Sustainable Biz - Magazine - Page 23
success will be Virginia’s success.”While
most vertical farms are limited to lettuces,
Plenty spent the past decade designing a
patent-pending, modular growing system
flexible enough to support a wide variety
of crops – including strawberries. Growing
on vertical towers enables uniform delivery
of nutrients, superior airflow and more
intense lighting, delivering increased yield
with consistent quality. Every element of
the Plenty Richmond Farm–including
temperature, light and humidity–is precisely
controlled through proprietary software
to create the perfect environment for the
strawberry plants to thrive. The farm uses
AI to analyse more than 10 million data
points each day across its 12 grow rooms,
adapting each grow room’s environment to
the evolving needs of the plants – creating
the perfect environment for Driscoll’s
proprietary plants to thrive and optimizing
the strawberries’ flavour, texture and size.
Even pollination has been engineered by
Plenty, using a patent-pending method that
evenly distributes controlled airflow across
the strawberry flowers for more efficient
and effective pollination than using bees,
supporting more uniform strawberry size
and shape.“This farm is a model for the
positive impact climate-agnostic agriculture
can have, and proof that vertical farming
can deliver the crop diversity, scaled and
local production needed to future-proof the
global food system,” said Arama Kukutai,
Plenty CEO. “The Plenty Richmond Farm
is the culmination of 200 research trials
over the past six years to perfect growing
strawberries with consistent peak-season
flavor indoors year-round. Driscoll’s sets
an incredibly high bar for the quality of
its berries and we’re excited to join forces
to consistently deliver an ultra-premium
Driscoll’s strawberry year-round.” The
Plenty Richmond Farm brings year-round
production of fresh produce within a
one-day drive of more than 100 million
consumers. Growing locally reduces
food miles and food waste, and the farm
itself uses 97 percent less land and up to
90 percent less water than conventional
farming.“Partnering with Plenty for the
launch of the Richmond Farm allows us
to bring our premium strawberries closer
to consumers in the Northeast, the largest
berry consumption region in the U.S.,” said
Soren Bjorn, Driscoll’s CEO. “By combining
our 100 years of farming expertise and
proprietary varieties along with Plenty’s
cutting-edge technology, we can deliver
the same consistent flavor and quality our
customers love—now grown locally. This
new innovative farm is a powerful step
forward in continuing to drive category
growth in new ways for our customers and
consumers.” The Plenty Richmond Farm is
slated to bring more than 60 jobs to Virginia
and is the first farm to open on Plenty’s 120acre farm campus. The Plenty Richmond
Farm Campus is the largest indoor vertical
farm campus in the world and a projected
$300 million investment that is planned to
bring more than 300 total jobs to Virginia.
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