Episode Summary:

Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show Ray Urrutia, Founder and CEO of Terra Firma Foods, an organization seeking to develop vertical farms and an innovative way to grow organic crops. Today, Harry and Ray discuss how Ray’s illustrious business background and charitable nature led him to the vertical farming industry. Ray speaks to the challenges that Terra Firma Foods faces and their plans to develop and ‘branchise’ their model farms across the U.S. and, eventually, nationally and internationally. Ray also shares his unique viewpoint of other competing vertical farming organizations and his belief in acting on ideas. Finally, Ray speculates on what the future holds for Terra Firma Foods and invites listeners to reach out to him to learn more. 

Episodes Sponsor:

Global Vertical Farming Show – https://verticalfarmingshow.com/ 

Cultivatd – https://cultivatd.com/

What We Covered:

03:41 – Harry welcomes to the show Ray Urrutia who speaks to his background in business and his charitable spirit

12:13 – The work Ray’s done at the Financial Strategist Consulting Firm, RAU

15:58 – Fostering lifelong relationships is business

17:24 – Ray recalls the moment he realized how critical vertical farming could be

20:41 – Terra Firma’s business model and terraponics explained

29:23 – Why Ray has no competition in the vertical farming landscape

32:19 – Challenges that Ray foresees for Terra Firma

36:54 – Securing funds and setting up R&D for Terra Firma

41:49 – Ray speaks to what leaving a legacy means to him as well as his ongoing spiritual journey

49:25 – Harry thanks Ray for joining the show and reiterates where listeners can go to learn more about Terra Firma and connect with Ray 

Tweetable Quotes:

“And that’s where food comes in. The necessities of life are eating, shelter, clothing and, in today’s world, transportation. But I look at eating and it’s always been on my mind and in my heart because I couldn’t understand why a country like ours has so many hungry people or a country like ours has food shelters and shelters for people to live in because they don’t have housing.” (08:04) (Ray) 

“That process, when you look at it, is very archaic because when you cut something and chill it right away, it’s already dying. Chilling does not preserve it. If you take anything that’s wet and you chill it, it’s gonna get cold and freeze. When it freezes, it’s gotta thaw. And I think that’s where the grocery stores in the economic areas that need help can’t get what they’re looking for.” (11:04) (Ray) 

“I believe food, and the growing of food, is gonna be that billion dollar business for anybody’s involvement in it for the next twenty to twenty-five years.” (14:14) (Ray) 

“The first thing I saw with that was I can have an impact on the world. It wasn’t how much money I could make or I didn’t even know what it was gonna take. But I said, ‘I could feed the world.’ So when I looked at this I said, ‘Ok, a small container produces three thousand pounds of food per month. I need to produce more than that to feed the people I want to feed and also the customers I’m pursuing.” (17:57) (Ray) 

“Throughout my career, in anything I’ve ever sold or been a part of, I never looked at anybody as being competition. I think they’re always a complement to each other. We may do it differently, we may do it the same way. But the more of us out there, the more the word gets out.” (29:45) (Ray) 

“One of my idols - if I can call him that - is Ray Croc. The business modeling that he put together and the way he did it. I want to be the McDonalds of vertical farming.” (32:03) (Ray) 

“I always tell my kids, ‘If you see something, do something. If you have an idea, act upon it. The worst that could happen is not you being wrong. The worst that could happen is that you’re right and somebody else did it and you didn’t.’” (41:37) (Ray) 

Links Mentioned:

Ray’s LinkedIn

Terra Firma Website

Vertical Farming Show

Link to Visioneering Book

Link to The Silent Sea on Netflix

Ray’s Phone Number – (630) 429-4025 

Ray’s Email

Sponsor Info:

Cultivatd Website

Cultivatd Instagram

Cultivatd’s Twitter

Cultivatd’s Facebook

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Mentioned in this episode:

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dot com, or click the link in the show notes. The first thing I

saw with that was I can have an impact on the world. That's the first

thing I saw. It wasn't how much money I could make, or

I didn't know what it was going to take, but I said I could feed

the world. That's the first thing. And they had it in small containers

and that. And so what we've done, and when I looked at this, I

said, okay, A small container produces 3,000 pounds of food a month.

I need to have produced more than that to feed the people I want to

feed and also the customers I'm pursuing.

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.

Vertical Farming Podcast, Season 4. Welcome back. First-time

listeners, if you are looking for a show where I

interview some of the most fascinating CEOs and founders from the world of

vertical farming, then you are indeed in the right place.

I'm your host, Harry Duran. In case you missed last week's episode, I had

on Dandridge Melton, CEO of Vertical Growth Farming Systems.

It's an organization that's changing the way the world approaches hunger,

malnutrition, natural disasters, and the effects traditional farming has

had on our environment, and to do it through their unique container farms.

Highly engaging conversation I had with Dan. Please check that one out.

This episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to Ray Urrutia, founder and

CEO of Terra Firma Foods. It's an organization

looking to develop vertical farms and an innovative way to grow

organic crops. We talk about Ray's illustrious business

background and how his charitable nature led him to the vertical farming industry.

We talk about Terra Firma Foods and the challenges they're going to be

facing as a new upstart in this industry, their plans

to develop and franchise their model. It's a term I

hadn't heard before, so I was grateful to Ray for explaining that

to us across the US and eventually nationally and internationally.

He shares his unique viewpoint of other competing vertical farming systems

and his belief on acting on ideas. Finally, Ray

speculates on what the future holds for Terra Firma Foods, the roadmap they

have planned, and invites listeners to join him

and his organization on the journey. This one's a little bit different in that Terra

Firma is just getting off the ground, and it's been

interesting to have this discussion with Ray because I'm always

curious as an entrepreneur what folks' plans are when

they're starting something in an industry such as vertical

farming. And having spoken to so many folks who've paved the way and

have launched multi-million dollar projects, it's easy to see how

Ray has his work cut out for him. What I thought was fascinating was how

his background and his connections and his previous jobs and

leadership roles have really prepared him for this moment in time.

So it'll be fun to see how this plays out for Ray, and I'm really

rooting for him. This episode is also brought to you by Indoor AgCon. Whether you're

starting up or scaling up, Indoor AgCon can help you grow your vertical farming business.

