acquisition will be key to helping Cox Enterprises build out a “multibillion cleantech business” by 2030. 

Multi-industry conglomerate Cox is in the midst of expanding from its core lines of business (communications and automotive), hence its goals related to cleantech innovation. The company says it is currently investing in and/or acquiring “clean resource efficient businesses that provide sustainable energy, food, and water for the rapidly growing global population.”

Cox nabbed a majority stake in BrightFarms in 2020, though the two companies’ relationship goes back to 2018. Speaking in today’s press release, Steve Bradley, vice president of cleantech for Cox Enterprises, noted, “Over the years, our enthusiasm for BrightFarms and the opportunity to transform the industry has increased tremendously, which led us to want to play a larger role in what they’re doing.”  

BrightFarms operates a network of greenhouses that use hydroponics, natural sunlight, and a proprietary software system to grow leafy greens. The company announced its fifth greenhouse earlier this year and more recently said it would open an “innovation and research hub.” Ten percent of the company is now dedicated to developing “patented growing solutions to be used across BrightFarms entire network to improve crop yield, flavor, and other factors. The company says that by the end of the year, its leafy greens will be available at over 3,500 stores.

BrightFarms said joining Cox will allow it to scale more rapidly. As part of the acquisition, BrightFarms will grow its physical footprint from 15 acres of crop today to more than 140 by 2025. This growth will, the company says, let it reach roughly two-thirds of all U.S. consumers. Additionally, BrightFarms will build out multiple 30-acre greenhouses and increase the number of stores, restaurants, and food distributors it serves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BrightFarms’ New Indoor Ag Facility Will Double Its Production in 2021

BrightFarms, an indoor agriculture company growing leafy greens, announced today the official opening of its fifth greenhouse. The six-acre facility is located in Hendersonville, North Carolina and will produce about 2 million pounds of lettuce per year, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

BrightFarms already operates farms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Virginia. The locations of its farms means the company can chop the harvest-to-shelf time for greens down to just 24 hours in some cases, as opposed to the days (or weeks) it takes to get greens shipped in from California or Arizona. 

All locations use a hydroponic system and natural sunlight supplemented by a proprietary technology called BrightOS that calculates the ideal growing temperature as well as humidity and nutrient levels. In some ways, BrightOS could be seen as the central nervous system of the company’s farming network, collecting data from each individual farm in order to inform overall best practices. Not that the farms run entirely on their own. Each farm employs a head grower along with several other staff. The company said today that the North Carolina facility will create 55 new jobs.

Notably, BrightFarms counts spinach among its leafy green crops. Because of its susceptibility to disease, spinach is notoriously difficult to grow indoors. The only other company currently attempting it on a large scale is Element Farms.

Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of tech-enabled greenhouses these days — thought not necessarily in the Southeastern U.S. AppHarvest, which went public earlier this year, grows tomatoes via controlled ag in Kentucky, and will next tackle leafy greens on a soon-to-come facility. Many farms are still concentrated in the Northeast and West, though that is changing.

BrightFarms said in today’s press release that it will double in size and production in 2021, and be in more than 3,500 stores across the U.S. Besides the new North Carolina farm, BrightFarms plans to open another facility in New England later this year. 

BrightFarms Raised $100M Series E for its Indoor Farms

BrightFarms has raised a $100 million Series E round of funding for its indoor farms, Food Navigator reported yesterday. The round was led by Cox Enterprises, with participation from Catalyst Investors, and brings the total amount raised by BrightFarms to nearly $213 million.

BrightFarms grows leafy greens in its network of indoor farms across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illiniois, and Virginia with new facilities opening up in North Carolina and Texas. According to the company’s website, the BrightFarms’ pitch is that its greens are more tender because they are grown hydroponically and don’t need to “struggle” in harsh outdoor conditions. Additionally, after harvest and prep, they are shipped to stores just hours away, rather than cross-country.

According to Food Navigator, BrightFarms’ greens are sold in more than 2,000 locations and through stores from Ahold Delhaize, Walmart and Kroger. BrightFarms expects to be in more than 15,000 stores by 2025.

Indoor farming has certainly seen a lot of green for its greens, as players in the space have raised a lot of money. AppHarvest, which is building a mega-greenhouse in Kentucky, has raised $120 million. Plenty has raised $541 million, which includes investment and a partnership with berry producer, Driscoll’s. And InFarm, which puts indoor farms in grocery stores, has raised $304 million.

BrightFarms says its approach to growing greens is pesticide free, uses 80 percent less water than land-based farming, 90 percent less land, 95 percent less shipping fuel, all while yielding 10x more leafy greens than conventional farming.

We are definitely in the early stages of indoor farming and we still need to see how all this plays out, but judging just from the frothy market, the future for indoor farms looks bright.