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Gotham Greens CEA Q and A January 2024

Gotham Greens CEO Talks Sustainable Growth, Innovative Technologies and Exciting Milestones

In this month’s CEA Q&A, we speak with Gotham Greens‘ CEO Viraj Puri, who is joining our Indoor Ag-Con 2024 “Leader Insights” keynote panel in March! A true CEA leader, Gotham Greens has made a  remarkable journey from a single rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn to becoming one of the largest hydroponic leafy green producers in North America. From tackling the challenges of the South’s hot and humid climate with cutting-edge greenhouse technologies to introducing fresh salad kits and championing sustainability, Puri shares valuable insights into the company’s growth, initiatives, milestones and commitment to reshaping the future of agriculture.

Gotham Greens Georgia_4_Credit Gotham Greens

Gotham Greens has rapidly expanded across the U.S since its launch in 2011 – now operating in various states and climates. Can you share some insights into the innovative technologies and strategies employed by your latest greenhouse in the southeast, particularly addressing the challenges posed by the region’s hot and humid climate?

As we continue to grow our brand, we’re excited to expand in the South and Southeast with new greenhouses in Texas and Georgia. At Gotham Greens, we’re committed to growing more with less, especially as changing climates are creating less favorable growing conditions in these states and across the country. These new greenhouses use our most advanced technology to date, including enhanced automation, cooling and dehumidification systems specifically tailored to the regions, and data science capabilities in a fully closed system to help consistently and reliably grow food closer to where people live no matter the weather outside. We’re proud to bring fresh, sustainably grown leafy greens and herbs that meet the high-quality standard consumers everywhere have come to associate with and expect from the Gotham Greens brand.

The new, state-of-the-art greenhouse facilities in the Dallas Metro area (Seagoville, Texas) and in Monroe, Ga., located between Atlanta and Athens, are examples of what comes next as we face ongoing extreme weather events and increased risk of drought in the U.S. Gotham Greens’ indoor farms create the ideal conditions for plants to thrive and provide consumers throughout the southern U.S. with sustainable fresh produce all year-round.

Gotham Greens recently introduced a new line of salad kits, combining your high-quality greens and dressings.  Can you speak to the inspiration behind these salad kits and the response from consumers?

Gotham Greens is well known for our high quality, longer lasting, pesticide-free salad greens and our line of fresh, flavorful salad dressings, and this portfolio addition combines these ingredients for a quick and easy meal solution made with premium-quality salad greens and delicious flavors that consumers crave. The new salad kits are available in three popular flavor varieties (Green Goddess, Southwest Ranch and Caesar) and are packed with fresh ingredients, including Gotham Greens greenhouse-grown lettuce and fresh flavor-filled toppings and dressings, for convenient home-cooked meals or lunches on the go.

We want people to enjoy fresh greens throughout the day, and we remain committed to bringing consumers the best-tasting, most flavorful fresh foods in the category. What sets us apart from the competition is quality and flavor, from the greens that we grow to the ingredients that we use in all our products, and we hope that consumers can sense that commitment to taste, quality and sustainability in every bite. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback about the kits so far and are excited to bring them to more markets this winter.

 

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Gotham Greens has championed sustainability, using significantly less water and land compared to traditional farming methods.  How do you envision the future of sustainable agriculture, especially within the CEA industry?  Are there upcoming initiatives or partnerships that will further strengthen Gotham Greens’ commitment to sustainability?

As a Certified B Corporation™, Gotham Greens champions quality, efficiency, dedication and freshness in all forms, both inside its greenhouses and throughout the communities where it operates. In addition to creating year-round, full-time jobs with competitive wages and benefits, we are driving the industry toward a more sustainable food system through industry-leading social and environmental practices. Our hydroponic growing methods help us use up to 90% less water than conventional growing methods, which means that at our current footprint, Gotham Greens saves 300 million gallons of water every year compared to field-grown farming, or the equivalent to around 450 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Whole Foods Market’s ninth annual trend report recently recognized our greens for promoting water conservation, a growing interest point for consumers. Gotham Greens’ national network of greenhouses provides a consistent and reliable supply of fresh greens for customers while eliminating the need for long-distance transportation, allowing its produce to stay fresher longer, thus increasing shelf life and decreasing food waste. As we continue to expand across the country, we look forward to deepening our relationships with key educational partners, such as University of California-Davis, as we help shape the agricultural climate of the future.