And this year, the trade show and conference for vertical farming and

CEA heads to Caesars Forum Las Vegas from

February 28th through March 1st. They're co-locating with the National Growers

Association Show, and you can expect to explore an expo

floor filled with new product resources and business solutions. You'll be able to

attend educational sessions led by top CEO and thought leaders, connect with

peers, grocers, and other potential new business partners at their

fantastic networking events, at which I'll be a part of,

or at which I will be attending one of those. I'm really looking

forward to attending my first vertical farming conference, indoor.ag. I will

be there in Vegas and try not to lose too much money at the

poker table. Head on over to

indoor.ag to register. They've been kind enough to grace us with a a

registration code for 25% off. Use

VFPOD22, that's

VFPOD22 for that discount on your ticket. We've got a

special project just launching. It's the Vertical Farming

Jobs Board. This is something that's been several months in the

making, and it was a soft launch this week. You may have seen

it mentioned on our socials. Head on over to

verticalfarmingjobs.com if you are a company

needing to list your vertical farming job.

listeners of this podcast, use special promo code

VFJPodcast. That's VFJ for

Vertical Farming Jobs, VFJPodcast, all one word.

And for folks that are listening to this podcast, you'll get

75% off the current fees for

submitting your job. So it's a special thank you for listeners

of the show, and we'll have that on for a couple of weeks,

and I'll only be mentioning this code on the podcast. So it's Thank you

for folks that have been listening. And you have a job to post,

verticalfarmingjobs.com. One more bit of housekeeping before we jump into

the episode. Thanks for being patient. We have a couple of reviews that came in.

It's always a fun thing to do, read out those reviews. The first is

from an author that I cannot pronounce because

it was in Japanese, I believe the

name, but it came through on December 9th. It says, I'm new to this

space, and as I was doing the research, I've simply typed in vertical farming just

to catch up on some episodes on the topic, and I was surprised that there

was a whole show dedicated to the topic that's been going on for several seasons.

Really informative to hear from different people in different companies, business models, and functions,

helping me to acquire a holistic lens to the industry. I love hearing from different

leaders and can truly feel their passion for— of their passion for the

job. The podcast has helped me immensely to get an understanding of the industry

and the challenges they face. That's awesome. Thank you so much for that review.

Next one is from Evan. He writes, I absolutely love this podcast. I

happened to come across this during the quarantine days, and this podcast the reason why

I entered into the field. I can't explain it, but I just love the conversation.

The knowledge and insight is powerful. And lastly, Tyler, whose

review came in earlier this month, really enjoyed the podcast, guests, and

discussions. Highly recommended. Great podcast with key

leaders in indoor ag. Thank you all for leaving

reviews. If you would like yours read out, head on over to

ratethispodcast.com/reviews.

And as you can hear, we'll be more than happy to read those out on

future episodes. Okay, lots to cover in this intro. Thank you for

being so patient. Let's jump into this conversation with Ray. So Ray

Urrutia, founder and CEO of Terraponics, thank you for joining me on the Vertical

Farming Podcast. Thank you for having me, appreciate it. So we're

mid-January. Just out of curiosity, how's the new year treating you

so far? Uh, really well, thank you. Yeah, well, we have some news here

about 2 weeks of some initial funding. We're really excited

about that because it allows us to do a lot of different things that we've

been wanting to do. It's pretty exciting. It's really going well, really going well.

Okay, and where's home for you? Chicago. Chicago, okay. Just

southwest, about 40 miles. Okay, and

given that you're in Illinois, is the idea or

just kind of like the generational legacy of farming, is that something

that had ever been on your mind or something you thought about? Well, interesting

enough, when I was a younger small kid, grew up in Michigan. I grew up

in the northeast part of Michigan, just north, about 30 miles north of Detroit.

I worked on a farm. Some of my buddies, their families

were second, third generation farmers with potatoes and

vegetables and rhubarb and peppers, you name it. And

I'm 11, 12, 13 years old, and, you know, they always need help in the

summertime, so us kids help. And, uh, it was a good

experience, not knowing then that I'd be doing this

today. Because it's not so much that I was actually the

farmer, but I had the experience

understanding the process they went through in delivering food

and how we're going to deliver it differently, hopefully more

organic, more cleaner, and actually transport— our

transportation is going to be down to zero for the most part. Okay. Talk

a little bit about your business journey. You don't have to go all the way

back to when you got out of college, but the shortened version.

And it'd be interesting to track how that's changed over time. Well, I'll start when

I was 16. I had my own business. I was a landscaper. A buddy of

mine and I said we got something to do. We didn't want to work at

fast food restaurants, so we created this company. Both our

dads had trucks, and we did that all summer. We made good money at it.

And that was the taste of that. I've always wanted to be on

my own. So, for the last 25 years, I've been on my own. I've

had different companies in real estate, fuel. I

created a server and a platform that was going to

try to eliminate real estate people and lawyers

and funding, and everything was going to be automated. But like

all disruptors, The challenge always is

getting the money to do it and get people to believe that this is the

best way to go. And then the real estate market changed again. And that was,

that was at a time when real estate was plenty, plenty of properties and

a lot of new people that want to get into real estate. And I think

it's happening again as we go into this year, next year, it'll happen again.

It's interesting the, the how much housing prices jumped

after, during, just into the pandemic, because people were leaving the cities

and snatching up all these houses in the, in the, I know a friend of

mine lives on Long Island, and he's saying that there's a group

there that have been buying and overpaying for the properties just

to take control of them. Wow. And nobody knows— it's all different corporations,

companies, and everything that nobody knows they're doing it, and they're renting them.

So, it's going to be an interesting time. We still got a ways to go.

I wrote an article for a magazine about 3 years ago where there were

2.5 million defaults in the single-family mortgage

So, if you look at the time when they had crisis, there are 5.5 million

defaults. So, this is 2019. During the

pandemic, we had 15 million defaults. I don't want to be in real estate, but

that's kind of led me where I'm at today. But all those

opportunities, challenges have geared me for what I'm doing now,

and that's we'll be buying more real estate. Interesting. Because of the farms.

So, background education. Well, it's so funny because of the, the

multiple threads, because I think about this, just this

really think that speaks to my heart about affordable housing, you

know, and people having a roof over their heads.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? You know, people are— if that base level is

not met, like, you know, you have food, you have your shelter, you know, you

have your health, people can't think of other things. They can't think of how to

lift themselves up. And just, you know, as you were mentioning

about that, I just— that's something that resonates with me. And it's probably a subject

for another podcast or a deeper conversation or some— some conversation

at the bar. But it's something that— I was thinking about— Well, and that's

where food comes in. You know, the necessities of life are

eating, shelter, clothing, and in today's world

it's more transportation because of the way we live dispersed through a marketplace.

