Episode Summary

Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show physicist, entrepreneur and self-proclaimed tinkerer, Henry Sztul. Henry is the Chief Science Officer at Bowery Farming, a modern farming company on an ambitious mission to transform the future of food and change the face of agriculture.

In this episode, Harry and Henry discuss the promise that vertical farming provides to the world and why it resonated so soundly with Henry. Henry shares his personal career journey, his thoughts on the current state of agriculture and what excites him most about the future of hydroponics and the AgTech industry in general. 

Episode Sponsor

Ceres Greenhouse Solutions

Key Takeaways

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• 03:22 – Harry welcomes to the show Henry Sztul, who shares his origin story, inventions he’s collaborated on and his earliest recollection of the AgTech industry  
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• 09:39 – Henry speaks to the promise of vertical farming and why it resonated with him
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• 11:34 – Henry recalls how he met Irving Fain, the Founder and CEO of Bowery
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• 14:49 – Digging into the technology that Bowery utilizes and their commitment to do better
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• 22:26 – Harry and Henry discuss Bowery’s extensive Research and Development process
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• 27:28 – How Covid-19 has affected Bowery’s approach to building resilient food systems
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• 30:04 – Henry speculates on Bowery’s future growth in the AgTech space
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• 34:46 – A tough question Henry has had to ask himself lately, something Henry has changed his mind about recently and mentors who have influenced Henry’s career
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• 39:05 – What excites Henry about the future of vertical farming
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• 41:51 – Harry thanks Henry for joining the show and let’s listeners know where they can learn more about Bowery Farming 
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Tweetable Quotes

“What really clicked with me about vertical farming is that it’s not just feeding people now. It’s feeding people to come in the future.” (09:47)

“People on this planet are moving towards urban areas. And, the agriculture system at large is just taking more and giving less. I think what really strikes a nerve with me is the need to find new ways of doing things.” (10:03)

“At Bowery we’re very committed to constantly doing better – doing better from a yield point of view, from a quality point of view and a sensory point of view.” (17:07)

“There’s a lot that goes into building a modern vertical farm and it’s really exciting.” (21:48)

“How we think about doing research at Bowery is a real differentiator.” (26:16)

“If you approach a problem that you can’t solve, how can you change the problem to one that you can solve. That’s something that I’ve carried with me everywhere I’ve gone.” (37:51)

Links Mentioned

Bowery Farming Website

Henry’s Website

Henry’s LinkedIn

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mentioned in this episode:

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on this planet are moving towards urban areas, and the agriculture

system at large is, is just using more,

taking more, and giving less. And so I think

really it's just what really strikes a nerve with me is the need to find

new ways of doing things. And so the ability to

tie really, and this is, this is my perspective coming in to

Bowery, was the ability to tie technology

into farming.

Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations

with fascinating CEOs, Founders, and agtech visionaries.

Join us every week as we dive deep into the world of vertical

farming with your host, Harry Duran. If you

happen to hear a little background music, it's just something I have on

in the background for the holiday spirit. Vertical Farming

Podcast Season 2. Happy holidays. Recording this in

December 2020. I think we're all looking

forward to wrapping up this year and seeing what

2021 has in store for us. If this is your first time

listening to the show, Thank you for joining me, and thank you for listening

to these conversations. I'm sure you're in the right place, as this is the show

where we interview fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming companies from

around the world. And in case you missed last week's episode, we had a doozy

of a conversation with John Purcell. He is the

personable and gregarious and engaging CEO of

Unfold. If you haven't listened to it, I highly recommend you check it out.

This week, I have the privilege of speaking to Henry Strohl. He's the Chief Science

Officer at Bowery Farms. Hey, everyone. Henry is a physicist, an

entrepreneur, and a self-proclaimed tinkerer. With the team

at Bowery, he's on an ambitious mission to transform the future of food and

change the face of agriculture. In this episode, we discuss the promise that

vertical farming provides and why it resonated so soundly with Henry.

He shares his personal career journey, his thoughts on the current state of agriculture,

and what excites him most about the future of hydroponics. I find out the

story of how he met Irving Fain, the founder and CEO of Bowery. We

talk a little bit more about the technology that they're using and their commitment to

do better. We segue into a chat about Bowery's

extensive research and development process and how COVID has affected

Bowery's approach to building resilient food systems. Always curious what my guests

are thinking about the future of agtech, so Henry and I touch upon that, and

he shares what's exciting him about the future of vertical farming. This episode is

brought to you by Ceres, who combines smart greenhouse design with customized

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visit ceresgs.com.

