Shownotes
Episode Summary
In this episode of the podcast, Harry Duran interviews Tobias Peggs, the CEO & Co-founder of Square Roots, a leading vertical farming company. Tobias shares the company's innovative approach to creating a more sustainable and resilient business, from their technology platform to their sustainability initiatives. He highlights the company's focus on reducing carbon emissions and environmentally friendly packaging, as well as the importance of staying strong and focused on delivering products that customers want. Tobias encourages his peers in the industry to join Square Roots in paving the way towards a more sustainable future. Listen to learn how Square Roots is making strides in sustainability through vertical farming.
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Key Takeaways
- Tobias shares how Square Roots has been exploring new ways to grow and manage their farms, from the software solutions they've developed to reduce human error, to the materials they use to reduce carbon emissions.
- Square Roots also has an impact strategy with four pillars: diversity, equity and inclusion; employee empowerment; environmental sustainability; and community engagement.
- Tobias also talks about how the industry is currently in the trough of disillusionment, and how current macroeconomic conditions are amplifying this. He encourages his peers to stay strong and focus on delivering products customers want.
Tweetable Quotes
“Can we grow initially? Right? And then, what software do we build to help train farmers and sort of minimize human errors in day to day production.”
“The steel that we use, the concrete that we use in the foundation pads, in the manufacturing of those raw materials, they're pretty intense in terms of carbon emissions. So now as we think about future farms that we're deploying, we've had to relook at the design.”
“We’ve always thought about running Square Roots with a triple bottom line mindset. So do it in a way that's good for people planning as well as profits.”
Resources Mentioned
Tobias’ Website - https://www.squarerootsgrow.com/
Tobias’ Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaspeggs/
Tobias’ Twitter - https://twitter.com/tobiaspeggs
Tobias’ Email - [email protected]
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Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcripts
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Speaker:C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com,
Speaker:or click the link in the show notes. At the end of the day, you
Speaker:can't lose sight of the fact that your company lives or dies
Speaker:based on the quality of the food that is produced, you know, at each of
Speaker:the endpoints on that network, right, that gets sold from each of the farms.
Speaker:You know, we can geek out about data science all day long, but the best
Speaker:meetings for me are You know, the monthly product
Speaker:sample meetings, right, where we sit down with team members and
Speaker:chefs and other people whose palate that we trust, and, you know, just eat food
Speaker:and talk about what experience that kind of elicits for us.
Speaker:Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations
Speaker:with fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech
Speaker:visionaries. Join us every week as we dive deep into the
Speaker:world of vertical farming. With your host, Harry Duran.
Speaker:Vertical Farming Podcast Season 7. Regular folks, regular
Speaker:listeners, everyone who's been here before, welcome back.
Speaker:I'm so appreciative of you coming back week after week to share
Speaker:in these lovely conversations with these fascinating CEOs and founders
Speaker:of the leading vertical farming companies from around the world. And if this is your
Speaker:first time, by all means, I'm rolling out that green welcome
Speaker:mat for you as well. I really appreciate the fact that you found us, that
Speaker:you are joining this conversation, that you're joining this vertical farming
Speaker:party that we throw every single week. And I hope you stick around. I
Speaker:hope you come back for future episodes. Any and all feedback is welcome
Speaker:all the time. [email protected]. If you missed
Speaker:last week's episode, we had an interesting conversation with Henry Ernst. He's the
Speaker:assessment manager at Control Union UK. We had a great chat
Speaker:with Henry about plant protection, renewable energy use, sustainability, and
Speaker:the importance of educating consumers on vertical farming. It's great to see the
Speaker:standardization work that's happening at Control Union for this industry.
Speaker:And Henry's insight was really helpful. So if you want to learn more about what's
Speaker:happening there, by all means, check that episode out. This week,
Speaker:we have a return guest. It's Tobias Peggs. He's the CEO and co-founder of
Speaker:Square Roots. If you're keeping track and you are a regular
Speaker:listener, you'll know that Tobias was a guest all the way back on season
Speaker:2, episode 14, and he was one of the earlier guests
Speaker:for this show. And obviously, anyone who's been on early gets a
Speaker:special note of thanks from me for taking a chance on a young show.
Speaker:So if you want the 2-parter, listen to episode 14 with Tobias, and then
Speaker:we get the follow-up today. And I'm glad his team reached out and we were
Speaker:able to coordinate this. Tobias returns to share the
Speaker:company's innovative approach to creating a more sustainable and resilient
Speaker:business and how that's manifesting in their sustainability initiatives.