But when I look at eating, it's always been in my mind, it's always been

in my heart, because I couldn't understand why a

country like ours has so many hungry people, or a country

like ours We had food shelters and shelters

for people to live in because they have no housing. And I don't know

if you ever worked at a food bank, but when you look at these people's

eyes, they didn't come to the table and go, when I grow up, I want

to stand in line to get a meal. They didn't do that. So when we

look at today, I think we have an opportunity with the

vertical farms that we're building to actually help those local communities.

And one of the things we're gonna be doing. So I created a charity when

I first started this company with the thought of giving farms away

around the world and the United States. So then my— Regular farms or

vertical farms? Yeah, just vertical farms in communities

because we could plant them anywhere. Sure. And then I don't know if I was

dreaming or I was like, how can I do this now? And I

prayed about it and I said, okay, how can I do this now? And when

I came up with this is that 10% of all production of every single farm

in the local community will be given away. And that's

roughly on the low end about 26,000 pounds a month. Now it's

greens. Sure. It's not meat, it's not milk,

it's not any other type of food product, but people don't eat

healthy greens because they can't afford it. You and I can go to the store

and pick up a 5-ounce package of spinach It's

supposed to be organic and healthy and we're paying $5 for it and we pay

it because it's healthy in our heads. Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like part of it is just an education process in terms of

understanding that this is a viable alternative for folks that grew up in

low to moderate income neighborhoods. When they walk out their door, they're more likely

to see a Burger King than a co-op, right?

Yep. And how do you change that? You know, again, as I mentioned, when I

was a kid, I was able to work on a farm. So we, uh, I

mean, there's about 10 of us one time. It was one of the hottest days

of the summer, like 95 degrees. We're out in the middle of the sunshine hoeing

and weeding peppers. We're going in and out, in and out,

a quarter-mile rows all the way down, turn around, come all the way back. Well,

with that being said, once we got up to a point of

harvesting them, we'd go down and pick them, put them in crates, we'd wash them,

and then we put them in a cooler. Now you think about that for a

second. You cut something and then you wash it and chill it. It's

wet. Well, then about 4 o'clock in the morning, my

friends, they're the ones that were driving, said, hey, you want to come with me

and go down to the market? There's 2 markets in Detroit, the Eastern Market and

the Western Market. We used to go to the Eastern Market and we drop them

off. That's where the stores that would come get their goods and ship them out

to the stores. My point being is that that process

We look at it as very archaic because when you cut something and

chill it right away, it's already dying. Chilling does

not preserve it. And watering it, if you take anything that's

wet and you chill it, it's going to get cold and freeze. When it freezes,

then it's got thaw out, right? So, you know, and I think that's where

the grocery stores and economic areas that need help can't

get what they're looking for Because by the time it gets down to

that part of the food chain, most of it's already sucked up by the stores.

I use that word, I apologize for that, but it's taken up by the stores.

And then, you know, people have to squander to get the rest of

it. And there's not enough to squander. There's not enough to go after. A

friend of mine is one of my partners in other types of businesses, but he's

a pastor. He goes, Ray, in the foothills of Kentucky, in the

Appalachian Mountains, He goes, their meal

consists of a gas station at the bottom of the hill that has the

burritos and the pizza. It's all frozen. Mountain Dew. Yeah. He goes,

that's where you got to be. And it is. And we'll

get there, but not today. So prior to Terra— and

are you still with RAU? Because I was interested just to hear how some of

the, the work you've done there may have prepared you when you think about

strategy and sales and marketing for Terra. Yeah, RIU

was formed about almost 20 years ago now, and

the premise behind that was to work with high net worth people

and how to help them in investments and then also

asset protection. And through that time, what's

interesting enough is that a lot of people aren't protected properly, even if they have

millions of dollars. These are minimum $10 million of net worth and didn't have

enough protection. In fact, I could, I could easily access, look at

their assets without them even knowing it because they weren't protected properly.

I didn't do anything with the information, I just kind of see it. So from

a strategic perspective, it taught me how to raise capital.

It taught me— I came in contact with some high-level individuals in the

banking industry and funds and how to

work with individuals like that. So as I started asking for my own funds

for this company, The talk track, the presentation.

In real estate too, when I was in real estate, it was the same thing.

You had to ask for money. And the one thing investors don't— money

investors don't want is theory. Show me what you got

and have a contract on it. In this case, well, some of

the pushback we're getting is, show me what you got. Show me what it

tastes like. Show me where you're growing it at. So the funds we've been

looking for has actually been for an R&D center. And I think we got that

now. Basically everything I heard, everything I signed, I think we got that now.

And, uh, but that had all— everything, all my experiences, as your

life experiences, has prepared you for what you're doing today. Yes. And

how do you expand on it? I was in the fuel business for a while

too. I did that for 2 years. I had a company. The challenge with that,

I didn't have enough money. And, uh, I was talking to a buddy of

mine who owns a refinery. He goes, Ray, he goes, I'm gonna do a billion

dollars this year, I can't even get a seat at the table because it's a

$5 trillion a day business. Wow. And then you look at

food, I believe food and growing of

food is going to be that billion-dollar business for

anybody that's involved in it for the next 20, 25 years. But all

those milestones of what we've been through and what I've been

through has prepared me for this, how to manage, how to scale, how

to get, you know, draw good people, what to look for, and

all the things that go with it. And it's connections. It's all connections.

I think a lot of people lose sight of that, especially early on. I think

I became more aware of that when I started my own business in

2015, the podcast agency we now own.

And I was— what I started noticing is we have this habit

when we're in the corporate world of only changing our LinkedIn, looking at our

LinkedIn profile when we need a job. Yeah. And so, and

I was guilty of that as well. And now when I think about how valuable

my LinkedIn community and connections are to me as a business owner

and for building those, you know, lifelong relationships, it's

interesting. Like, it's a completely different perspective on the importance of doing that

over time. And you usually do it in the beginning without an expectation that

you're going to get something in return. If you're looking for something, some payback,

it's a long wait. You have to pursue it with

what the benefit of the relationship is you're just saying, what does that really mean?