That's ceresgs.com to get

started on your greenhouse goals. If you enjoyed this episode or

past episodes, I'd love it if you leave a rating and review at ratethispodcast.com/vfp.

So let's jump into this conversation with Henry. So Henry Stuhle,

Chief Science Officer of Bowery Farming, thank you for joining us on the Vertical

Farming Podcast. My pleasure. Very happy to be here and join you, Henry.

So always like to date stamp these. I've seen people talk about today

being the first day of the last month in 2020.

It's finally here. Which gets people pretty excited. Yeah, I think people are just about

done with 2020. So just want to get a feel for what

the year's been like for you. The year has been

wild. I think that'll be my adjective, wild. You know,

obviously a ton going on from every angle,

COVID, you know, climate change,

politics, everything. At Bowery, we're

fortunate to be working on something to impact, to help some of that.

It's been invigorating from that point of view to have, you know, work to fall

back on. Do you have early recollections? If you think

about what you're studying in grade school and when you went to university,

can you point to a trajectory that led you to your current

job at Bowery, or was it more of a meandering path? It's probably a

little bit of both. Actually, that's great. I love that question. It's probably a little

bit of both. I was always curious about how things worked,

how to improve things, and so I had a little bit scientist, a little

bit engineer sort of always in me. And one of the things

that I looked for after college was this mythical place that I heard of called

Silicon Alley in New York. Oh, yeah. And, and I found it

and I got into the startup world and was able to, to create things and,

and build products. And, and very fortunately, I

stumbled upon indoor farming. It's a great area to combine the

science, the engineering, my passion for the life

sciences and how the world works. It's, it's a Sort of

amalgamation, a perfect melting pot of everything coming together. Did I

see correctly that on— I think it's on LinkedIn profile— one of the

words you used was tinkerer? I am a tinkerer. Yeah, I love— actually, that's

how I got into agtech vertical farming in the first

place. I had an early 3D printer, sort of like

the first cheap 3D printer, and I was sitting at my

desk at work printing parts for a

hydroponic system. this like modular hydroponic system that I

could 3D print myself. Okay. And so yeah, I just, I love to tinker with

things and, and it was sort of coincidental at that, that same week

Irving Fain, the, the CEO and one of the co-founders of Bowery, shot me a

note saying, hey, let's grab coffee. When do you— can you

point to an early interest in technology

and gadgets? Is it just like, you know, is it— was it certain shows that

brought you in? Was it your parents? Or like, where did that passion start? That's

a dangerous question because I'll date myself a little bit. I used to watch

Mr. Wizard. Oh yeah. Right? Awesome show.

Not the black and white version, like, you know, a little bit later. But,

you know, between that and some really great teachers along the way,

my passion to do just that, to tinker, has always been there. And I'm

very fortunate to be able to do it for a career, a profession. Are there

any inventions that you can claim credit for? Yeah,

actually, I work to develop a new type of

twisted optical fiber that when a laser passes

through it, a very unique special beam comes out the other side,

which has what's called optical angular momentum.

And that's actually what my PhD thesis is on. And if you're not careful,

we'll like go totally into that. So maybe I'll leave it

there. And what's a use case for something like that?

Encoding more information in the same fiber optic cable, yeah.

So more beyond that, but an interesting, exciting

time for me. Yeah, I think I've always been fascinated as people start to

understand just how much information is encoded in things like our DNA, and

people looking at DNA as a repository, as a storage system for

data, just because of the nature of it. And I'm sure that

fiber optics operate in the same capacity, but there's no shortage of

information that needs to be stored and retrieved nowadays. Exactly. And you tie that and

you go into the quantum mechanical world, and it opens up a whole other set

of interesting possibilities. Yeah, because I think the quantum, the physics,

they start to get into what could probably be termed

supernatural, and then objects at a distance, and then observed objects

behaving differently. It starts to get pretty crazy. What's your earliest

recollection of this, what we would call probably

agtech, indoor farming? You mentioned hydroponics, so it seemed

like that was on your radar early on. I mean, early on being, you

know, really the start of my journey at Bowery, you know, really before

Bowery, I was in the tech world. I was, you know, building,

you know, video discovery apps on different platforms and

sold that company to Samsung and was there building

next-generation smart TVs. And one of the things that I just remember

sitting there— Yeah. Working on very, very exciting, interesting,

cutting-edge things, working with, you know, the top media

companies in the world, but sitting back and thinking, what, like, I

need more, you know? And I remember my kids coming to work with me and

sitting in front of a big TV and I was going, wow, like they're sitting

here seeing me spending all of my time and effort, like to

build a TV, which, which can be great. But, but I wanted something different.

