www.agtechdaily.com
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability
Contact
ABOUT US
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability
No Result
View All Result
www.agtechdaily.com
No Result
View All Result
Home Food

Driscoll’s, Plenty partner on vertical farm for strawberries

Admin by Admin
March 16, 2022
Reading Time:3min read
0
Buy JNews
ADVERTISEMENT


RELATED POSTS

Tyson Foods investing $20 million in Tennessee

Webinar: Flavor trends to watch in 2023

General Mills divests Food Should Taste Good

Dive Brief:

  • Driscoll’s and Plenty are building an indoor farm to grow the berry giant’s strawberries using the CEA firm’s vertical growing platform. The farm will supply strawberries to consumers in the Northeastern United States close to highly dense, urban areas, according to a press release.
  • The companies shared few other details on the new facility, including its exact location, size or production capacity. In an interview with CNBC, Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai said the farm will be operating by the end of 2023, and the partners hope to sell the berries in grocery stores by early 2024.
  • Since the two first partnered about a year ago, they have been growing Driscoll’s strawberries in Plenty’s Laramie, Wyoming, indoor vertical farm. The plan for the dedicated facility comes as other controlled environment agriculture firms expand into berries for greater growth.

Dive Insight:

Both Driscoll’s and Plenty benefit by partnering on a vertical farm dedicated to strawberries. For the berry giant, which already has made an unspecified “major investment” in Plenty, it provides an opportunity to tap into the food tech firm’s data analytics and machine learning expertise to boost yields potentially 150 to 350 times higher per acre than it could achieve in a conventional field setting, according to the companies.

Plenty can learn from the plant genetics expertise of Driscoll’s, which commands roughly a third of the North American berry market, and continue to prove the potential of its growing platform far beyond salad greens.

In a statement, Kukutai with Plenty noted that the partners targeted the Northeast because it is the largest berry consumption region in the U.S.

“Our partnership with Driscoll’s, coupled with Plenty’s optimized technology platform, ensures we can consistently grow premium berries closer to where these consumers live, providing fresh, consistent quality,” he said. “We’ve successfully leveraged the expertise of the world’s largest strawberry breeding program within Plenty’s own controlled growing environment, maximizing the flavor of each berry and optimizing for both texture and size.”

Other CEA companies have eyed the opportunities in growing berries as the leafy greens segment gets increasingly crowded. Manhattan-based vertical farming startup Oishii launched with a focus on strawberries. It claims to have a proprietary approach to pollinating the berries indoors through bees, and plans to develop new varietals of the fruit. In March 2021, it closed a $50 million funding round to help it build new strawberry farms in new markets.

New York City-based Bowery Farming plans to launch strawberries as a new product line this spring, supported by a massive $300 million funding round that it dedicated to building new farms and growing beyond leafy greens, kale and basil. In February, Bowery announced it had acquired Traptic, a company that uses AI, computer vision and robotic arms to harvest delicate crops such as strawberries and tomatoes.

And Montana-based Local Bounti, which just went public through a special purpose acquisition company, has said it may expand into berries to drive future growth.

Vertical farming offers the potential to move strawberry growing closer to the end consumer, lowering not only the crop’s environmental footprint but also saving costs for providers such as Driscoll’s. According to USDA figures, roughly 90% of the berries are produced in California, far from the densely populated East Coast cities that the company is targeting. This distance demands high fuel and transportation costs to ship the highly perishable produce across thousands of miles. Strawberries are also said to be one of the costliest crops to grow, in large part because the fragile fruits need to be planted and picked by hand. Being able to grow the berries in a more efficient, cost-effective setting makes them custom fit for vertical farming.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the headquarters of Bowery Farming. The company is based in New York City.

 



Source link

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)

Like this:

Like Loading...
Admin

Admin

Related Posts

Food

Tyson Foods investing $20 million in Tennessee

January 27, 2023
Food

Webinar: Flavor trends to watch in 2023

January 27, 2023
Food

General Mills divests Food Should Taste Good

January 27, 2023
Food

Consumer interest in foods’ mental health benefits growing

January 26, 2023
Food

Strong consumer interest seen in Mondelez snacking survey

January 26, 2023
Food

Tyson CFO pleads guilty to trespassing, intoxication charges: report

January 26, 2023
Next Post

Sri Lanka President invites Saudi Arabia to directly invest in agriculture, renewable energy

Ingredient innovation spotted at Expo West

Latest News

palm oil plantation

Food crisis grows as Indonesia joins countries to ban agricultural exports

March 10, 2022

How to Start a Successful Sod Farm

January 2, 2023

Harvest season is a good time to sort out what we know about Iowa farming – and what we don’t

September 29, 2022

Most Popular

  • Agricultural E-Commerce Boosts Incomes For Cherry farmers in Shandong

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Seeds of Discord: Farmers Accused of Fraud in Dicamba Dispute | Arkansas Business News

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Farm Credit Administration tours the Midwest – Agweek

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • 12 Biggest Agriculture Companies in the World

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • How Technology Is Changing Agriculture

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn
www.agtechdaily.com

AgTech Daily provides in-depth journalism and insight into the most impactful news and trends shaping the agricultural and food technology industry

Categories

  • Agriculture
  • Announcements
  • Food
  • Others
  • Sustainability
  • Technology

Quick Links

  • Home
  • About us

© 2022 - All Right Reserved. www.agtechdaily.com.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Agriculture
  • Food
  • Technology
  • Sustainability

© 2022 - All Right Reserved. www.agtechdaily.com.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
%d bloggers like this: