Page 23 - January_2019

Greenhouse Produce helPs Take VolaTiliTy ouT of reTail equaTion
More acreage being introduced to meet demand. BY MATT OGG
To say venture capital was plowing its way into fresh produce would be a misplaced metaphor — appropriate in its aggressiveness but still o the mark as invest-
ments are not only going into outdoor farms, but high-tech indoor greenhouses as well.
A $90 million funding round in December led by GV (formerly Google Ventures) for New Jersey-based indoor agricultural startup Bowery is the latest example of an expanding trend that banks on supply reliability, greater food safety assurance and growing as close to market as possible.
e technology and infrastructure involved are more cost-intensive than eld cultivation, and most greenhouse growers claim these investments warrant price premiums at retail to make business viable.
However, logistical bene ts, yields and reduced waste are improving the model’s competitiveness. is is the view of Steve Wright, vice president of sales at Shenandoah Growers, a Harrisonburg, VA-based company that produces fresh and living herbs as well as lettuce and microgreens.
“If you look at a culinary herb, for instance, probably 25 percent of it is going to be thrown away from when it’s grown in the eld to when it’s sent to us,” he says. “And we’re going to pull another 25 percent to get product that’s not going to meet the receiving requirements of our customers, so
there’s a tremendous amount of food waste already in the system.”
Shenandoah currently has production in Virginia, Texas, Georgia and Indiana, with 10 percent grown indoors and 90 percent out in the eld. But Wright and his colleagues believe so strongly in the potential of indoor farming that they intend to ip those percent- ages in the coming years.
“Being regional allows you to raise your yield, and not having to factor in large transportation costs, and being able to do something in a very cost-e ective way; we believe that we are narrowing that gap,” says Wright.
“When you move indoors you’re conserving water — you’re using 75 percent less water, and you have lower cost pressures controlling disease because you’re controlling the temperature and the humidity.”
ABOVE: PHOTO COURTESY OF BRIGHTFARMS BELOW: PHOTOS COURTESY OF PURE FLAVOR
DEMAND LEADS TO INVESTMENT
BrightFarms of Irvington, NY, was built on a 24-hour, harvest-to-store philosophy and has become a challenger to California and Arizona leafy green suppliers in some Eastern states.
“When we started producing packaged convenient baby green salads in 2013, that was not really being done on a commercial scale in greenhouses very much,” says chief execu- tive Paul Lightfoot. “Hundreds of millions of dollars have gone into this space, and you have a bunch of companies like BrightFarms that have become well-funded and are making a di erence in the market.”
He says the group has seen success in some of the country’s biggest markets, such as Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati and Wash- ington DC, with products stocked in some of the world’s most successful food retailers, such
PRODUCE BUSINESS / JANUARY 2019 / 23