I was really looking for, you know, for

something to have an impact. more of an impact in people's daily

lives. Not just the idea of like growing hydroponically, but growing—

I actually knew nothing about it. But when I first heard about building

warehouse-scale indoor farms near urban areas,

like a light just clicked in my head and said, this is— this makes the

most sense that I've ever heard before. And I remember Irving

telling me, you know, his plans for building Bowery early on,

and, and I felt like I was finishing his sentences. And it was really just

like a light bulb experience. There's something about what you said, this

idea of indoor farming, the potential for it

to feed a larger group of people and sort of

handle the bigger crisis that we're facing in this world in terms of food shortages.

Why, and maybe something you need to think about, but why

is that important to you? Or why is the thought of that or the

promise of that something that That was attractive to you? Yeah. So what really

clicked with me is it's not just feeding people now,

like it's feeding people to come. And so our global

population is, you know, set to rise

to really just mind-boggling numbers. The people

on this planet are moving towards urban areas and the agriculture

system at large is just using more

taking more and giving less. And so, I think

really it's just what really strikes a nerve with me is the need to

find new ways of doing things. And so,

the ability to tie really, and this is my perspective coming

into Bowery, was the ability to tie technology

into farming, this

thousands of year old practice. where people are.

Yeah, yeah. You know, to get people produce faster, right? Days,

not weeks. To get it more efficiently to people. It has

all these added benefits, right? It has the benefits of being more

nutritious, the ability to grow without pesticides, right?

To be healthier, to taste better, to last longer, and to

taste better. I don't know if I said that one already. That's some of it.

And actually, it was a little bit of a leap of faith because I'd never

seen an indoor farm. I'd never seen a vertical farm. And I

remember this distinct moment in our first warehouse

where Irving— I was there with Irving and the

other co-founders of the company. And there was just 5 of us in the company

at the time. And we were standing in this empty warehouse, and

Irving turned to me and goes, can you imagine

what we're going to do in this warehouse? And I looked at him, and with

this straight face, I said, no, I can't. I can't even imagine it.

It's, it's unbelievable. What's the story of how

you guys connected and how you met and how he convinced you to start

working together? Yeah. So actually Irving and I were in, um, a

tech incubator together called Techstars in 2010.

We were in the first class of the New York City Techstars program

and, uh, separate companies, but developed a friendship.

Our companies that we, you know, continued to grow outside of the

program where, you know, our offices were in the same building.

And yeah, he knew I was at Samsung

sort of riding my time there. And yeah,

he reached out and we had some coffee and he told me about this crazy

idea and I was hooked. I was hooked. And a

team of 5 of us, which I think we likened

to like Captain Planet or like Voltron. Okay.

Right? Like we each had our areas of expertise. and

came together and worked together in a really cohesive

fashion to build what was then our first farm

that we considered to be a prototype and really focused on

showing that we could build a farm, grow in it, operate it,

and sell it out under our own brand. And we were just laser-focused

and went for those 3 targets. And it was a really

good, great experience. What do you think it says

about Irving's vision that he understood the need

to build a team with such a

wide variety of skill sets? I think, like,

he and the other co-founders really understood how big of a

problem this is and how big of an opportunity. Yeah. And

so one of the things I give him a lot of credit,

credit for is, is identifying that technology would play

such a big part in solving some of the problems. That was

largely my focus at the beginning of Bowery, was building what we now today

call the Bowery operating system. Okay. And the way I describe the

Bowery operating system is software, hardware, and AI tools

that we use to operate and learn from our farms. It's really like the central

nervous system of the farm and the company.

And what I really describe what we're doing

is scaling the unscalable, right? And you can talk

about building a farm. And this is what happened. We built, you know, our prototype

farm and learned how to build it and operate it and sell it out.

And we figured it out. And when you go and do that at a time

30 times the size, which is what we ended up doing with our next farm,

man, the things that you learn from that scaling is

intense. And so, Using technology to be able to solve the

problems is what we really focused early on, which I think was

really insightful. And so I think that's—

does that answer your question? Yeah, yeah, that's helpful. I'm wondering how

you coming in with your experience, how you think about

tackling a problem this big, especially when there's no roadmap. It's not like someone—

you inherited someone's job and they're like, oh, this is what you do on day

one because this is what the old guy did. Like, you have to come in

with like that blank slate and they're trusting you to know enough to

come in and support them, but also kind of like, to your point, like scaling

down scalable, it's also like planning. Can you talk a little bit about the

technology that you're using in Bowery Farms? You know, how

much is automation versus personnel?

