Earlier this year, agricultural technology startup Plenty opened a 100,000-square-foot indoor farm in Compton, California.
This urban farm supplies leafy greens to Walmart and Whole Foods. Walmart is an investor.
I toured the facility and was in awe of the robots used to run the futuristic farm.
Your next package of lettuce may come directly from Compton.
Last week, I toured a 100,000 square foot indoor vertical farm operating in a rough area of ​​Compton, California.urban farm managementPlenty, a Bay Area agricultural technology startup, is designed to grow up to 4.5 million pounds of leafy vegetables per year.
Plenty launched a large-scale indoor farm in May to produce leafy greens that can be harvested and stored within 24 hours. The company’s produce is available at major California grocery stores, including Walmart, Whole Foods, and Bristol Farms. Walmart is also an investor in Plenty.
Throughout my 20-year career as a food journalist, I have visited farms and processing plants that supply leafy greens to top fast food chains such as McDonald’s.
Agriculture is one of the most labor-intensive parts of the food supply chain. It takes hundreds of acres of fields and countless workers to produce the variety of leafy greens you find in grocery stores and restaurants. After harvesting, vegetables are transported several miles away to processing plants for cleaning and packaging.
Plenty, on the other hand, grows, harvests and packages four types of leafy vegetables in one facility. Because it is located in a controlled environment, it is not threatened by excessive rain or heat. Plenty grows all year round, so seasonality is not important.
What Plenty is doing is revolutionary.
I saw almost no humans on this tour. Automatic machines and robots do most of the work, from sowing seeds to harvesting. The only time I saw workers was during the packing process. Sometimes someone came into the room to check the machine.
The only thing Plenty had in common with my past farm tours was that we were required to wear hairnets. Beyond that, the experience was very different.
Here’s a glimpse into the future of American agriculture.
My tour started by observing the seed planting process.
At Plenty, we don’t use soil to grow our leafy vegetables.
Instead, the seeds are planted in a soil-like material made from crushed coconut shells. Plenty calls this brown substance “organic medium.”
It tastes like finely ground coffee. Plenty crushes coconut shells using the same industrial machinery used to grate Parmesan cheese.
The coconut shell material moves along the conveyor belt and is distributed into trays.
An automatic machine fills the tray with seeds and pours in minerals and water.
An automated machine makes small holes in the coconut shell mash and places it into a tray. The machine is programmed to drill a specific size hole depending on the type of seed.
Here the tray is topped with minerals and poured with water for the first time.
During my tour, the machine was planting spinach seeds.
The seeded trays are transported on a conveyor belt to a room where they undergo intense growth under unique LED lighting.
The next stage is propagation.
The seeded trays are moved to one of the farm’s two propagation rooms. The eight-room-long platform has the capacity to grow millions of plants at once. The rapid growth of agricultural products is supported in part by hundreds of thousands of LED lights.
Here, seeds hatch and grow exponentially faster than in the field.. They stay here for about two weeks, or about half of the growing period.
So far, I haven’t seen any factory workers on my tour.
Machines do almost everything.
I first encountered a robot in the transplant section of an indoor farm.
Plenty, which employs more than 80 full-time workers in Compton, uses robots and automated machines to perform the majority of its work.Roles include maintenance workers, operations technicians, engineers, and plant scientists.
During the transplanting stage, a robotic arm picks the lush plants from the tray and carefully places them inside a vertical tower.
When I entered the transplant area of ​​the facility, I thought I was on the set of a Transformers movie.
Once the white tower is filled with plants, a large yellow robot lifts it vertically and secures it to the overhead track system that connects different parts of the farm.
The robot has a reach of 12 feet and a payload of 880 pounds. These are similar to those found on a car assembly line.
From there, the tower slowly moves down the hallway to its assigned cultivation room. The vertical tower is almost two stories high.
Robots work long days. The facility will operate from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., allowing Plenty to take full advantage of its growing capacity.
Plenty’s Indoor Farm grows more than 250 acres of leafy greens within one city block of Compton.
“This makes it possible to locate high-yield farms in urban areas like Los Angeles,” the company said.
The company says it can yield up to 350 times more produce per acre than traditional farms. A company spokesperson told Business Insider that it uses about 10% less water than a standard green field.
Plants grow for an additional two weeks in the vertical tower chamber.
While greenhouses and other indoor farms grow crops on flat surfaces that mimic fields, Plenty grows leafy vegetables in vertical towers.
