Author: From Hortidaily.com

Catching the eye of consumers scanning store shelves can be a challenge in the greenhouse-grown or controlled environment agriculture (CEA) leafy greens category. “There are so many new local greenhouse or vertical farm operations that are really designed specifically for lettuce production,” says Ian Adamson of Greenbelt Organic Greens, a certified organic controlled environment agriculture (CEA) grower in Ontario, Canada. “We are still the only organic local option available, but it’s hard to stand out in the sea of other local greens.”

To help enhance its differentiation on store shelves, the company is leaning into one of its strengths–namely its ability to grow a number of different ingredient items. With that in mind, this week it is launching two new SKUs: a Herb Medley which is a blend of lettuce mixed with aromatic herbs like dill, cilantro and parsley, giving the combination a unique Middle Eastern flavor; and Asian Mix which has Pac Choi, Japanese Spinach, Pea Shoots, Mizuma and it’s an item that can be eaten either fresh or stir fried. Both items are rolling out in a major Ontario retailer.

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From HortiDaily.com — As controlled environment agriculture projects continue to scale and diversify, developers are increasingly recognizing that successful greenhouse facilities are rarely the result of technology decisions made late in the process. Instead, the most resilient and productive operations are built through integrated planning, where specialists from multiple disciplines collaborate from the earliest design stages.

According to Joe Swartz, Senior Vice President at American Hydroponics (AmHydro), the industry is shifting away from a reactive, technology-first approach toward a more coordinated development strategy.

“The greenhouse structure, growing system, climate systems, automation, harvesting, packaging, cold storage, and distribution are not independent choices,” he says. “They’re one continuous flow.”

Moving beyond technology-first design

Over the past few years, the CEA sector has experienced both rapid expansion and significant project setbacks. In many cases, Joe says, difficulties emerged when projects prioritized specific technologies before fully defining the business model or operational requirements.
“The industry has gone through significant challenges over the past two years, and a lot of that was caused by unrealistic expectations and technologies that didn’t provide positive economics.”

He emphasizes that, despite its technological advancements, CEA remains fundamentally an agricultural enterprise.

“Farming is farming; whether it’s outdoors, in a greenhouse, or in an indoor facility,” he says. “The economic rules, the horticultural rules and the market rules all apply equally.”

For this reason, successful projects often begin by defining market demand, crop strategy, operational capacity and financial targets before finalizing technology selections.

Designing systems to work together

A key principle of integrated CEA development is synchronizing technologies across the entire production chain. Rather than selecting systems individually, project teams design the greenhouse structure, hydroponic system, automation, packaging, and logistics infrastructure as a single operational platform.

This collaborative approach was recently applied in the planning of a three-hectare leafy greens greenhouse in Newberry, Florida by Harvest Singularity.

Project CEO Charles Garza engaged multiple technology partners early in the design phase, including American Hydroponics for hydroponic systems and Dalsem Complete Greenhouse Projects for greenhouse design and construction. Additional partners such as JASA Packaging Solutions and TTA-ISO joined to address packaging, automation and post-harvest handling.

By involving these specialists from the outset, the facility’s crop production, harvesting, packaging and distribution processes could be designed simultaneously rather than retrofitted later.

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From HortiDaily.com —  The opening keynote of Indoor Ag-Con 2026, titled “CEA Alliance Insights on the State of the Industry,” highlighted a sector transitioning from rapid expansion to a phase of rigorous operational discipline. Moderated by Tom Stenzel, executive director of the CEA Alliance, the session brought together Dane Almassy (Local Bounti), Aaron Fields (Campo Caribe), Jesper Hansen (YesHealth Group), and Josh McClung (Cox Farms). The panel indicated that for high-tech greenhouse and vertical farm operators, the current mandate is to prioritize retail reliability and unit economics over experimental growth.

The retail mandate: Fulfillment as a non-negotiable
Last Wednesday, on the opening day of Indoor Ag-Con, the speakers emphasized that the primary challenge for the modern grower is not just biological success, but the ability to integrate seamlessly into a professional retail ecosystem. Dane Almassy identified a significant gap between the rising costs of inputs, including labor and utilities, and the pressure to maintain flat pricing on the retail shelf.

“The onus is on us to either drive efficiencies within our business and our supply chain or add additional value-added products to retail,” Dane stated. He noted that while retailers were once willing to trial any indoor-grown product, they now expect the same reliability as traditional field-grown supply chains. “The growth within leafy greens or strawberries is going to be predicated by those that have the operational excellence and the capital to support the growth, but ultimately build the trust relationship with the retailer so that you can be counted on to truly replace what is being sourced from the field today.”

Josh McClung supported this assessment, noting that retailers are increasingly looking for partners who can deliver “on time and in full” (OTIF). He remarked on the industry’s historical struggle with consistency: “We’ve had such a negative halo in this industry over the past five years, with lots of people coming with lots of cool tech and not focused on the core priority—and that’s service me on time, service me in full, and service me with a high-quality product.”

The transition from a “tech industry” to a “produce industry” has forced growers to confront harsh operational realities. “We’re not a tech industry. We use tech to enable the growing of a lot of our products, but some of the companies came in and did not understand the importance of day-to-day delivering the freshest, highest-quality product consistently,” agreed Tom.

Jesper Hansen believes this to be one of the causes of the slow adoption of indoor-grown lettuce in retail, which, instead of taking a few years, took a decade. “Or more, as we haven’t really been adopted yet. We carry part of the blame ourselves, because the qualities that we know we can deliver, we didn’t really deliver. Sometimes, the retailer just sticks with their safe horses. I think that as we grow as an industry, we become better at running the farms and providing that quality consistently, and retail adoption will be wider and wider.”

Read full recap from HortiDaily here….