 

Gotham Greens Georgia_4_Credit Gotham GreensFrom a single rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn to one of the largest hydroponic leafy green producers in North America, Gotham Greens has undergone remarkable growth.  Are there specific milestones or initiatives you’re particularly excited about in the next phase of Gotham Greens development?

We recently celebrated our twelfth birthday in addition to the tenth anniversary of our second greenhouse located in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood on the roof of Whole Foods Market. The country’s first rooftop commercial-scale greenhouse integrated into a supermarket has now blossomed into a global movement of urban and innovative farming projects. This anniversary feels extra special, as this pioneering project has served as an inspiration to urban farming projects around the world. We’re especially grateful to Whole Foods Market for over a decade of supporting our mission to bring fresh, local and sustainably grown produce to its stores. We have additional plans for expansion and look forward to sharing more about that later this year!

Learn more about Gotham Greens by visiting their website.

And, make plans now to attend the March 11-12, 2024 edition of Indoor Ag-Con as Viraj joins other CEA executives on our keynote stage for our midday keynote session on day one:  “Leader Insights: Charting the Future Landscape of Controlled Environment Agriculture”.  Learn more about our full conference schedule and join us!

All photos courtesy of Gotham Greens.

Indoor Ag-Con, NGA Show May 2021 Co-Location Taps Into Synergies Between Growers & Grocers

Indoor Ag-Con and The NGA Show Co-Location In 2021The NGA Show, the leading trade show and conference for independent grocers, and Indoor Ag-Con, the premier agriculture conference and trade show for the indoor and vertical farming industry, will co-locate in 2021.   The combined event will be held May 16-18, 2021 at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, NV.   The January 2021  cover story from Supermarket Perimeter  , titled “Redefining Locally Grown Produce With Urban Farming”, shines a spotlight on the synergies and new business opportunities emerging between grocers and indoor growers.   Written by the publication’s managing editor Andy Nelson, the article highlights a number of our industry leaders, including Freight Farms, Gotham Greens and Infarm and starts out:

Supermarket Perimeter January 2021 Cover Story:

Urban farms check a variety of boxes for today’s consumers: locally grown, sustainable, low carbon footprint — not to mention fresh, healthy and tasty.Supermarket Perimeter Highlights Indoor Grower and Grocer synergies

And the COVID pandemic has only made them more attractive, as transportation and logistics created huge headaches for retailers, shippers and everyone in between along the supply chain. Kroger, Whole Foods Market and Safeway are just a few of the big-name US retailers to get on board.

Minneapolis-based North Market installed a Freight Farms hydroponic vertical container farm in the summer of 2020, and the retailer followed that up in December with the decision to power its farm with solar panels connected to its roof.

“Now we have a repurposed shipping container, growing the equivalent of two acres of outdoor growing space, using only five gallons of water a day, entirely powered by solar panels, selling into a grocery store located 50 feet away,” said Ethan Neal, food systems manager for Pillsbury United Communities, the nonprofit organization that funded the farm. “It’s creating some of the highest quality produce available in a neighborhood that was considered one of the largest food deserts in the state of Minnesota.”

Read the full article from Supermarket Perimeter, visit the publication website here.

Hoogendoorn Introduces IIVO

Indoor Ag-Con Exhibitor News From Hoogendoorn Growth ManagementIndoor Ag-Con Exhibitor News Hoogendoorn: October 8, 2020, Hoogendoorn Growth Management organized an exclusive launch event to launch its biggest innovation yet: IIVO. Not just a new all-in-one process computer, IIVO is a next level climate computer.