Speaker:He highlights the company's focus on reducing carbon emissions and
Speaker:environmentally friendly packaging, as well as the importance of staying strong and focused
Speaker:on delivering products that customers want. Tobias encourages his peers in the industry
Speaker:to join Square Roots in paving the way towards a more sustainable future. This is
Speaker:a really great chat. I'm really happy to come back on and get a second
Speaker:perspective. I feel guests are a bit more relaxed maybe the second time around,
Speaker:or I'm more relaxed, or it's a combination of both, and
Speaker:I think that comes across in these interviews. I'm excited to have you listen. If
Speaker:you're loving the show, please leave us a rating and review at
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp. I'm itching to read some
Speaker:of these out on a future episode. I think there's some that's been coming in,
Speaker:so I have to look through the emails. But by all means, if you are
Speaker:a regular listener, and if you are a new listener, obviously after you've
Speaker:listened to the episode, if you like it,
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp. Okay, before we jump into this
Speaker:uninterrupted conversation with Tobias, here are a few words from the folks that
Speaker:support this show. This episode is brought to you by Indoor AgCon
Speaker:2023. I'm so happy to have been working with the team
Speaker:last year. Indoor AgCon 2022 was my very
Speaker:first indoor farming conference. So it was really eye-opening for me. So I'll
Speaker:always be grateful to the team there for rolling out the carpet for me.
Speaker:And I really had a good time meeting a lot of past guests and excited
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Speaker:now has more than 170 booths filled with new product
Speaker:resources and solutions to explore. You'll hear from experts including
Speaker:CEOs, growers, investors, and others in the field during this
Speaker:full-scale educational conference. As always, you'll be able to connect with
Speaker:peers, grocers, and other potential new business partners at their great networking
Speaker:events. I haven't even gotten to the best part. The team at Indoor
Speaker:AgCon has given listeners of this show 20%
Speaker:off their full access conference pass. All you have to do is use promo
Speaker:code VFP, as in Vertical Farming Podcast, and sign up at
Speaker:indoor.ag. See you there. This year, Vertifarm
Speaker:takes place from September 26th through September 28th at the
Speaker:Exhibition Center in Dortmund, Germany. For those new to Vertifarm,
Speaker:it's the most significant trade fair for next-level farming and new food systems.
Speaker:Their international platform is set to showcase the latest developments in
Speaker:innovative controlled production systems for vegetables, salad crops, herbs,
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Speaker:more at vertifarm.de. That's
Speaker:V-E-R-T-I-F-A-R-M dot de. So
Speaker:Tobias, thank you for joining me for round 2 on Vertical Farming
Speaker:Podcast. I was taking a look back at the calendar and the publication
Speaker:date Your first conversation, our first conversation was back
Speaker:in November of 2020.
Speaker:November of 2020. Okay. We were in COVID. Yes.
Speaker:And I think you were at a friend's farm, if I remember correctly.
Speaker:You were staying somewhere. Yeah, it's honestly very
Speaker:hard to remember the last— I'm sure. 3 years for sure have
Speaker:been a bit of a blur. I'm sure it's the same for everybody. What you
Speaker:say is probably right. We won't hold you to anything that's
Speaker:there. And that's episode, episode 14, I think. So we'll make sure we'll
Speaker:link to for folks to get some reference there. But a lot has happened since
Speaker:then. I'm glad we had a face-to-face. I— we very briefly at,
Speaker:uh, Indoor AgTech NYC, I think. Yeah, back in
Speaker:the summer. I remember that. Yeah, yeah. So what have you been up to? Like,
Speaker:what's your travel looking like lately? I think now that everything's
Speaker:semi back to normal, I myself have made it to 3 conferences. I was in
Speaker:Dubai last month, courtesy of the, the Cultivated team at Agramee.