Because I think that's an important distinction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

So, you know, I mentioned the Bowery operating system. When I think about,

you know, the 2 main use cases, which is like operating and learning

from our farms, operating could be things like turning lights

fans or irrigation on or off. And so we've built some

proprietary hardware to do that, that connects with really

a first-of-its-kind automation system. And

so it all connects together in a way that from that

aspect of it, of like how things move around, how you get

to crops, keeping track of what lights are on and off, like all of that

is automated. Yeah. Because, you know, going back to making the unscalable scalable,

we realized early on that someone could not be sitting there

keeping track of what needed what type of light, what recipe of

light, how much day versus night. And you think about all the

variables that go into growing plants,

it's things like light photoperiod intensity, spectra,

irrigation. There's just too many variables to keep track of from a

people point of view. And so, the Bowery OS has automated a lot of

that. We still have people in our farms and

people play an important part of Ensuring the highest

quality product ending up, you know, in consumers' hands.

And so, yeah, like I said, people will always be an important part. And we've,

we've thought about what challenges really exist

and tried to automate there. And so a great example is, you know, when it

comes to, you know, seeding, you know, we've introduced seeding

to automation to the seeding process, as an example, you know,

something that happens many, many, many times a day. Yeah. And do you also

look into factors such as— I chat with the

folks who are working at Bayer, the UNHOLD,

and then just the work that's being done in genomics. And

do you operate at that level, or is it mostly

other options? Yeah, so now I'll really—

this is where I'll get really passionate. I was talking about operating. There's also the

learning side. And so at Bowery, we're very committed

to constantly doing better, doing better from a

yield point of view, a quality point of view, and a sensory point of

view. And so what we look to do in our farms is

treat every crop as a learning opportunity. A Bowery farm is

very much like an assembly line for plants, where every day we plant,

harvest, pack, and ship, right? Yeah. And so in

our largest farm in in the Baltimore, Maryland

area, we have upwards of 100,000 crop cycles a year. Wow.

Which, if you think compared to traditional farm, is staggering, right? Part of that is

like our definition of what a crop is. But really, each

crop, each planting of a certain cultivar of a certain type of crop,

we think of and track independently. And so, you

know, one way I didn't describe Bowery earlier was, was as a

company where We really focus on delivering protected produce

to our consumers. And so part of protected produce is this

idea of traceability. And so we actually have traceability of our

crops from seed to store. We know everything. We know where they've been,

who has interacted with what, where. We know

what experience the crop has had during its life. And so

we don't grow with one recipe for a butterhead.

Okay. In fact, we don't even grow just one butterhead necessarily in a

Bowery Farm. We're constantly looking to improve. And

so through this idea of doing science at scale

and treating every crop as a learning opportunity, we're able to slightly tweak

and understand the environment's effect on the

genetics, right? Yeah. And I'm sure as part of the conversation you're talking

about, you know, this came up in that we have the ability to so tightly

control the environment And the ability to pick the genetics, not

because of disease resistance, but because of response

to photoperiod or response to temperature humidity

differences in relation to photoperiod or

intensity. And so, yeah, it's just the possibilities

are endless. And we have learned so much in the past year

from this idea of treating every crop as part of a big

science experiment. Do you find that there's challenges in

terms of almost having too much data? That, you know, how much of it

is actionable and how much of it can be turned around into

something that can have a tangible impact on the final product?

Yeah, so there's 2 tricks, right? The first trick is,

in this big science experiment, you have to be able to ship all the product,

right? Like, you can't be growing product and just

have to throw it out. So you have to experiment smartly. And then the

other part is you can drown in data. Yeah, of course. And

I would laugh early on, you know, we'd sit, you know, all of us would

sit around the table in the company and we'd laugh, you know, jokingly

when we would hear other companies say that they have millions of data

points, you know, they're collecting millions of data points a day. Well, you know what,

we could increase our frequency of data collection and have tens of

millions of data points. But that doesn't— that's not where the intelligence is.

