Year in Produce 2023: The great indoors
Editor's note: The following is one of the issues highlighted in The Packer's Year in Produce 2023 review.
Ever-evolving, indoor agriculture made headlines throughout the year from bankruptcies to high-profile mergers and acquisitions to setbacks and triumphs.
In January, Canadian greenhouse grower Lakeside Produce Inc., Leamington, Ontario, filed for bankruptcy, becoming the first — but certainly not the last — indoor ag company to file for Chapter 11 in 2023.
Kalera, a vertical farming company based in Orlando, Fla., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy April 4 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.
Two months later, Newark, N.J.-based vertical farmer AeroFarms filed for bankruptcy, followed by AppHarvest in July. By October, AppHarvest’s four Kentucky greenhouse facilities in Berea, Somerset, Morehead and Richmond were under new ownership.
Equilibrium Capital purchased the Richmond and Morehead facilities from AppHarvest as part of the bankruptcy process and subsequently leased them to a Mastronardi Kentucky tenant operator. The two facilities represent a combined 120 acres of fully lit production. Additionally, Mastronardi Berea LLC now owns and operates the Berea, Ky.-based leafy green facility.
Canadian greenhouse grower Pure Flavor also expanded its indoor footprint through acquisitions in 2023. The Leamington, Ontario-based company acquired Cervini Farms C5 in February and a distribution center in McAllen, Texas, in July. In September, Pure Flavor acquired MightyVine, an indoor tomato grower in Rochelle, Ill., just west of Chicago.
And the year saw other controlled environment agriculture success stories.
“There's been a lot of chatter and buzz about the industry’s recent struggles. We’re proud that we're in our 12th year of operations,” Gotham Greens co-founder and CEO Viraj Puri told The Packer in September. “We've been around for a little while. I think there are companies like us and others that shouldn’t be necessarily caught up in that same narrative.”
Gotham Greens, which began in 2011 as a rooftop greenhouse at a Whole Foods Market in Brooklyn, N.Y., 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.
“We and others have had proven financial success with more than a decade of commercial operations,” Puri said in September.
“I think CEA is here to stay,” he added. “We've seen that with many other produce commodities — in tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers and CEA lettuce will continue to grow.”
2023 was also a year of growth for Little Leaf Farms, Devens, Mass.
In an April interview with The Packer, Little Leaf Farms founder and CEO Paul Sellew attributed the company’s success to remaining a farming company rather than a tech company.
At the time, Sellew said the company was on track for a banner year in 2023 — projecting it would break $100 million in sales by the end of the calendar year. In December, Little Leaf Farms confirmed it had surpassed this goal.
Today, Little Leaf Farms says it’s the largest U.S. greenhouse producer of hydroponic baby greens, which are sold in over 5,000 grocery stores and fine dining establishments.
