Indoor vertical farming company Plenty Unlimited Inc. says it will expand its footprint at its R&D center in Laramie, Wyo., with design for the new research facility complete and construction set to begin next spring.
The company said the expansion is made possible due to a significant economic development grant by the state of Wyoming, along with support received from the Wyoming Business Council, Laramie Chamber Business Alliance and the city of Laramie.
“The next generation of Plenty’s R&D platform that we’re deploying in Wyoming enables us to develop new crops at a much faster rate and expand the portfolio of plants we can grow in Plenty’s patented vertical growing system,” Sasha Preuss, vice president of plant science at Plenty, said in a news release. “We just announced our expansion of Plenty farms to the Middle East and the research capabilities we have here in Wyoming make it possible for us to develop additional crops that can be grown in those farms — increasing regional production and food security despite the very different climates. That’s a big advantage to having both research and commercial farm environments that are totally controlled.”
The company said the new vertical-farming research center will enable it to explore opportunities to innovate through research partnerships with governments, companies, institutions and more and to accelerate new crop development.
“This new advanced plant science research facility is not only the culmination of investing hundreds of millions of dollars into R&D over the past decade, but a blueprint for expanding our research capacity to support projects valuable to our partners, our industry and beyond,” said Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai.