And so this problem of drowning in data that you're talking about is again

partially solved with being smart, right, of what you're

collecting and how you're using it. It also can be solved

by having very explicit questions to ask of the data, understanding where your

challenges are, and using either, you know,

simple decision-making algorithms, more complex machine learning

algorithms, Or more complex AI deep learning

techniques to make sense of all the information you have. And do

you find that— I'm wondering, it sort of presents itself with its own

set of new challenges. So does that then start to color how you

think about the team that you need to grow in order to

sort of work with all these data points and then act upon them? Oh,

definitely, definitely. Yeah, I would say as we've grown the team at

Bowery, it's been really focused,

certainly on the operations side, also very much on the tech, you

know, the science and tech side, you know, and as we've grown as a company,

you know, I mentioned the number of farms we have this year, we've grown from

being roughly in 100 stores early in the year, like

January to over 680 stores now. And so

you also need the sales and marketing, you know, commercial team to support

that, and the people team, right, to help you build the company. And so,

we've really built a diverse company that, of

course, needs to focus on the technology and the operations

and the science and the commercial aspect and the finance. There's a

lot, you know, I said this early on when we were talking, there's a lot

that goes into building a modern vertical farm. So,

it's really exciting. I'm thinking about all the brainpower that's going

to the operations inside the building, but then there's also, you know, you're speaking

about different neighborhoods and locations. So, is some of that brainpower going to

decide where to, like, place the next farms? For

sure. Yeah, I think that's part of it, right? There's, there's lots of

different aspects of like, where should you— where's the best place to put a

large warehouse-scale indoor farm? And so you have to think

really strategically about how you do that and when you do that. And yeah, we

certainly, you know, that's where our minds are these days. Can you talk a little

bit about the Bowery's R&D process, you know, the approach?

And I understand it's a pretty Pretty big focus for the company as well.

Yeah, yeah. And so really, you know, I was talking

about how we do science at scale. That's really grounded by,

you know, how we think about R&D at large. And so

at a much smaller scale, we're focused on the environment and the

genetics. In our current product offering,

we experiment with hundreds and hundreds of, of different

recipes and different cultivars. And

the goal is really to find the best combinations, the best

combination in this space, this really large space of, of like, it's a,

it's really a big multivariable optimization problem. We

also have an arm of research focused on future-looking

products. And so, you know, we have

investigated things ranging from onions and carrots

and watermelon and strawberries and tomatoes

to, you know, that's all really exciting, to things like, you

know, just crispier lettuce. And so we have a whole branch,

you know, focused of research effort focused, focused there. Is there

anything that you've seen with some testing out some of these new

types of foods that show some promise in terms of what people

might normally not think of or associate with vertical farming? Yeah,

so we are particularly focused right now. Well,

let me go back, you know, a couple of months. We recently launched a product

that we're really excited about called Crispy Leaf. Okay. It's on shelves now.

It came from this idea of wanting to sell a crispier lettuce,

almost something like an iceberg, but something that has, you know,

that's a little bit darker and richer and not, not like your, your traditional iceberg.

Yeah. And so we experimented with

lots and lots of different varieties from a number of seed

companies. And we ended up landing on a product that

we're really, really proud of, really crisp, flavorful

product. And we're seeing some real traction in stores now. That's an

example of like extending a current product line.

You know, we're also, we've been learning a lot about growing spinach indoors,

Mm-hmm. which is particularly challenging from really from seed to store

presents a number of challenges in a vertical farm. And so,

you know, we've made tremendous progress there and are looking to bring that to market

in the not too distant future. You know, things get to be a

little bit more exciting and interesting when we talk about strawberries. And so we've been

focused on strawberry research and growing

out of our R&D farm strawberries for about a year

now. Okay. And are just really excited about the direction and where we can take

you know, this idea of having terrific tasting, healthy

produce all year round in the leafy greens and taking it to

something like strawberries where, you know, to get a deep red, truly

flavorful strawberry that was grown, you know, nearby

where you live, you know, it's impossible in

the country. Yeah. And I think what people's— when you think of the

other brands and it's not necessarily— there's not a correlation between the

size or even color sometimes of a strawberry And

then we try to— in terms of how it tastes. And I

think that's, that's right, part of the challenge that people are discovering, that, you know,

the more flavorful, more flavorful may not necessarily be the prettiest, and how to

reconcile that. Exactly. And so we think— we're thinking really

carefully about and methodically about, you know, what—

where we're devoting our research efforts and, you know,

areas like that where we can impact flavor and can provide

like a high-quality product year-round is where we're looking. Yeah,

it's really exciting. And I think it's a real— I think how we think about

doing research at Bowery is a real differentiator. The amount of effort

and energy focused on not just, you know, creating high-yielding

product, but like the best-tasting product. Yeah. That lasts a long

time. That was one of the things actually, you know, to sort of go back

to early Bowery times that I really took away when I took

home the first product. I'll never forget it because I went

home. I had just moved into a house in the suburbs. I grew up in

New York City, lived there my whole life. So I had for the first time

like an extra refrigerator, right? Like a refrigerator in the basement. And I brought home

