bowery farming is working to revolutionize the way that
we eat through vertical farming that uses unique tech
to grow greens and now strawberries.
The company recently closing a $150 million credit
facility deal led by investment from K.
K. R.
Bowery focuses on building smart indoor vertical farms
close to the cities and populations that it serves in order to operate sustainably
from seedling to sail.
So joining me now is Katie See, well, chief commercial officer at barry farming.
Katie thanks so much for coming on,
congratulations on this deal on this credit facility.
What opportunity
does this give your business to grow?
Yes. Hello, Thank you for having me.
We're super excited about the K. K.
Our investment and we really see it as a proof point
in both our economic uh and sustainability concepts that we have.
We are absolutely focused with this round
on accelerating our farm footprint and network.
We have a new farm coming online in Bethlehem pennsylvania early next week,
We have announced plans to expand in Arlington Texas at the end
of this year and in locust grove Georgia in early 2023.
And as you mentioned last week,
we actually had a limited release of strawberries in the new york market.
And so we are also focused
on product innovation and fruiting crops and bringing those to market.
Okay, so here's a question that I think consumers and viewers probably have,
does it taste like a normal strawberry,
I would say, I would argue it tastes better than a normal strawberry. Right?
And that's the advantage of the farming. We have.
As you mentioned, we're building farms close to the point of production.
We can harvest and get our strawberries to shelf in 48 hours.
We pick them at the peak of freshness. There's no long haul miles on that.
We are able to look expansively at the season,
genetics and cultivars that we want to grow in our system.
And so last week we actually launched two different strawberries at the same
time when we call it wild berry and the other garden variety.
And you can actually see taste and smell the difference in the strawberries,
they're delicious.
So how does it work?
I mean a lot of people probably have some familiarity with vertical farming Katie,
but at bowery farming, how does what you're doing
differ from some of the other vertical farms out there,
even if it's just serving a specific location
that you're closest to?
Yes, so we are a completely controlled environment.
So we are taking non arable land and building these highly productive farms uh
indoors and four to our operations is what we call the bowery operating system.
And it is integrating vision systems, sensors, automation,
robotics and using that data
to both provide our plants with exactly what they need when they need it
and managing the entirety of the operations of our farm.
And if you can visualize that we are stacking our crops
from floor to ceiling in these warehouses or our farm.
We use LED lights that mimic the spectrum of the sun.
And we can adjust all the inputs that the plants need to hit,
the flavor profile of the quality and the
yields that we're looking for with less water,
um and less food waste.
All right, Katie See, Well, very cool. I gotta try one of these strawberries.
You know, you're based in the new york area.
I can use the chief commercial officer at Bowery farming,
congratulations and thanks again.