Plenty has opened its doors in its latest farm facility in Compton, Calif. The high-tech, space-efficient indoor vertical farm has been built to grow up to 4.5 million pounds of leafy greens within the confines of a city block, according to a news release.
The Compton location joins Plenty’s grow sites that include an expansive indoor strawberry farm in Richmond, Va., currently under construction, as well as a vertical farming research center in Laramie, Wyo.
“After investing nearly a decade into research and development, Plenty has cracked the code on a scalable platform for indoor farming,” Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai said in the release. “With Plenty’s first commercial farm, we’re proving that our uniquely vertical indoor farms can deliver a reliable, year-round supply of fresh produce with positive unit economics.”
Kukutai added that he sees the Compton facility as “the first step in putting indoor grown produce on a path to becoming a meaningful part of the global food supply.”
The Compton farm has been built to grow baby arugula, baby kale, crispy lettuce and newly launched curly baby spinach. The spinach is latest product added to Plenty’s leafy greens lineup and is the result of two years of research developing a sweet and crunchy spinach leaf that’s cultivated to thrive in pesticide-free, vertical growing conditions, according to the release.
Investing in Compton’s farming community
“The Plenty Compton farm is bringing field-scale farming back to Compton and introducing a new generation of our community to careers in agriculture — more than 30% of the farm’s hires came from Compton,” Mayor Emma Sharif said in the release. “Plenty’s farm is a model for how we can increase access to fresh, locally grown food for urban populations, while supporting cities’ economic development.”
Plenty’s approach to growing indoors leverages its unique architecture concept of two-story-high vertical grow towers. Unlike traditional indoor growers, Plenty farm facilities rely on towering vertical grow columns that are harvested using automated robotics.
“California agriculture is at the forefront of efforts to ensure climate-resilient food systems through the adoption of innovative technologies and practices,” California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross said in the release.
Plenty’s new indoor vertical farm is an example of this innovation, Ross said, providing an additional way to grow fresh produce in urban centers, closer to consumers, thus reducing the draw on natural resources.