You know, there's some that, you know, myself, I have like 2,500, 3,500

connections. I try to always say happy birthday, congratulations, job

anniversaries, those type of things. I do that every day. It's one of the first

things I do. But there are only probably a dozen, maybe 2 dozen

people I really communicate with all the time. Common interests. Now we understand

families and names and children, all things go with it. And that's the

relationship. And then at the same time, if you Yeah.

Can you give an example of a long-term or maybe even lifelong

relationship that you've cultivated over the years that has just

grown over time and now, you know, is an important part of your life?

Yeah, I'll look at— other than my wife. Good answer.

He's my CEO right now. His name is Sean Cortez.

I met him 8 or 9 years ago through a third

party, and our personalities just clicked. We just hit it off. And what I

loved about him, and I still love about him, is that he

will do whatever it takes. He's an entrepreneur's entrepreneur.

And when I look at entrepreneurs of that nature, that's

what you need in the beginning. I had a company a long time ago. It

was a communications company selling web conferencing and

internet conferencing, video conferencing, audio

conferencing. One of the things that I learned

from that was it's relationships and how to build them. And then with

Shawn, I could take him into any environment, he'll learn it

and make it happen. But one of the things I did in that internet, that

communications company, I hired professional managers. And

professionals, and no disrespect to anybody that's a professional,

they need a roadmap. They need something tangible to hang on to. An

entrepreneur says, point me in the direction and get me there. And they

go. And that's Sean. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. And that's him. And, uh,

we've been together now 8 years. There's a couple others, maybe a little bit

longer, but, uh, I talk to them every day. That's

awesome. So, Ray, I'm curious when this became

something that showed up on your radar, like what, you know, indoor farming,

controlled environment agriculture, vertical farming, call it what you

may. But like, you know, I know for me the aha moment was reading the

book Abundance by Peter Diamandis. And okay, there was a chapter in there

about future technologies, vertical farming. I grabbed Dickson

Despommiers' book and I was off to the races. For

me, it was an individual brought me the idea. He goes, look,

he said, you could acquire the patents and the process. He says, take a look

at this, show me a small video clip. Harry, the first thing I saw with

that was I can have an impact on the world. That's the first thing I

saw. It wasn't how much money I could make, or

I didn't know what it was going to take, but I said I could feed

the world. That's the first thing. And they had it in small containers

and that. And so what we done, and when I looked at this, I

said, okay, a small container produces 3,000 pounds of food a

month. I need to have produced more than that to feed the people I want

to feed and also the customers I'm pursuing. So we scaled it

to 10,000 square feet. I go 100,000 square feet if I want to. I go

200,000 square feet. But my point is, when I first saw

that, Jay, asked that question, I believe it was God that put it in my

heart because I've always supported food banks. And,

you know, not every day, of course, but I served at them and I go,

why are people starving? We've got too much here in this country. Yeah, yeah.

How can I help? And one of the things I learned,

it actually was Elon Musk's wife who said, if you're

going to be in a business, how's it going to impact the world? I

read that maybe 5 years ago. When I saw this, I went, that's my

aha moment. That's how I impact the world. And we do it

one city at a time, one farm at a time, but we can get there.

And all the people are in it right now, whether they look at it that

way or not. I think some of them do. That's why they're in it. But

I do believe collectively, we're all different, but we all have the same goal:

produce food, healthier food than— Yes. Our predecessors did.

actual farms themselves, and then also for the future.

There's a Native American saying, and I always kind of mess it up a

little bit, but it's this idea of when we think of our actions,

we think 7 generations back and 7 generations forward. And so, you know,

that's where the— that's the company, the cleaning company comes in, and they think that

way. So what are we doing now? And this is a challenge for some people

where the full benefits of it may not be realized for multiple

generations after you're gone. Well, one of the things I've been working on,

and I started when I first came in contact with this process, was a

100-year plan. Now, you can look at me, I got gray hair.

I don't think I'll see it fulfilled, but if I could lay some

groundwork and then have other individuals get involved and

carry it forward, I think it would be around for 100 years. There's a

movie that came out, it was called— it's on Netflix— it's called, uh,

The Secret, um, I think the Secret Sea. I may have

messed up the name. Yeah, but 5 minutes into it, it's about

the future in 2075. And what do they mention?

Vertical farms are here to help satisfy the world.

Perfect. Yeah, so I said, at least by

2075 we'll still be in business.

So for folks that are new to Terra Firma, how would you describe the

business model And what's the roadmap look like? Well, the business model is that we're

an agtech company and the produce is a

byproduct of our technology and what we're bringing to the table. So when you

look at technology, we have pyrolysis equipment for energy,

but we can also use solar. We can also use wind and water depending on

what we look for. But this will be our energy source because we want to

stay green and we also want to keep a low carbon footprint. We have

automation. Automation doesn't speed up the growing

process, but it assists in managing the farm

itself. We have HVAC systems, we have

CO2 systems, we have living soil, and all that's

a technology in itself because you're taking soil from the outside, bringing it in, and

make it living. And what I mean by that, it's actually breathing and

producing and very nutritional and carries a lot of nutrients.

So when you look at that, what we're really bringing to the table is a

faster, more productive way of producing food, and I think

that's what people need to know about us. The byproduct of that is

in a single layer of farming, we can produce

266,000 pounds a month, which is

equivalent to 40 acres. If we want to go 3 levels up,

we could be— create 120 acres of land and grow

900,000 pounds of food every single month. And it could

be the— your most 14 popular greens. Some will grow

faster than others, like spinach, kale, and arugula will grow

faster than, say, Bibb lettuce or just lettuce. And

cilantro will just be like wildfire because it just grows all the time. You can

harvest almost every day if you wanted to. So we have those going for

us. The other side of what we do is that

as a farm, we're very mobile. So our footprint's only an

acre and a half to 2 acres. Okay. And we build our own property, build

our own plants on here. So it's windproof and

hurricane-proof, and it's also to handle sub-zero temperatures up to

-150 or +150 degrees. And we maintain

70 degrees all the time at all points. And then the

CO2 process we use adds nutrients and life to the plants to help it

grow the way we want it to grow. And it's all monitored inside by

cameras. We can monitor up to the height that we gotta harvest it,

and we could— we have backup to the backup. And all that data is fed

back to a central system, again, going back to technology again.