Speaker:Got to see a lot of folks there as well. So what have you been
Speaker:up to travel-wise? Travel-wise, actually, well, I mean, at
Speaker:Square Roots, we've opened 3 new farms this summer
Speaker:in the Midwest. So I've been traveling a lot there, Wisconsin, Ohio,
Speaker:Kentucky. And then on a personal level, I was actually in the
Speaker:UK last week. You know, obviously you can hear from my accent that
Speaker:that's where I grew up. And my parents actually live in a very
Speaker:kind of remote and rural area, Cornwall. down in the southwest of the
Speaker:country. Essentially, that's like surfing beaches and farmland. So
Speaker:whenever I go down there, I always like to go to some of the local
Speaker:farms that have also got restaurants and
Speaker:hospitality facilities on premises. And we always go and eat
Speaker:locally grown food down there, and it's absolutely amazing. When you go
Speaker:back, how much do you have to bring folks up to speed, family up to
Speaker:speed on what you've been up to, educating them on I
Speaker:imagine the topic of conversation is, so Tobias, tell us the latest
Speaker:about vertical farming, what's happening? And how much of that do you have to
Speaker:bring it down to a level where you can explain to them what's happening? I
Speaker:just asked because I was having this conversation with my partner about container farms, and
Speaker:she's like, talk to me like I'm your grandmother.
Speaker:Explain everything that's happening. Well, you know what? It's pretty amazing
Speaker:actually. So I'm going to date myself a little bit, but
Speaker:I started work well, you know, left university and started
Speaker:work in the first dot-com era, you know, and so my
Speaker:first jobs were, you know, building websites or whatever it was.
Speaker:And that actually was a very difficult thing for my family to
Speaker:understand. They didn't have a clue. I mean, I remember having a conversation with my
Speaker:grandmother and she was like, what do you actually make and
Speaker:sell? And I was like, well, attention and
Speaker:advertising. That's right. Whereas indoor farming is like pretty
Speaker:easy to wrap your head around, right? It's like, oh, okay, you grow local food
Speaker:and you have to do it indoors because the
Speaker:outdoors is increasingly fucked with climate change. Okay, we get
Speaker:it. So it's actually a pretty easy thing for people to understand. And also
Speaker:in Cornwall, in the southwest of England, I guess it's got to be 20 years
Speaker:old at this point, a project called Edenworks, which is—
Speaker:or the Eden Gardens, I think it's called— which is in essence a massive
Speaker:indoor, it's not so much a vertical farm, but it's a huge
Speaker:biodome. And when I'm saying huge, I mean, like in American
Speaker:terms, you know, like 25 football fields. And that, and so
Speaker:people, you know, and that's like a massive tourist attraction in that
Speaker:part of the country. So people go and walk into this biodome and then
Speaker:experience different climates from around the world and are able to see all
Speaker:of the plants growing from all over the world. And, you know, in essence, that's
Speaker:what we're doing in indoor vertical farming, right? You're recreating some climate from
Speaker:around the world. that's optimized to grow a certain crop. And people in that
Speaker:part of England are very, very familiar with that concept. So
Speaker:I have a much easier ride in England than I do in New York City
Speaker:when I'm explaining what Square Roots is. So given recent news,
Speaker:I think most folks listening are well aware of Infarm's
Speaker:recent layoffs, the closing of Fifth Season.
Speaker:I'm curious where you think we are when you think about the maturity
Speaker:of vertical farming, how the industry has grown, you know, bumps along the way.
Speaker:some really high points as well and some of these low points. But I'm curious
Speaker:where you think about it and maybe if you can compare it to other industries
Speaker:and where you see, like, where are we now in terms of like the maturity
Speaker:of indoor farming? And, you know, where do you think there's opportunities to learn
Speaker:from what we've seen and what's happened so far? Yeah, so you're not going to
Speaker:start with any soft questions then? It's
Speaker:just curious to know your thoughts because it's top of mind for folks, you know,
Speaker:because 100%. Yeah. I mean, joking aside, you're completely right. Now, I was
Speaker:actually talking with someone about this last week and, you know, I
Speaker:mentioned that when I started work, it was in that first dot-com era. And
Speaker:so I went through the first dot-com bubble bursting.
Speaker:And I think, you know, it's different, but it's tempting to draw
Speaker:parallels there. You know, when I, I've often talked actually
Speaker:about indoor farming, it sort of feels to me like the mid-'90s internet.
Speaker:Where, you know, you turn up conferences and it was kind of, you know, full
Speaker:of geeks and nerds and, you know, people hadn't quite figured out the business
Speaker:model yet. You know, everybody in the room knew
Speaker:that the internet was inevitable, but you couldn't
Speaker:quite yet see, you know, how that would shape out, right? And
Speaker:who would be the winning companies. And it was just, you know, people trying to
Speaker:get stuff off the ground that had never been done before. And, you know, I've
Speaker:often talked about indoor farming to me, right? Now sort of feeling the
Speaker:same way. And, you know, I think in tech, there's the Gartner
Speaker:hype cycle, right, which, you know, I'm assuming you and most of your listeners
Speaker:are going to be familiar with, you know, when there's no doubt, right, that indoor
Speaker:farming was kind of at the sort of, you know, peak of inflated
Speaker:expectations, to use that terminology. And, you know, once you're there,
Speaker:right, you head into what's known as a trough of disillusionment, right,
Speaker:where, you know, the kind of, you know, people start
Speaker:to ask the harder questions, right, about unit economics and sort of,
Speaker:you know, company resilience and long-term plans and culture.
Speaker:And, you know, those times are sort of pretty
Speaker:challenging. So yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of what's happening. I think
Speaker:that, you know, those— I'm not the only one, right? There are a number of
Speaker:people that I know in indoor farming who actually have very similar sort of backgrounds
Speaker:and have been through some of these cycles in other industries before. You know, I
Speaker:think we've sort of known from day one that, you know, if you don't have
Speaker:your unit economics kind of ready and you're rock solid, then this is going to
Speaker:be kind of a pretty hard slog. And, uh, I think that, you know, the
Speaker:industry itself is going through that Gartner hype cycle, but the sort of,
Speaker:you know, downward trajectory into the trough of disillusionment, the
Speaker:sort of speed with which the industry is sort of, you know,
Speaker:plummeting down there right now is probably amplified by wider
Speaker:macroeconomic conditions. You know, every investor is worried about recession
Speaker:and, you know, you're very worried about energy prices because of the war in Ukraine
Speaker:and etc. So yeah, I mean, it's pretty wild right now. And,
Speaker:you know, sort of what I'm saying to my team, what I'm saying to everybody
Speaker:else is we know what we've got to focus on. We're opening new
Speaker:farms. You know, every single farm has got better technology, better unit
Speaker:economics. The, you know, business operations get more and
Speaker:more efficient. The culture is good. We got to kind of ignore the
Speaker:external noise and keep our eye on the prize. Because at the end of the
Speaker:day, the demand for locally grown food
Speaker:that is pesticide-free, that uses way less land and
Speaker:way less water than outdoor food, sorry, than outdoor farming,
Speaker:you know, that demand is not going away. And, you know, I think the
Speaker:next couple of years, yeah, sure, right. They're going to be a few sort of
Speaker:headline-grabbing companies that maybe don't make it. But this is
Speaker:where the strong companies emerge and the best business models are
Speaker:formed. And now's the time to sort of buckle up and
Speaker:make sure that you're one of the companies that gets through these challenging times,
Speaker:for sure. Yeah, I appreciate your perspective there. As we were getting started, we were
Speaker:talking about your busy travel schedule, and a lot of that is related to new
Speaker:site openings. So on a brighter note, that's positive.
Speaker:And so can you talk a little bit about the recent openings? Obviously, it's been
Speaker:a couple of years since we've chatted, so there's a lot to talk about. top
Speaker:of mind for you in terms of, you know, why those locations were picked and
Speaker:what has you excited about the new locations? Yeah, sure. So, you know, I think
Speaker:the last time we talked, I think we may well have had our
Speaker:sort of OG farm in Brooklyn, New York, which is, you know, kind of really
Speaker:an R&D center where we're trying to, you know, figure out a bunch of things,
Speaker:you know, can we grow initially, right? And then what software do we build to,
Speaker:you know, help train farmers and sort of, you know, minimize human errors in day-to-day
Speaker:production and You know, and then once you get to the point where you feel
Speaker:good about being able to consistently and predictably grow a lot of food all year
Speaker:round, how do you sell it? Right. And, you know, sort of 3 or 4
Speaker:years ago, as we were sort of beginning to think about that, it became quickly
Speaker:apparent that at scale, it definitely helps if
Speaker:you've got partnerships with large distribution companies. And so
Speaker:we set about developing a couple of really key relationships
Speaker:there. The first one with Gordon Food Service that are one of the largest
Speaker:food distributors in the country. who focus, as their name implies, on
Speaker:food service, right? You know, chefs, restaurants. And the partnership that we have
Speaker:there means that we're now deploying Square Roots farms
Speaker:literally on Gordon Food Service distribution centers. So
Speaker:we're deploying the farm, we own and operate then, right? It's our farm teams,
Speaker:you know, in there growing the food. And then Gordon Food Service is, you know,
Speaker:pretty much the major customer of the product that we're growing on those facilities.