this big bag. I felt like Santa Claus. I brought home a big bag of

lettuce. And every day we, you know, we took some out. That

bag lasted for like a month. Wow. Just

like same quality. And I was blown away by that. Right. And so

Again, making the unscalable scalable as we, you know, increase

production, you know, that becomes a challenge. But, but we're doing that.

And it's a lot of that is driven from our research efforts. You know, we

think a lot about not just what we can grow and how we can

grow it, but how long does it last, right? What's the quality

over time? And what's the consumer experience, you know, a day later, a

week later, a month later? I wanted to

pivot a little bit and talk about this idea of building resilient

food systems in light of everything that's happened with the pandemic. And I'm wondering if

you could talk about that, how, if anything, has changed, you know, the thought process

has changed at Bowery pre and post, and then what, what

adjustments have, have you been making at Bowery? I

think more than anything, we're more

committed now than we were a year ago Yeah.

To the benefit that we bring to communities. You know, the fact

that we can locate our farms closer to the consumer means we can

contribute to stability of regional food supply.

And what we can do, which is really exciting and interesting, is

offer a flexible and adaptable food source. And so

what I mean by that is one of the core concepts in a

Bowery Farm is that we can, we can adapt and adjust to the grow

environment. pretty much anywhere in the farm. And so if we can grow butterhead

lettuce today, you know, in part of the farm, and next week use that same

space for basil or kale, or my favorite, arugula.

Yeah. And that flexibility means we can

really adapt over time to what the needs of the

communities are. And so you can go back to like E. coli

outbreaks. And the response from

our retail partners was, what can you give us? Like, what can you give us

today? And you can— can you give us more, you know, romaine,

you know, in a couple of weeks? And so we can adapt to that. And

I think, as a company, we're all more

focused on the impact that we can have, given

everything that we've been going through. And so, you know, you asked about resilient food

systems. I think at the core, that's, that's what we've been working on and

building for over 5 years now. And do you find

that the ability for Bowery to be nimble and responsive,

do you see that as a differentiator? Yeah, I mean, that goes back to

flexibility. And so, you know, there are a lot of people out there that

do something similar to us, and I think one of the things that we

truly differentiate ourselves in is in flexibility

and the adaptability of our growth systems. And so, you know, part of

that comes back to the Bowery operating system and the technology. Right?

The fact that we have a decentralized control and

sensing system, and we know, you know, that when a

crop exists, you know, at a grow space in one of our farms

today, it could be butterhead and tomorrow it could be purple bok choy.

That's something powerful. And that's something, you know, that we, we

really, you know, have been doubling down on more and more. How do you

think about how Bowery can

exist alongside, you know, longstanding family

farms, traditional agriculture? How do you see that

partnership working and growing in the future? Yeah, it's an interesting question.

I think some people think it's an all-or-nothing— it's an

all-or-nothing game. The fact is that the global

population is growing and growing, and the direction

that our supply chain is going just can't keep up

with the future demand. And so I think there'll be a place

for all of that. I do think you know, vertical indoor

farming will make up more and more of the produce aisle

over time, just because the fact that we can,

you know, provide 365 days a year, it's too

compelling of an argument. You know, short answer, I think there's a place for

everyone to make an impact as, as we face some of the challenges of the

21st century. But, but we're here now. I'm wondering what your thoughts are, you know,

have, you know, growing up with an interest in

technology and then now being able to marry that with

the needs that we have for an abundant source of foods

and food deserts and the challenges we face getting

local food to people that need it. I wonder if you've thought

about or what you think about how that affects

programs that either exist or need to be put in place at an early

level for people to see this or first for kids to see this

as a viable path forward to learn more about

not just traditional farming, but like this mix of what's happening now with vertical farming

and opportunities for, you know, new careers in this field?

That's a really interesting question. I haven't really thought much

about the answer. But one thing that I do remember and look back to

was like going to the supermarket with my parents as a kid. I remember walking

down aisles and being interested in,

sure, the, you know, whatever the sugary cereal of the month was, but

like the different types of produce, I remember being

fascinated. This is gonna come off strange, but like, different,

like, way chicken was sitting in the meat aisle and,

you know, different types of cuts of beef. Yeah. My grandfather was a butcher. So

like, maybe it's in my blood a little bit. But I just, I

remember that interest, like an interest always being there. And I think,

you know, one of the ways that we can be impactful

is really showing a different way of showing up

in the produce aisle and telling a part of our story there

to spark some interest. Yeah, not every kid walks around, you know,

the produce aisle. But I think that's part of it, right? Yeah.

And I think there are many ways, I think, just finding ways

to tell people that this exists, you know, the best way is

getting our produce in more and more people's hands. And so the type of

growth that I talked about, you know, going from 100 to stores to more than

680 stores, right? Yeah. It just gets our name out there

more. I have this vision of one of the things

that we have in the Bowery OS is pictures and

videos of all of our crops growing. And so we have this eye on the

crops. And what I'd love to be able to do is

to have kids be able to go online, kids or

adults go online and see a video of their plants growing.

And that's just an example of what, you know, some of the things that we

can do. And really, I think it's education like that, creating

experiences around our food is the real

answer. Yeah, because if you think about, you know, where, where kids look to

for inspiration and, you know, depending what area you grew up, it's the,

you know, the fireman or the, or the astronaut. But I think

there's new opportunities. I think when people see what can be done and what, what

options are available, and to your point, just sparking

A child's imagination, I think, is usually a great starting point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I know since I've been at Bowery,

my kids have been more interested in just

growing things in general. And that's their exposure.

And so I think we do have to find more ways to bring that type

of exposure into urban areas. And I know there's

many people that are working on that. that problem and doing some interesting things.

I know in the New York area, you know, there's community gardens

and school programs and greenhouse programs and, you know, the whole

industry, that part of the industry is really progressing. I think that's how you,

part of, you know, the other way that we can increase exposure over time.

A couple of questions as we wrap up. What's a tough question

you've had to ask yourself recently? Tough question.

That's maybe the toughest question you've asked me. A tough question I've had to ask

myself is, I don't know, maybe like in my,

you know, one of my previous lives, previous hats, you know, building,

you know, video discovery apps. Yeah. I often ask myself, you know, what do people

want? You know, you're always thinking about what does the user

want? In that world, it's a user, right? What does the user want?

And, you know, I think a tough question beyond, at Bowery

just delivering clean, fresh produce. You know, once you get past that,

just that, you could almost say, but that's a big thing. Once you get past

that, you know, what do people want? Do people— do you want a different

flavor, different flavor of lettuce? Do you want a sweet

arugula? I think those are some really tough questions

that, you know, going back to your question about R&D focus,

we could devote, you know, the next year developing, you know, a

sweet arugula. Do people want that? That's, to me, that's a tough question.

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because it's hard to predict

people's tastes. And then when you see like certain

foods that become more popular and then to try to dig into the science, and

it's probably some of the— what you were struggling with when you were trying to

figure out like what makes a video popular. It's along the same lines because,

you know, each human being is going to have its own

proclivity for certain flavors. But then there's always going to be like a new food

or a new product that sort of captures the nation's attention or the world's attention.

Yeah, yeah. So at the end of the day, we're actually— we're fairly lucky,

right? People like are looking for, for healthy foods,

right? And clean food and reliable food. And so while it's a

tough question, there's a very strong base to stand on

to help guide us. Is there anything about how you thought about vertical

farming in general, or about the way you've tackled certain problems,

where you thought one way and then changed your mind later about a different approach?

I think that's the sign of a good leader.

I think that's the sign of a good thinker. I often

have found myself thinking one way

about maybe a particular design or a direction of

an experimental design or some sort of engineering

challenge, come back a day or a week later and said, you know

what, that's something we have to rethink. consider, I was wrong. I think the

ability to say you're wrong is big too. So

at a high level, yeah, for sure. Is there a

previous or current mentor that

you've learned a lot from or just comes to mind in terms of someone that's

been inspirational for you as you've advanced in your career? I've had the

privilege of working with some really, really interesting

people. I think my PhD advisor,

was someone that really helped guide the

way I think. One of the things that he, you know, really got me to

think about was like how, how you shape problems.

And if you approach a

problem that you can't solve, how can you

change the problem? How can you change the space of the problem

to one that you can solve? And so that's something that I've carried with

me Everywhere I've, I've gone, and even more so here at Bowery, is,

you know, if you can't solve something exactly as it's laid out,

what can you change to make it solvable? Hmm. It sort of

activates different parts of your brain, it sounds like. Yeah.