Plants like baby arugula, baby kale, crunchy lettuce, and curly baby spinach grow under unique LED lighting. The vertical design allows Plenty to grow more crops in less space.
Plenty’s mission is to make agricultural products accessible and affordable to more communities.
When the leafy vegetables are ready to be harvested, the vertical tower is moved to the harvest room by an overhead track system.
I was in awe as I looked up at the vertical towers blooming with fresh produce. The tower will slowly move along the trajectory on the ceiling and reach its next destination.
Again, everything is autonomous. Humans are not dealing with greens or towers.
From seed to harvest, Plenty’s growth schedule is approximately 30 days. According to company officials, this is about two to three times faster than traditional farms.
As the vertical towers enter the harvest area, AI-powered video surveillance cameras take photos of each tower.
Next is quality control inspection. But instead of humans observing the produce, cameras are doing the work.
Video taken by a camera system that utilizes AICapture footage in real time and look for defects in plants. If any problems are found, the vertical tower will be rejected. The tower will be redirected to composting.
The whole process will take a few seconds.
The large robot is back in action. They place the vertical tower on the harvester.
Each plant is cut with a machine programmed to slice each leafy vegetable to specifications. For example, cut kale with the stalks attached.
Plenty’s leafy greens are pesticide-free, grown in soilless indoor facilities and harvested by robots, so they don’t need to be washed three times.
“Technology such as robots and machines on the farm allows us to grow vegetables without shoppers touching them until they open the clamshell after purchase,” said company spokeswoman Erin Santi. said.
The leafy vegetables pass through an optical sorter and undergo a second quality control check.
Optical sorters closely inspect leafy vegetables before they are sent to the packing room.
If a piece of lettuce is deemed unsuitable for packaging, it is rejected and sent for composting.
The final stage is packaging. This is the only part of the tour where we actually saw humans working on the line.
Packaging line workers perform a final inspection of the vegetables before placing them into clamshells labeled “Plenty.”
Delivery trucks from various grocery store customers, including Walmart, come to Compton to pick up produce. Depending on the retailer, freshly harvested leafy greens can be in grocery stores as early as the next day.
Plenty of leafy greens are available at Walmart and Whole Foods stores in California.
Bay Area Whole Foods stores began carrying Plenty Produce in 2020.
At the time, Plenty was running a pilot leafy vegetable farm at its headquarters in South San Francisco. When a pilot vertical farm opened in Compton, many were decommissioned.
Since August, all Whole Foods stores in California have carried Plenty produce.
Plenty of leafy greens are also available at California’s upscale grocery stores Bristol Farms and Gelson’s. Santi said Walmart stores in Southern California carry Plenty vegetables, but they are sold under Walmart’s private label.
Plenty isn’t the only vertical farm used by Walmart and Whole Foods. Both sell leafy greens from New Jersey-based indoor vertical farm AeroFarms.
In 2022, Walmart became an investor in Plenty.
Walmart said its investment in Plenty is part of its strategic plan to support innovative food solutions that provide customers with the freshest, highest quality food at the best prices.
“Plenty is a proven leader in a new era of agriculture, providing shoppers with pesticide-free, best-tasting produce every day of the year,” said Charles Redfield, Walmart’s U.S. chief merchandising officer. “There is,” he said. “This partnership not only accelerates agricultural innovation, but also strengthens our commitment to sustainability by offering a new category of fresh vegetables that are good for people and the planet.”
Plenty said Compton is a good location for its operations.
Plenty said it chose Compton for its first large-scale indoor farm because of its proximity to an extensive network of retail distribution centers.
The hub reduces transportation time and food waste.
“In Compton, our produce can be on the shelves the day after it’s harvested. We’re proud to bring agriculture back to Compton, once the region’s breadbasket, and contribute to economic growth and development. ”’ Santi told Business Insider.
What’s next for Plenty? Strawberries in Virginia.
Plenty plans to open a second vertical farm in Richmond, Virginia, in 2024. The facility will grow strawberries in partnership with Driscoll’s.
In 2020, Driscoll CEO J. Miles Reiter called Plenty a pioneer in the vertical farming space.
“The combination of our unique flavor-focused berries and Plenty’s technological leadership gives us a competitive market advantage as we expand our business to more effectively serve tomorrow’s consumers.” I believe that sexuality is born,” Reiter said.