Indoor AgCon Keynotes Urge Advocacy, Transformation, and Consumer Focus
March 16, 2022 
Four thought leaders called on controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) players to seize opportunities to push the industry on an accelerated path to growth through advocacy that raises awareness, transformation of vegetable production, and a greater focus on consumers. During Indoor AgCon, held Feb. 28 to March 1 in Las Vegas, these leaders had the opportunity to share perspectives during three keynote addresses that offered some good advice for ways to move CEA forward.
Agriculture Needs a Transformation
Steve Platt, CEO of BrightFarms, shared one of the deep, dark secrets of controlled-environment agriculture during a standing-room only keynote address that he gave in conjunction with Steven Bradley, Vice President of Cox Enterprises Cleantech division, on the first day of Indoor AgCon.
“This s*** is hard,” Platt said.
That may be so, but it isn’t stopping BrightFarms, which Platt announced plans to build five new farms in New York, Virginia, Georgia, Chicago, and Texas during a three-year stretch that will culminate in 60 acres added to its existing operations. The expansion is part of BrightFarms’ overall plan to develop a national network of high-tech farms that will accelerate the salad industry’s transition to indoor farming.
BrightFarms and Cox Enterprises, its majority stakeholder, are on the frontlines of a movement to transform agriculture through controlled-environment growing. BrightFarms is leading the charge to clean up agriculture with its sustainable hydroponic indoor farms that yield 10 times more leafy greens per acre than growing in a field, while using 80% less water, 90% less land, and 95% less shipping fuel.
“Agriculture today is toxic,” Platt said. “The current supply chain model uses too much energy and oil to transport crops across the U.S. Not to mention, consumers can do without the pesticides and chemicals used on their food.”
While we are only on the cusp of unlocking CEA’s potential to revolutionize food production, Platt says retailers are getting more behind indoor agriculture and there is a revolution of consumers accelerating industry growth. In short, the industry is ripe for growth. What will it take? According to Bradley, producing food sustainably will require resource efficiency, resiliency, and adaptability. Cox Enterprises has long been involved in efforts to build a healthier and more sustainable future. Bradley told attendees that part of that sustainable future will need to include cleaning up food waste in stores and growing operations and using technology to grow more efficiently.
Platt also shared some lessons learned about food safety after BrightFarms voluntarily recalled packaged salad greens due to potential contamination with Salmonella in 2021.
“No system is immune,” he said. “The most important part of food safety is the culture at your company that makes it a priority.”
What’s next for BrightFarms and Cox Enterprises?
“We’ll be executing on acquisition in leafy greens and other areas to be a major player in controlled-environment agriculture to the tune of multi-millions,” Platt said.
We Need to Be Loud
CEA is not important — yet. It’s time to make some noise to raise awareness and gain support for the industry.
This advocacy message, hammered home by AppHarvest CEO Jonathan Webb during his afternoon keynote on the first day of Indoor AgCon, encouraged a packed audience to light the industry on fire. How? By taking the ego out of conversations and working together to promote the CEA industry to consumers and legislators.
“We need to find the best solutions for everyone to create an ecosystem to support CEA,” Webb said. “We need advocates among regulators and universities.”
Webb said venture capital dollars are not enough to provide the operating funds needed to build the critical infrastructure it will take to move the CEA industry beyond its promising, but still in its early stages, start of making inroads into environmentally sound food production. The industry will need to get creative to find funding that goes beyond venture capital to sustain its growth. Government support will be key, said Webb, who despaired over the lack of funding and attention to CEA in the multi-million dollar Farm Bill.
Webb encouraged his audience to engage with legislators to tell their stories and start the conversations about CEA, saying that food security is a cross-aisle, bipartisan concept that legislators can uphold. He held up the renewable energy industry as an example of an enterprise that took off after it received federal backing.
“I don’t know what else we can do without help from the government,” he said. “I know of no other industries in the U.S. that have made progress without regulation and government incentives and grants.”
Webb does more than talk about advocacy. In 2021, he took Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear on a tour of AppHarvest’s Morehead facility, where Webb had the chance to share his story. Governor Beshear just announced a $75 million allotment in the state of Kentucky’s budget to develop a state-of-the-art research and development facility for CEA in eastern Kentucky. Webb has also promoted CEA in various news and magazine articles and on podcasts and television. His keynote implored others to do the same. Simply, tell your story, he said.
Paying Attention to the Consumer Really Matters
Farming is a business and growers need to figure out how to win. Investment money won’t last if we don’t make a profit, said Matt Ryan, CEO of Soli Organic during his keynote on the second day of Indoor AgCon.
Part of making a profit is a greater focus on consumers and their needs, according to Ryan. Branding that sends a message is one piece of that consumer focus. Every good brand needs five things, according to Ryan.
- Clarity: When people see your brand logo, they need to be clear about what it represents.
- Availability: Your product needs to be available where and when consumers want it.
- Consistency: Product delivery needs to be reliable and the same all year long.
- Relevance: Brands are only useful if they are useful to the consumer.
- Differentiation: Your brand needs to offer something different from the competition. People want new. They want interesting.
Branding propositions can be developed around new and interesting prospects, Ryan said. But first, you need to know what the consumer wants and how to meet their needs. Paying attention to the consumer really matters.
One way Soli Organic has differentiated itself from its competitors and addressed consumers’ needs is by growing organic. Vegetable growers need to get creative about finding ways to get customers to associate organic vegetables with premium, Ryan said. Organic can become a signifier of benefits such as pesticide-free and fertilizer-free to consumers.
“Consumers have been trained to shop by price and retailers accentuate this,” Ryan said. “We need to focus on value.”
However, Ryan says premium products should not be defined by a higher price tag.
“We can’t rely on that to grow,” he said. “You can’t scale it. We need normal pricing. Paying $4.00 for two sprigs of basil is not the answer.”
Of course, pricing is all about knowing your costs to produce. When you are trying to get your costs down, everything matters, Ryan said. Soli Organic has worked hard to get its production costs down. By 2024, Ryan says the company will be able to grow leafy greens for less than the cost to produce outdoor products.
Another point of differentiation for Soli Organic is that it grows in soil, not in water. The soil unlocks the ability to not use fertilizer and it allows growers to use less of other resources. CEA growing is more sustainable than field growing, Ryan says. With consumer interest in sustainability at an all-time high, it is important for CEA growers to get this critical piece of their consumer proposition right.
“We have good stories to tell, but we haven’t done a good job of recording and documenting,” Ryan said. “We talk a good game. Do we have proof?”
Ryan wrapped up his keynote by asking the audience to join him in doing five things to improve the CEA industry and initiate growth.
- Use ingenuity, not investor money, to bring product prices down.
- Focus on the consumer.
- Focus on new crops. The industry doesn’t need more spring mixes. It needs killer-value crops.
- Measure your environmental impact, and once you start measuring, begin managing it.
- Stop burning propane.
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