Yeah. It gets you to think about the— like, not just thinking about a

solution, but you think about the problem, right? And at the time, now it was

about— I think it was an electricity and magnetism exam that I

sat down with and I couldn't answer one thing on the paper. But he said,

what could you change? What could you change on this to solve all of

them? And so that's a lesson I'll take with me. I had a friend who

used to ask me a question and I would say, I don't know. And

she would say, if you did know, what would you say?

Right. Yeah, that's a similar thing. And the funny part is

I would actually come up with another take on the

question that I initially thought I had no answer for. So it's interesting.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it. So Henry,

as we wrap up, what has you excited? I mean, there's so many

innovations happening in the space and Bowery's definitely leading the way.

So as you think about what's coming up and the challenges we face in

2021, what are some of the things that have you excited about what's to

come? I think there's really 3 areas where I get really

excited. The first we touched on earlier, which is

the genetics side of where we're going. And, you know, that

we're— that there are more and more people in the industry

that are recognizing, you know, vertical farming being

a big part of the future. Yeah. It's really opening up doors for us

in terms of access to more and more genetics. And

at Bowery, we're really focused on, on

testing, getting our hands in testing as much as possible,

because both forward-looking in terms of

what these companies are developing, but also looking back into

historical archives, if you will, of what has been

developed, has never been tested with the type of control we have. So that's

one area that I'm really excited about. A second is just

expansion in general at Bowery. You know, we've

fully ramped up our 3rd farm and

having done it 3 times, the idea of building more and more farms

around the country and eventually beyond is just, is very exciting. And

we're sitting on the precipice of something really, really, really great and

exciting. So that's number 2. And then number 3, again,

going back to what I shared earlier, strawberries are just so

exciting to me. You know, I remember as a kid, you know, tasting,

you know, strawberries in the summer and just being so excited. And now,

you know, the strawberries I have in my fridge today are, you know,

okay, they're big, they're okay. Yeah. And being able

to sit where I am and make an impact, you know, on people's experiences

when it comes to strawberries is just so exciting. No, that's definitely exciting.

There's a lot of interesting innovations happening, I think, and, and a

lot of people only see it when it shows up in the aisle, in the

produce aisle. And I think they don't understand how much work, how much science, how

much innovation, research goes into, you know, getting

that, that new version of the crunchy lettuce on the

shelves. And I think that when they hear stories like this, I think it hopefully

gives them more of an appreciation for how much brainpower is going

into, you know, your lettuce. Yeah, it's really— we're

really being thoughtful about, you know, what we present to,

to our customers, to our retailers. and to ourselves and

our families, right? And so, I think you're right. What it takes

behind the scenes, behind the curtain is pretty interesting.

So, obviously, Bowery Farming, the best place for folks to learn more about what's

happening. Anywhere else you want to point people to so people can learn more about

what you guys are working on? Yeah, certainly boweryfarming.com.

You can learn a lot about what we do, where we are, how we do

it. And certainly, we have a number of roles that we're hiring for. for

right now and to come. And so you can learn more about all that there.

And we're on Instagram and Twitter

and all social media outlets at Bowery Farming. Yeah, and

you've got a great collection of articles called—

I think the blog is called The Upside. So there's been some good stuff. Yeah,

and recipes. All of that's on our website also now.

And yeah, recipes and Just looking for creative

things to do with our produce, great place to come and

check it out. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time to share

your story. Tell us, give us a little bit of a sneak peek inside what's

happening at Bowery Farms. I know that there's a lot of

front-facing visibility and you guys are in the news a lot, but it was nice

to get an understanding of actually like humanizing what's happening behind the scenes

and how much passion and work goes into whatever

the team is doing there. Thanks, Harry. I really, I appreciate the opportunity to come

and talk today. And, uh, yeah, looking forward to talking

again in the future, hopefully. Thanks again to this week's guest, Henry Struhl.

Special thanks to our episode sponsor, Ceres Greenhouse Solutions.

Ceres is creating sustainable growing environments by combining smart design,

innovative technology, and dynamic partnerships. Learn more

at ceresgs.com. That's C-E-R-E-S-G-S.com.

Don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please leave us a rating and a review

at ratethispodcast.com/vfp.

We'll be sure to read those out on future episodes. Until we connect again,

here's to your health. Thanks for listening. To read the full show

notes for this episode, which includes any links mentioned in the

episode, as well as a full show transcription, visit verticalfarmingpodcast.com.

There, you can sign up for our email list to be notified when new

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