And whatever those stats teach us will help us for the future, either to

grow differently or to grow more abundantly. Yeah, and so it's

definitely a similar approach to a lot of the folks I've had on the show

before. So just Getting a bit more specific, do you

have models already for what these would look like? Are we talking like

shipping container, like a Freight Farms model, or a different footprint

and style? This is actually a 10,000-square-foot building. Okay. If I look

at App Farm and Plenty and Bowery, I just seen

today there's a group building a 250,000-square-foot facility.

So ours is much smaller, and by being smaller makes

us more So as an example, and also we're in soil.

Everybody else has been hydroponics, aquaponics, or aquaponics,

and that's where we're really different. We're in terraponics, and it's

nothing— it's not new new. There's companies around the world using

terraponics in some way, shape, or form, but ideally what they've been doing is market

through small gardens. We're taking a scale in it. Okay. Number one.

Number two, the mobility Let's say for

instance here you have 400 stores and one

farm and you're in 4 or 5 states. I cannot just build one

farm to satisfy you because

I still have distribution then. And if I harvest it today

and I get it and you're in Arizona, just for conversation, and you got to

get it over to Georgia, I still got to ship it.

So my ideal world is those

400 Stores may require us to put up

tent farms. Got it. So that way, one of my objectives

here with this is to be within 30 to 60 minutes from any customer,

fresh every day. I'm going to be extreme here, but if you call me up

and say, right, I have this in 30 minutes, I can deliver in 30 minutes.

Now, is the customer going to do that? The challenge with that is if they

got used to doing that, they do it all the time. Yeah, yeah. But that's

the point of being Fresh, so we can cut it, harvest it, and

deliver it same day if we needed to. And what does that do for the

store? And you had these 400 stores right now, and you probably heard

this over and over again, in the store environment, 35 to 55%

is waste by the time they get it. If they could take that down to

zero, what does that do to profit margins? You get more product to sell

and it's fresher. So, uh, again, just getting into

specifics here, so what are some ideas to the point that you can

discuss them about ideas to reduce that percentage of waste?

Well, because, you know, we can deliver fresh every day, and our

delivery point is from the store— from the farm to the store.

So if you're within 30 minutes of us, we're not that far away.

So let's say, for instance, you say, I want to pick up every 30 days

or once a week, because we can harvest every day if we need to. We

can make that happen. And the other thing that we have is a 10 to

15 day longer shelf life. So we've all bought greens in the past, we've all

bought produce from the stores or a produce company,

and by the time we pick it up, by the time we get it home,

with a couple— if we don't eat in a couple days, we got waste. Now

think of the waste they have when they first get delivered. Now who eats that?

Not the store. They'll exchange it, and then there's the distributor or the

producer. And if we can eliminate that and just bring it

down to zero, and that's, it's an objective goal I think of all of us

out in the farming area and the vertical farming area. Because if we don't address

that, then we're no different than a regular farmer. And not to say they're bad

people because we still need them. Yeah, but we can make it better. What's

timing look like in locations that you've— where you're gonna— you're gonna be starting?

Well, based on what I know right now, and I share with you, I'm not

gonna go too much detail about the funding part of it. R&D center should be

up within 60 days, and our next— our first farm should

be up within 90 to 120 days. And the question I have,

as you may have, where's that location going to be? Because if we could be

anywhere, anytime, I'd like to have a customer online.

And that's my, my pursuit as a CEO and founder, is to bring somebody

online to have that first one put in. Now, the things we're

doing differently, so how we're helping the environment is this.

Unlike some of the companies out there building farms that are going to manage them,

So what happens there, you have more, you have personnel issues, you have hiring issues,

you have wages and all things that go with it. What we're doing is creating

what we call a branchize model, not a franchise, but a branchize model.

And you may have heard of it before, but it is a joint venture

agreement between 2 parties, whether it be an individual or a company or

group. They invest into the farm, but

they own it and operate it, and then we share in profits. And the reason

I want to do that is a couple things. I know that Aldi's, the

Kroger's of the world, Lowe's out of North Carolina, I'll take

even Chipotle, they want local support with

local owners. Again, we use you as an example here. If I go to

you and I said, here's a franchise opportunity and you're going to service this

group here, and plus whatever else you get, you're local and the people

you're going to hire are local. So it doesn't get any more local than that.

And we satisfy the need of certain environments that want

local representation. Support the farmer. You

know, if you don't know where Lowe's is, but they're down in North Carolina, and

Jim Logos, gotta have local. Well, we can do that.

Some of our other alternatives aren't as flexible because

they take a bigger footprint. You know, so if you take a 250,000 square foot

building, you're talking about $60 million input. Ours is not that

high. We could do it in a very cost-effective way and have it up and

running faster. We can have it producing food within 120 days,

the time from start to finish. What's interesting for me, Ray, I think, in this—

these conversations is just talking to a lot of very

well-established folks. I've spoken to Plenty, AeroFarms, Bowery,

and then the folks at Freight Farms, and then some of the solo farmers. And

they've all, you know, they're basically up and running. And it— this is probably,

if I think about it, the earliest I've had a conversation with someone who's, you

know, at the stage that you are where you're just getting it off the ground.

So it's interesting because it'll be fun to watch your journey

and at some point in the future come back and share all the

exciting wins you've had since we had this conversation. But I

think what I'm curious about is just how you think about— do you think about

competition? Do you think about how much education is involved?

in getting these folks on board as partners? And what do you see

as the challenges you'll have since you're not at zero, but I mean, in terms

of getting clients, I'm curious how you think about that challenge.

Well, let's look at competition. Throughout my career, everything

I ever sold or been part of, I never looked at anybody as being competition.

I think they're always a complement to each other. We may do it differently, we

may do it the same way, but the more of us out there, out there,

the more the word gets out. And I think like one of my advisors is

in hydroponics and I have another partner who's got another hydroponics partner.

He goes, Ray, we got to put you 2 guys together. Why? We're doing the

same thing just differently. This one hydroponics group does tomatoes

very well. We do greens very well. And the challenge

is, Eric, we can't— nobody can do it all. And then if you

look at the people side of it, I think I'm smart, but I'm

not the smartest guy in the room, and I understand that. But I know how

to get things done, how to make connections. I think with the

franchisor, how do I get them interested? Most of these people have already

had franchises, and they know what, what it takes to get that

up and running. I think where we're different, our profit

generation is going to be greater than some of the franchises out

there. I mean, I know people who own Subways. I know people

own, let's say, Hair Cutlery, 15, 20 stores,

and it's people intense, and the margins aren't as great as you

think they are. You're charging $15, $9 for a haircut, it's hard to

squeeze margin out of that, and you're splitting with somebody. And if

you look at, you know, Subways, they— I know people have 8, 10,

15 stores, but they have, you know, 60, 70 employees,

if not more, and they're not very Dependable. These are young people. I mean, God

loves young people, but they just— their work ethic sometimes isn't,

uh, the best. You know, if you do get one that's the best, you better

make him a manager or her a manager because they hang around. Right.

But my point being is that I think the opportunity right now is because

of the pandemic. It creates a perfect storm to bring people into our

group because they're looking for alternatives right now. They're looking for a way

to make a living And they're also looking for a way to leave a legacy

for their family. I believe the food industry for the next

25, 30 years is the new billionaires and millionaires that create

legacies. The folks who built the railroads, the

Carnegies. Yeah. DuPonts. Yeah, you know, look at the

Chase and the Morgans and those guys,

they were ruthless in what they did, but they did it and they just expanded.

You know, one of my idols, if I call him that, is Ray Kroc. Oh

yeah, the business modeling that he put together and the way he did it—

I want to be the McDonald's of the vertical farm. You heard it here first.

Yes, you did. So

how do you think about these challenges, Ray, as a, as someone who's had this

much experience in business and starting companies and then entering a field

that you're— where you're still learning the, you know, the environment, the players, like

what the industry is like. I don't know to what extent you started to engage

with other folks in there or if you've started to attend conferences.

So, just kind of speaking

openly, what do you think is going to be the focus for you and where

there may be challenges ahead? I think that the challenge is speed to market.

How fast can we get there? But there's the other flip side of that

saying is speed kills. So, it's speed to

market and a very methodical way. It's speed to market by getting

the right clients on board. It's speed to market by getting the right personnel

on board. And each one of them has its own task.

And I'm just one person. I have people on my team that I have to

lean on to bring in some of those people and also to make sure that

as we scale— I had a conversation this morning with them. I go, look,

we're a team and I think we're unique in what we bring to the table.

So, as we let other people in our team, we got to make sure they

fit. So, at this juncture, Harry, we're looking for

entrepreneurs with a professional edge.

And then, over time, I'm looking for the professional edge with a little bit of

entrepreneurialism in them because you have to have that no rules.

Yeah. It's interesting. I remember when I used to work at JPMorgan Chase

and I worked at E-Trade. So, I was in corporate almost 20 years. They would

try like to create this organization. They called it intrapreneurs. So you have

entrepreneurial spirit, but you're still in the company. So I think, I think there's room

for folks that do have that drive but still feel like the sense of

needing that security of having that paycheck. Yeah, you know, whatever security

something like that provides nowadays anyway. But, but I think some people

like that. And so I think having that mix is going to be well suited

because I think we're in an industry that's changing so rapidly that there are no

rules about is the right way to do things. And I think people that are

open to seeing how things are shifting in the industry

and, and what the latest is— and that's part of the reason I'm going to

make it a point to be at the Indoor.ag conference in Vegas.

Okay. In— at the end of February as well. Okay. There's another one in New

York. It's actually a group out of the UK. I'll get you the name of

it, but it's going to be in New York. It's a 3-day. Okay. And it's

all about agtech and farming and, you know, We've been very

fortunate with Patty that she's got us in

print and stories out there. I don't know if I sent any to you, but

if I haven't, I will. And we're just trying to

build this bigger than we are on one hand, but also that

we're different. And so when you ask me the question, you know, in terms of

competition, I welcome anybody to talk to. I don't

mind sharing my ideas because we We live in such

a world, there's 7.5 billion people in the world. If I think I'm the only

one who has an idea like this, I'm wrong. Yeah, yeah. Somebody else

sitting anywhere, you know, a couple hundred thousand miles, 15,000 miles

away, whatever that is, they got the idea too. You know, I

used to be a real estate coach at one time. I had a business called

Pull the Trigger. And the reason I called it Pull the Trigger is that if

you see something, make a decision, pull the trigger, don't hesitate.

My point would be is that I believe in the next year, there's already people

doing this with their gig jobs, they're sitting around the table with their spouse or

their partner and going, what do we do next? We need to make more money.

How do we do that? Is Terra Firma part of

that solution? Is a real estate business part of that solution?

Is it something that I can feel independent? And the only thing I would tell

anybody is things won't happen overnight. I've been working I've been working on this for

2 years. So this is something that just— I had a blueprint,

I scaled it. We have all the relationships in place, we have the automation in

place, the soil in place, the building structures in place,

we have the HVAC in place, the CO2 in place, the

seeds in place. We have everything that we need to build

a farm. Now I gotta bring more people on board. That's my

next step. So So, the challenge is not

just people. I hate to use the expression,

the right people. Yeah. In my past, I've headed up sales teams.

Okay. And I was never looking for anybody in the product I was selling

because when they came in with no— and they had background experience, they thought

they knew everything about the product and they weren't going to change their ways. So,

I went looking for the opposite of that. Yeah. I'd rather have somebody that's

hardworking, Got good work ethic and is willing to learn.

Those are people I want. And so do you think about

the next steps for you, like, as we're moving forward? And you mentioned you have—

you're having early discussions about some funding that has just come in.

So, you know, what's next for you when you look out 3 months,

6 months from now? Like, what's going to be top of mind? What are you

going to be thinking about day to day? The first thing is secure the money,

and that's going to happen in about, uh, about 2 weeks. Okay.

And I've already been committed to that, so that's, uh, that's my train of thought.

Secondly, behind that is I've already been in talks with the

R&D center and the corporate office. Okay. I started that about 6 months ago.

I had to back off on it because the money didn't come in fast enough,

so I got to re-engage that. So that was number— that's number

2. And number 3, and number maybe 1A, is actually get the

R&D center up and running. We have all the equipment, everything ready to go. We

just got to make sure that we have a place to put it. And then

bring the scientists on board full-time in a facility that's comfortable to

them and that we make their environment their environment.

Everything, whatever equipment they need, whatever resources they need, they

have it. Because I think one of the things companies do

bad— I worked for corporations myself in my younger life— is that they want you

to do a job and they half-outfit you. They don't give

you everything you need. But they want it done right. Well, the only way to

do it right is you've got to spend a little bit of money to do

the right— get the right tools to do it right, whether that's add another person

or assistant or something, but you've got to have the right tools. I want to

make sure my team always has the right tools. And the second part of

that that goes with that, another— you could say a challenge—

I want them to be the highest paid in the industry. Well, and the obvious

reasons are there, but if they're the highest paid, And

we take care of them. You can't command passion. You can't

direct it. You can't teach it. But if you complement it

with money in terms of a salary, that they have a good living, not thinking

about that anymore, and they gravitate to what they're doing, they're really good at what

they're doing, passion will come. Where did you learn that?

