Inside Scoop on the ‘Highest Production Volume’ Vertical Farm in the Southeast

Posted by Paul Rusnak|March 6, 2020

The new high-tech vertical farming facility built by Kalera in Orlando, FL, rose to fruition quickly — a goal for the company going forward.
Photo courtesy of Kalera

High-tech vertical farming firm Kalera has announced the opening of its new state-of-the-art growing facility in Orlando, FL. This new facility located in the middle of a major tourist district is the highest production volume vertical farm in the Southeast U.S., according to the company with offices in Central Florida and Norway.

The latest structure complements Kalera’s initial HyCube growing facility located at the Orlando World Center Marriott, which opened in 2018, and has the capacity to supply millions of heads of leafy greens per year to consumers while also providing dozens of new local jobs.

Originally announced at the end of August, Kalera was able to get the project complete in less than six months thanks to being able to retrofit the existing building with its proprietary technology, which includes cleanroom science and processes to eliminate the use of chemicals and remove exposure to pathogens. In addition, a closed loop irrigation system allows plants to grow while consuming 95% less water compared to field farming.
Kalera management confirms it is planning to keep the momentum growing and build additional facilities throughout the U.S. and internationally in the next few years.

“Adding a large-scale vertical farm to Central Florida was the next logical step for us as a company,” said Daniel Malechuk, CEO of Kalera. “We’ve spent years perfecting and fine-tuning our technology to place us as industry leaders in the local farming ag-tech revolution.”