Plenty and Driscoll’s look forward to first harvest in early 2025 after highly advanced centre in Virginia begins production
The world’s first large-scale vertical berry farm has opened in Richmond, in the US state of Virginia.
Using advanced technology supplied by Plenty Unlimited, the much-anticipated Plenty Richmond Farm will grow varieties developed by soft fruit specialist Driscoll’s in 30-foot-tall towers, all year round.
Its production capacity is said to exceed 4m pounds (1,800 tonnes) of strawberries per year, grown on just 3,700m2 of space.
The first strawberries from the farm are expected to be available in early 2025.
“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 US,” said Driscoll’s CEO Soren Bjorn.
“By combining our hundred years of farming expertise and proprietary varieties along with Plenty’s cutting-edge technology, we can deliver the same consistent flavour 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.”
Decades of research
Plenty has spent the past decade designing a patent-pending, modular growing system that is flexible enough to support a wide variety of crops – including strawberries.
Growing on vertical towers, which promises uniform delivery of nutrients, superior airflow and more intense lighting, as well as increased yields and consistent quality, has tended to be confined to crops like leafy salads.
According to Plenty, 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.
It said the farm will use AI to analyse more than 10m data points each day across its 12 production rooms, and adapt each one’s environment to the evolving needs of the plants.
Even the plants’ pollination has been engineered by Plenty, it added, 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 Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai.
“The Plenty Richmond Farm is the culmination of two hundred research trials over the past six years to perfect growing strawberries with consistent peak-season flavour indoors year-round,” he added.
“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.”
Proximity advantage
The projected $300 million investment in Plenty’s new flagship project offers an apparent commercial advantage in its ability to bring year-round production of fresh produce within a one-day drive of more than 100m consumers.
The group noted that local production had the potential to reduce food miles and food waste, and insisted the farm itself would use “97 per cent less land and up to 90 percent less water” than conventional farming.
The farm is slated to bring more than 60 jobs to Virginia and could be just the first to open on Plenty’s 120-acre campus.
“With agriculture serving as the Commonwealth’s largest private sector industry, Plenty choosing Virginia for the world’s first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale reinforces Virginia’s leading role in the controlled environment agriculture industry,” said state governor Glenn Youngkin.
“Plenty’s farm will boost local agriculture production and drive economic development, all while diversifying against risks and protecting the environment. We look forward to supporting their innovative approaches to revolutionising the industry, and know that Plenty’s success will be Virginia’s success.”