Passion? No, just that model, just, you know, this idea. Because not everyone has

that mindset of just paying, you know, sometimes they're just like, let's get the

get people in the door and just get them paid, you know, the cheapest we

can. And I agree with your model. I'm just curious what, you know, where that's

been building up. Yeah, what brought that on is that I've seen too much in

my career where people were underpaid and they're not happy,

and they're always talking behind their back, behind the corporation's back or the manager's back,

that I'm not happy here, I'm not making enough money. And the thing to do

though, if you're not— if you feel that uncomfortable, then you got to leave. But

for me companies force their people out

because of not taking care of them. I'm not saying by paying $1 million a

year because that's out of the question. There's no way you could do that. But

I'm saying pay them above average or better than average

and always keep them at the height of their career path. And then

secondly, again, I talked about this morning, I said we have to empower people,

empower to make mistakes because out of mistakes you learn. So Secondly,

we have to pay them well. And thirdly, we have to have mobility for

them. They have to have a place to go because everybody, when you're in an

interview, you probably interviewed yourself, I know I have, where am I going from here?

Yeah, yeah. And the manager looks at you with a stone-faced look, goes, you'll be

okay. Well, that doesn't mean anything to me. You know,

everybody's going to be okay, but what does it mean to me? And is

there room for me in my career? which you're talking about is

entrepreneurial. I've always worked up for new divisions of

big companies that got funded by the master— the mother company. Yeah,

yeah. And that was fun because there were no rules and—

And a big budget. Yeah, you got a big budget and everybody's spending and you

had to get things you got to get done. And the only thing I was

ever asked in my career was, if you make a mistake, make sure it doesn't

cost the company that much. Okay. And that's my rule too. Yeah, you're gonna

make mistakes. It just makes them to make sure they're not costly. So I think

through time, I think people get mistreated. The old

saying is treat people the way you want to be treated, and I think people

say that but they don't really execute it. And I want to execute. I

always have, and sometimes to a detriment to myself, which isn't

also right either. Yeah. As we wrap up, I'm

curious why, why now Why you?

Well, as we talked about a few minutes ago, everybody has ideas, and

ideas are only good as long as there's action on them. And for me to

see this and think what I thought when I first saw this

opportunity and not do anything about it, I'd be cheating

myself. I'd be cheating the people I could possibly do it for, my family

and other people that are around me. And I think when you see—

I have it with my kids. I have 7 kids from 19 to

38 and always tell me, see something, do something.

If you have an idea, act upon it. The worst that could happen is you

could be wrong, but the worst that could happen is that you're right and somebody

else did it and you didn't. Yeah. Do you think about

words like legacy or leaving an impact? Yes, I do.

Legacy to me is— and we're looking at private asset

companies— there's a couple companies out there that can give you 7 years, 7

generations worth of wealth and opportunity.

And, you know, I already have grandkids. Some of my grandkids aren't old enough

to give me great-grandchildren, which I'm glad right now. It's good, keep it that way.

But I think of legacy all the time because

my mom and dad and my grandparents on both sides

never thought that way. It's not so much they maybe didn't think that way, they

never Took action to make that happen. Not their fault,

just exposure, education, those type of things.

And if I know this already, I look

long-term. That's why I was saying I have a 100-year plan. It's not just for

me because I know I'm not going to be here, you know, but if I

could be here long enough to execute the foundation of it and then have them

execute the rest of it. I have a grandson that's 20 years old. He's at

Florida State University. I told him, I said, I says, 10 more years, you're gonna

be CEO of this company. He goes, why 10 years?

I go, because— I says, because you got to— Whack 'em already. Yeah, you

have to be a little bit mature enough to, to move in. He

goes, well, how do you know that, Grandpa? I go, I've seen you since you

was a little baby. You're smart, you got good— you got personality, you

understand numbers. I says, you know, like I told you a long time

ago, know the numbers, you own the company. And I said, but you got to

know the numbers. And then I says, I asked about his cousins. I go, how

about, uh, Caitlin? He goes, not Caitlin, her sister Sienna.

She's the one that's got the numbers head. Yeah, she's my, uh, my,

uh, the 2 daughters of my son who's a wealth manager at

Merrill Lynch. Oh, okay. So yeah, she's got that

mentality too. I says, well, when she's ready, you know. But

whether we keep it in the family, if we don't keep it in the Family.

Here's the thing about a business, and you know already. 2 years,

we're in right now, it's about putting together, putting together, putting together.

The 3rd year is when you start growing to see the results of your labor.

When you get from year 3 to year 5, by the time you get to

year 5, the company has a personality of its own. It's not mine anymore. It's

not about Ray, it's about the company and the people in the company.

And I know this. I understand it very well. And as

owners, we have to let go. Can't hang on to it.

Yeah. And teach my people that too. I want to teach them that too.

Is there anyone that comes to mind when you think of the word mentor?

There's a few people. In fact, I was actually dreaming about that last

night, the people, and I've seen them in my head. There's this gentleman by the

name of Dennis Wardak. I was young, arrogant,

stubborn, and he pulled me aside. one day because I kind of ticked him off

in a meeting. He goes, look, he said, you're really good at what you do.