Complexity made easy

IIVO provides smart technology for greenhouse growers. A combination of smart software and state of the art hardware. This truly unique system is capable of monitoring, controlling and maintaining any greenhouse. Allowing you to grow more, at higher quality while using minimal resources. Not only is the system highly effective, it is also extremely efficient and sustainable, generating maximum results. Whether you were born in a greenhouse, or never been in one. With self-learning controls and integrated security, it is undoubtedly the future of horticulture, and the first step towards automated growing.

Effortless growth

IIVO constantly and consistently monitors every aspect of your greenhouse environment, including climate conditions, irrigation and energy management. But the system is capable of so much more. The system collects and archives data to create a complete and holistic overview of the conditions inside your greenhouse. IIVO can then be used as an advanced control computer to determine the specific needs of your crop at any given moment.

Crop-specific approach

At the core of IIVO are the principles of Plant Empowerment: a unique cultivation method combining plant physiology and physics. An optimal balance of energy, water and assimilates creates stronger, healthier crops that are less susceptible to pests and diseases. A crop-specific approach that gives every crop exactly what it needs.

Data Driven Growing

IIVO is designed to allow the further implementation of Data Driven Growing. Combining powerful algorithms, data from the growing environment and plant physiology, allowing you to make the best decisions for your plants. The continuous flow of data collected during cultivation generates real-time insights into the conditions within your greenhouse and the health of your plants. Insights that can be used to power artificial intelligence and machine learning to grow ever smarter over time.

Driven by innovation

As soon as IIVO is operational, millions of lines of code are put to work generating crop-specific insights. The software is built from scratch, by Hoogendoorn. No legacy coding, no workarounds. IIVO is shining a new light on the true potential of growing crops in controlled growing environments. The best technology, in a revolutionary, future ready system.

Ready, Set, Grow.

For more Indoor Ag-Con Exhibitor News Hoogendoorn, visit the company website. 

Coronavirus Pandemic Highlights Vital Need for Vertical Farms In World Cities

Coronavirus Pandemic Highlights Vital Need for Vertical Farms in World Cities

by Dr. Joel Cuello, Ph.D.
Coronavirus Pandemic Highlights Vital Need for Vertical Farms  in World Cities
Image modified from Martin Sanchez/Unsplash

The speed with which the coronovirus outbreaks in Asia, Europe and North America metastasized into a full-blown global pandemic — catching many world governments by surprise and with little preparation — underscores just how our world today is highly interconnected and how, in order to contain and stem the surging pandemic, temporary disconnection from the physically-networked world by cities, regions and even entire nations has become an urgent imperative.

With confirmed coronavirus cases globally now exceeding 370,000 and the number of deaths surpassing 16,000, many world cities have become throbbing epicenters of the surging pandemic.

Accordingly, various countries, states and cities have enforced lockdown or stay-at-home orders with drastic measures, including banning public gatherings, restricting restaurants to take-out and delivery only, and closing schools, bars, theaters, casinos and indoor shopping malls, among others.

Such orders, or their looming possibilities, have consequently intensified the panic-buying urges of consumers for food and household essentials, particularly in North America and Western Europe, giving occasions for daily photos of empty grocery-store shelves splashed ubiquitously from across news networks to social media platforms.

The availability of food in North America and Western Europe during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, however, remains generally secure, at least in the near term of the pandemic.

Food Sourcing

New York City, for instance, normally has food supply amounting to approximately 8.6 million tonnes (19 billion pounds) annually as purveyed by a network of regional and national food distributors, which then is sold at about 42,000 outlets across the city’s five boroughs, according to a 2016 study sponsored by the city.

Over half of the outlets are made up of approximately 24,000 restaurants, bars and cafes through which consumers access almost 40 percent of the city’s food by volume annually. The rest of the outlets are chain supermarkets, bodegas and online grocery stores.

