New Jersey Grower Plans Expanded Greenhouse Baby Spinach Production

Posted by Brian Sparks|April 21, 2021

Element Farms, a Lafayette, NJ-based grower of premium hydroponic baby salad greens, has completed all phases of construction and onboarding at its first facility and has revealed its plans for expansion: a 2.5-acre spinach greenhouse designed for growing pesticide-free baby spinach all year round.

Element Farms already grows more than half a million pounds of baby spinach, arugula, lettuces, beet greens, pea shoots, and more each year in its current 1.5-acre facility and delivers directly to more than 120 retail, online grocer, and foodservice customers such as ShopRite, FreshDirect, Key Food, Kimberton Whole Foods, and Misfits Market. The new spinach greenhouse will allow the team to take an even bigger bite out of the local baby greens market.

“Baby spinach makes up 40% of the baby greens market in the U.S., while local, pesticide-free, year-round spinach is practically unheard of in most of the U.S.,” says Serdar Mizrakci, Element Farms’ founder and CEO. “We have served customers in New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania for the last three years and understand their insatiable appetite for a tender, safe, and premium baby spinach product. Our new greenhouse will serve that demand.”

Element Farms uses proprietary technology and processes to grow its greens in hydroponic ponds in glass greenhouses. Seeding, growing, harvesting, packing, and delivery happen in a continuous cycle, and produce is harvested in an average of 14 days versus 30 in the field. The company eschews the energy expenditures found in many controlled environmental agriculture ventures and instead relies on renewable energy in the form of the sun to power most of its plants’ growth. This sustainable approach is not only good for the planet, but also for customers, because it is a cost-effective way to grow.

With the completion of its spinach greenhouse in late 2021, Element Farms will be on track to grow and ship 2 million pounds of greens per year. The second Lafayette greenhouse is just the one part of Element Farms’ growth plan. The company is currently pursuing greenhouse projects in other states where the markets for year-round local produce are ripe for disruption. Element Farms expects to announce these projects in the coming year.