NEW YORK — Indoor agriculture faced storms of change in 2023, with bankruptcies and high-profile mergers and acquisitions making headlines throughout the year. But the ever-changing controlled environment ag space also has its share of success stories.
The recent New York Produce Show, Dec. 5-7, featured just some of these success stories during an educational panel discussion organized by the Controlled Environment Agriculture Alliance and moderated by Tom Stenzel, the CEA Alliance’s executive director.
Panelists included Irving Fain, CEO and founder of New York-based Bowery Farming; Viraj Puri, co-founder and CEO of New York-based Gotham Greens; Paul Sellew, founder and CEO of the Devens, Mass.-based Little Leaf Farms; and Ross Farnsworth, vice president of produce for Wakefern.
Panelists said the key value proposition to consumers is freshness, longer life in the refrigerator and taste.
“Consumers are telling us they’re choosing indoor leafy greens for its freshness, but also for great taste,” said Wakefern’s Farnsworth.
In an interview with The Packer earlier this year, Sellew attributed the success of Little Leaf Farms to remaining a farming company rather than a tech company.
“We’re farmers first,” said Sellew at NYPS, “and we know we have to deliver a better product. It’s a free market out there and consumers will choose the products they want.”
While nationally, indoor leafy greens represent about 3% to 4% of sales, Sellew said that sales of Little Leaf Farms’ products are well into the double digits in the Northeast.
“The technology enables us to grow produce with no pesticides, less use of water and other natural resources, but it’s still the end product that matters,” said Bowery’s Fain. “We believe this category is beyond organic in delivering value to the consumer.”
Gotham Greens, which began in 2011 as a rooftop greenhouse at a Whole Foods Market in Brooklyn, now boasts high-tech greenhouses across America, including locations in New York, Illinois, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, Colorado, California, Georgia and Texas. Currently, Gotham Greens farms more than 40 acres, or 1.8 million square feet, of greenhouse production.
“Today we have farms across the country, and the biggest limit on growth is capacity,” Puri said. “Retailers are ready to promote indoor-grown produce, and all of us in this sector are working to fill that need.”
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