The study reported that the city’s annual food supply feeds over 8.6 million city residents, over 60 million tourists, plus daily commuters in the hundreds of thousands from the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

With millions of tourists and commuters now staying away from the city, however, and with the city’s hotels at just 49 percent occupancy for the week ending March 14, an excess of food supply is readily available for diversion into the city’s grocery stores and other retailers to meet the surge in demand by local residents.

In the case of Germany, the country imports food that accounts for nearly 8 percent of its US$1.3 Trillion imported goods in 2018. Germany procures from abroad about 3 million tonnes of fresh vegetables annually — with cucumbers and tomatoes accounting for 40 percent of the import volume — at a value of around 3.5 billion Euros, mainly from the Netherlands and Spain. Indeed, approximately 30 percent of the 2.6 million tonnes of exported Dutch-grown fresh vegetables goes to Germany.

Meanwhile, approximately 80 percent of the United Kingdom’s food and food ingredients are imported. The U.K. imports approximately 2.4 million tonnes of fresh vegetables each year from Spain (33 percent), the Netherlands (28 percent), France (10 percent) and from various parts the world (29 percent).

Access to Food

Although the sources and sourcing of food in North America and Western Europe are currently generally secure, what might soon become a prodigious concern is that their workers in the production, distribution and retail segments of the food supply chain may eventually succumb to coronavirus infection.

In such event, coupled with the potential for lockdown bureaucracies to slow down the flow of cargo between countries and between cities, severe delays in delivery — or real delivery shortages — could well become an actual possibility.

Local Vertical Farms

The coronavirus pandemic lockdowns have laid bare, if fortuitously, the crucial importance of partial local food production in or around world cities in the context of urban resilience.

The following salient features of vertical farms have become especially significant toward buttressing a city’s resilience in the event of a pandemic lockdown:

(1) Local — Production of safe and fresh produce can take place within the lockdown zone, obviating the hurdles and perils of going in and out of the red zone;

(2) Automation-Amenability — Impact of severe labor shortage which can be expected as the pandemic surges as well as direct physical contact between workers and fresh produce can be significantly minimized or eliminated;

(3) Controlled-Environment — Infection risks to both workers and crops are significantly reduced through clean and controlled operations;

(4) Modular Option — Crops may be grown in modular production units, such as shipping containers, which may be conveniently transported to neighborhoods located either farther away or in areas of stricter isolation; and,

(5) Reliability — Dependability and consistency of high-yield and high-quality harvests throughout the year is virtually guaranteed independently of season and external climate conditions.

Fortunately for New York City, even as it sources most of its fresh vegetables from California and Arizona, the New York greater area now serves as host to the highest concentration in the United States of commercial urban vertical farms — including Aerofarms,Bowery Farming, Bright Farms, Farm.One, Square Roots and Gotham Greens, among others — that operate as controlled-environment farms year-round and independently of the variable effects of climate and geography. While conventional outdoor farming can produce three vegetable harvests per year, some of these vertical farms can achieve up to 30 harvests annually.

New York City and other world cities could certainly use more vertical farms.

Indeed, the urban planning and design of every world city should incorporate vertical farms, in and/or around it, not only for promoting food security — but for fostering disaster resilience as well.

During a pandemic, when a temporary period of social distancing between cities and nations becomes critically necessary, vertical farms can serve as helping outposts of resilience for cities and regions on lockdown as they brave the onslaught of the pandemic until it runs its course and duly dissipates — at which time the enfeebled ties of cooperation between cities, states and nations across the globe can once again be mended and made even stronger than before.

Thus, not only locally, but in fact also globally, vertical farms can serve as helping vanguards of protection for all of our communities.

Dr Joel Cuello of University of Arizona to Speak at INdoor Ag-Con 2020Dr. Joel L. Cuello is Vice Chair of the Association for Vertical Farming (AVF) and Professor of Biosystems Engineering at The University of Arizona. In addition to conducting research and designs on vertical farming and cell-based bioreactors, he also teaches “Integrated Engineered Solutions in the Food-Water-Energy Nexus” and “Globalization, Sustainability & Innovation.” Email cuelloj@arizona.edu.