He said, I'm going to teach you something. Be patient

and professional in what you do. He said, you could be hard-driven,

but you can't be hard-driven to a point where you get somebody mad. I always

remember that. I think he moved to Ohio someplace. Another person was

named Mel Siegel. He was my regional manager, and he gave me

a management job. Yeah, the company sales manager's job, open a brand new

branch. And I asked him one day, I said, why'd you do that? He goes,

he says, you have no rules. You just do what you got to do and

you get it done without breaking the rules. That's the thing about you. I said,

okay. And then another person was named Tim Reedy. Tim

was the vice president of financial marketing of our company, and

he's the one that told me, he says, whatever you do, whatever mistakes you make,

make sure it don't cost the company. And I, I never went to him for—

any one of these guys— for anything that was because I knew them,

but I knew them because I didn't do everything. I didn't go with them as

often, and they knew that. When I did, they knew I needed

them and they helped me. You valued their time. I did. I valued their

time. I valued their professionalism. I valued their expertise and they taught

me. Yeah, it's interesting, the lessons we learn and then the,

the, those same lessons we want to pass on to the folks that we come

in contact with. Yes. And I think it's, it's really interesting when we can,

when we can share those and demonstrate to our mentors that we did, we were

listening, we did take their advice to heart. And when this

episode goes live, you can forward it to them so they can hear you give

them a shout out. Well, here's, uh, well, I know as we can wind up

one of our time here, I know what, uh, faith you are, and that's

not really important right now, but for me I've been on

this journey for many years, and Kurt,

who's the pastor, my friend, Harry, one of the things

I always thought about was that I started a lot of good companies. I had

a lot of good ideas. I had people build technology for me and kept driving

it. And he asked me a question. He goes, why do you think they never

became successful as you wanted it to? Well, I says, Kurt, I

says, I never prayed for myself ever. He goes, why not?

because God gave me all these gifts to talk and the ability to

network with people and to bring resources in. He goes, but Ray,

it's not up to you. I said, okay. He said, I'm gonna

have you read a book. And the book was Visioneering by

Andy Stanley out of Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia. Okay.

When I read the book, and there's a saying out there, there's a couple sayings.

One is that you do all the work and God's got the how.

And the other one is you do your best and God's got the rest.

So when you depend on God for money,

some direction, contacts— I don't know about you, but there's been people

in my life that have come in my life and all of a sudden disappeared,

for good reasons sometimes. And I didn't understand. I

thought maybe it was me, but it wasn't me. It's just that it wasn't working

out. Yeah. And, um, so I

teach that to my group too, because I— and I asked them, I said, look,

if this offends you, I said, I can understand that, but I'm going to be

who I am. I'm going to speak from my heart, and anybody comes on board,

they're going to understand that too. I hope I didn't offend you at all, but,

uh— No, not at all, not at all. I'm, I'm, um— folks who know

me know that I wear my spirituality on my sleeve, and like,

I have a deep connection to spirit. And so I'm I

do meditations and I have intentions every morning and I'm

conscious of being in a state of gratitude as much as

possible. And then also just asking for what I need help with.

And as they say, ask and it

shall be given. I'll give you an example. So we have

this, okay, this funding. I don't know if you ever heard the story about the

man on the roof in a flood. I don't think so, no. A helicopter

comes and the guy says, no, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. A lifeboat comes, a raft

comes. He goes, I'm gonna wait, I'm gonna wait. A lifesaver comes by.

The guy drowns. He goes up to heaven. He goes, God, how could

you just save me? He goes, wait a minute, I sent you a helicopter, I

sent you a boat, I sent you a life raft, uh, a lifesaver. I said

I was trying to help you. You didn't get the cues. And

I think that happens in our lives sometimes. We're waiting for that epiphany. to have

a bolt of lightning come down and strike us and say, now you know. Yeah.

Yeah. That's not the way God works. He works through people like you that come

to, you know, we're talking now, we're talking out loud and,

you know, how do we walk away from this conversation to move us

forward? And it's a relationship, I think for me, based on listening

to your voice and the way you speak is to move forward. Yeah. Keep on

moving. Keep on connecting. 'Cause you never know. Taking imperfect

action. Yes. Perfect is the enemy of done, as my, one of my coaches likes

to say. Well, Ray, I really

appreciate, uh, the team reaching out to me. I think it's a testament

to the little— the PR work you are doing, because I had not heard of

you at all. You weren't on my radar, and we had a couple of,

uh, opportunities to connect and we finally made it happen. And so

I think it's interesting because, like I said early on, it's early days for you,

so it's going to be fascinating to watch your journey. But I think everything has

prepared you for this moment. When you look at your history, when you look at

your experience, when you look at the things that you're passionate about, when you talk

about legacy, I mean, when you talk about your family and talking about even

thinking about them in future roles, it seems like everything has been coming

into place and not maybe in a way that you would have thought of or

could have dreamed of, you know, 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. But,

but I think now we all— we can see all the hard work that we've

put in is paying off. And I feel that that's what's happening for you here.

So really excited for your journey ahead. Well, thank you

very much, Harry. Pleasure meeting you, pleasure working with you, and I'm glad

you were patient with me and

having this conversation here. Thank you very much. Yeah, and so if folks want to

learn more, the best place to go right now is terrafermafoods.world?

Yes. Okay. Yes. And there's information, there's links there for

people to get in contact with you, investors obviously if they're interested, or partners,

anyone who's looking to have a conversation, you can start there. And then any of

the resources or books we mentioned in the in the conversation, we'll make sure we

pull those out into the show notes as well. Okay. If folks want to get,

uh, directly connected with you, is the website the best place or any, any

other place to connect? I'll just— I'll put my telephone number out there. It's, uh,

630-429-4025. Okay. Or

[email protected]. Okay. All right, Ray, I really

appreciate you sharing your story, and, um, we'll stay connected or

catch each other at a conference sometime in the future. We will. We will.

This is the year. Thanks again to Ray for coming on the show and sharing

his story. As always, full show notes available at verticalfarmingpodcast.com.

Thanks to our platinum sponsor, Cultivated. If you are looking for a vertical farm and

don't know where to start or which technology would suit your needs, reach out to

them today. Do yourself a favor. Best of all, the service is free because they

work on behalf of their partners. Learn more at cultivated.com. If you

don't know by now, it's C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-E-D.com.

Just leave out that last E. If you're ready to get out and

about and attend your first vertical farming podcast conference, or your

first one since the pandemic, I can't think of a better one to attend than

Indoor Ag. indoor.ag is the website. Save an additional

25% off registration with their promo code

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listeners. As mentioned at the top of the show, verticalfarmingjobs.com,

newly created job board. If your company is ready to list some

open positions in the industry, use promo code

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Don't forget, if you're enjoying the show, leave us a rating and a review.

ratethispodcast.com/vfjpodcast. We'll be sure to read those out on future

episodes. Tune in next week for my conversation with Christine Zimmerman, the

chairwoman at the Association for Vertical Farming

based in Munich, Germany. This is a conversation I've been wanting to have for

years since I started the podcast, and I wanted to highlight the

great work that Christine and her team are doing. And I was

really honored that she and I were able to make some time to have this

conversation. So I know you'll enjoy that. Make

sure you tune in for that one. Until we meet 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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