From HortiDaily – The North American Retail Mandate: Stability and Operational Discipline
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.”