Columbia vertical farm makes use of technology to lower plastic pollution and raise sustainability

Feb. 1—With the use of agricultural technologies, Vertical Roots farm in West Columbia produced a packaging technique for its leafy greens that slice down the company’s plastic utilization by 30% and extends the shelf daily life of the lettuce.

In 2015, substantial faculty good friends Andrew Hare and Matt Daniels produced the idea for Vertical Roots, now the major hydroponic container farm in the country. Hare is the common supervisor of the business and Daniels functions as the chief horticulturist.

The first Vertical Roots opened in Charleston and expanded with its second farm internet site in West Columbia in 2019. Vertical Roots father or mother firm, AmplifiedAg, manufactures the container farms and farm know-how of which Vertical Roots operates.

The farms are aspect of a increasing business referred to as controlled environmental agriculture (CEA) that uses technology to ramp up nutrient-abundant food output year close to.

Hydroponics assists the farm use 98% much less h2o than standard farming, in accordance to Hare. Their technological innovation results in an indoor setting to grow lettuce on the East Coast. Most lettuce in the U.S. will come from California and Arizona, the place temperatures do not fluctuate a great deal in the course of the yr, touring 2,000 miles from farm to table. Vertical Roots delivers a remedy for community lettuce.

“Our mission is to revolutionize the way communities increase, distribute and consume food stuff,” claimed Hare. As populations mature, Hare explained the means to produce adequate foods is a world concern.

Vertical Roots agricultural innovation

As a business dedicated to sustainability, Vertical Roots had to tackle its plastic utilization and the buyer need for environmentally helpful items.

“I imagine every person can agree that the sum of plastic which is consumed and utilized globally is a little bit of a challenge,” reported Hare.

If Vertical Roots ended up to fully decide out of employing plastics, as substantially as 40% of the lettuce would be harmed in transportation to the merchants, Hare explained. So the firm decided to continue to use plastic containers in order to cut out food stuff squander, but it improved the volume and style of plastic employed.

By changing the standard “clamshell” plastic lids that you see on a container of lettuce at the grocery retail outlet, Vertical Roots lower down much more than 30% of plastic use by developing a resealable movie lid. The new packaging comes at no additional cost to the consumer and will be more cost-effective in the lengthy-operate for Vertical Roots, according to Hare.

The farm also makes use of recycled plastic that can also be recycled once more immediately after use. Very small perforations in the film lid of the packaging lets air to leave the lettuce container and extends the product’s freshness, creating Vertical Roots lettuce final all over 14 days on the shelf.

“We analyzed respiration and condensation with every lettuce wide range, and finally discovered that we could prolong the freshness and shelf everyday living of our salad mixes even extra,” claimed Hare.

Expansion in the agricultural technological innovation marketplace

In the 1st a few quarters of 2020, a record $754 million of enterprise funds was invested in the vertical farming industry, according to PitchBook knowledge. This was a 34% enhance from the total past yr, Bloomberg documented in a January short article.

A 2019 report from World wide Industry Insights confirmed that the vertical farming marketplace sizing, or the variety of probable buyers or device profits, surpassed $3 billion in 2018 and reported it, “will exhibit a enormous compound yearly advancement level (CAGR) of more than 27% from 2019 to 2026.”

In vertical farms, crops are harvested on various vertical levels indoors, in which farmers can develop calendar year-spherical by controlling gentle, temperature, drinking water and other aspects, in accordance to the U.S. Section of Agriculture.

Vertical agriculture is also witnessed as a developing market because it “could help maximize foodstuff output and increase agricultural operations as the world’s inhabitants is projected to exceed 9 billion by 2050,” in accordance to the USDA.

Having said that, some are skeptical about the foreseeable future of vertical farming for several motives. The farms use LED gentle bulbs to grow the crops, which need a large amount of energy and cash to function.

Also the farms mainly deliver greens, which are very low in calories for the reason that they choose less h2o and light-weight. The new farming engineering is promoted as a way to fight earth hunger, but in poorer nations around the world, lower calorie greens are not as useful, in accordance to Bloomberg.

The future of Vertical Roots

In spite of a challenging year owing to COVID-19, Vertical Roots will open up two extra indoor, container farms in Ga and Florida in 2021.

The company dropped earnings from meals assistance customers like restaurants, universities and universities during the pandemic, claimed Hare.

Those people meals assistance shoppers accounted for about fifty percent of Vertical Roots’ small business, Hare claimed. Grocery retail store organization stayed steady and even grew throughout the pandemic. As educational facilities and dining places are slowly but surely reopening, Vertical Roots is attaining business back again.

The West Columbia farm location produces about $1.5 million lbs of generate for every 12 months, mentioned Hare. Vertical Roots lettuce is in 1,200 diverse grocery stories in 11 states, such as Lowes Foodstuff shops, Publix, Harris Teeter and Complete Foodstuff Sector chains.

Hare said the business is continuously doing the job on sustainable initiatives, together with figuring out a way to decrease light-weight electricity consumption by 20-25%, considering about compostable packaging methods and discovering ways to use fewer water at the farms.

In the upcoming, Vertical Roots hopes to supply a larger sized assortment of deliver. The staff is experimenting with expanding food items like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, herbs and mushrooms to see if they could be viable goods.