Speaker:And like I said, they're literally deployed on their distribution
Speaker:centers, right? So we harvest, we pack, we open our door, Walk into
Speaker:their cold storage, deliver the food, and then boom, it's on, you
Speaker:know, their delivery trucks out to restaurants, you know, sometimes within hours of harvest,
Speaker:which is pretty amazing. So we're in a program there to deploy those
Speaker:farms on all of their distribution centers across North America. And
Speaker:this summer we've opened in Wisconsin, Kenosha,
Speaker:Wisconsin, Springfield, Ohio, and then we're just about to
Speaker:open in Evansville, Kentucky. So that'd be 3
Speaker:new facilities that we've opened with Gordon Food Service in the last 12
Speaker:months. And then on an aggregate footprint, that's tripled our growing capacity this
Speaker:year, which is really, you know, sort of validating for the
Speaker:model. And then most recently, or more recently, we
Speaker:announced a similar relationship with a company called UNFI,
Speaker:who are, I think, the largest publicly listed food distributor in North
Speaker:America. They focus more on distributing food to grocery retail stores.
Speaker:Right. So it's kind of a, you know, a very similar relationship where we're now
Speaker:deploying our farms on their distribution centers as well. The first
Speaker:one with UNFI will open just outside Minneapolis next year. And
Speaker:so with those 2 partners now, you know, we have a lot of
Speaker:distribution centers where we can deploy a lot of farms over the next couple of
Speaker:years and, you know, essentially get pretty close towards the
Speaker:idea of delivering local food, but at a national
Speaker:scale. Yeah. Well, when the Minneapolis site is open, let me know
Speaker:because that's home for me. So I'd love to go check it out. Yeah.
Speaker:Back end of next summer, we'll see you there. So Tobias, when you think about
Speaker:these projects, I'm curious how much planning or how much lead
Speaker:time, how long was this in the works? Obviously now that it's public, you can
Speaker:talk about it, but what do companies like
Speaker:UNFI and Gordon, what are they looking for in a partner? Because
Speaker:obviously there's other folks they could have gone with. I'm sure these were
Speaker:conversations that were happening over a long period of time. And I'm curious now that
Speaker:you think about it and you look back, you know, that relationship makes sense for
Speaker:both of you. Yeah. I mean, I think for both of them, it starts with
Speaker:their customer demand, right? So for Gordon Food Service,
Speaker:you know, the chefs in the restaurants they service were also seeing this
Speaker:mega trend of, you know, people want local food, right? More responsibly
Speaker:grown food. They want to support local farmers. Maybe they're even thinking,
Speaker:that one step deeper and thinking about, you know, the environmental impact
Speaker:of food traveling, you know, halfway across the world. And, you know, that's why they
Speaker:want local, right? But whatever the reason is, local food is, you know, a very
Speaker:big thing for restaurants across America. So, you know, that's where Gordon Food Service
Speaker:started. And then, you know, wanted to find a
Speaker:partner that could offer that local food,
Speaker:but be able to do it consistently and reliably across their
Speaker:entire footprint. Right? Because they, you know, they're a very complex business already,
Speaker:right? And they really need a supplier that can work with them across their entire
Speaker:footprint. And, you know, the architecture, the technology
Speaker:platform that we've built at Square Roots is really sort of perfected
Speaker:to be a partner in that type of relationship, right? Where rather than
Speaker:building the huge industrial-scale plant
Speaker:factories, you know, we can all name the companies that have sort of chosen to
Speaker:take that approach. And there are certainly plenty of advantages to doing that. From the
Speaker:beginning, we decided to build a smaller
Speaker:footprint modular farm where we could very
Speaker:quickly and very cost-effectively deploy a farm in a new market.
Speaker:And then by connecting all of those farms in a
Speaker:sort of cloud-connected network, it means that any learnings from
Speaker:any facility is able to be shared across that network instantaneously, right?
Speaker:So the sort of bigger the network gets, the faster the rate of learning and
Speaker:the faster the whole system improves. It's really set up, you know, to
Speaker:work with distributors, right? And so we've been working with Gordon Foodservice since
Speaker:the end of 2019. 5 farms with them now, actually, which is
Speaker:good. Many more to go. And then UNFI, obviously,
Speaker:you know, different set of customers, different reasons, but, you know, lots of
Speaker:similarities, again, driven by customer demand, right? People
Speaker:going into the grocery store actively looking for locally
Speaker:grown food. And now UNFI have got a way to be able to
Speaker:supply that to their customers, again, ultimately at
Speaker:a national footprint. So it, you know, with both of those partners,
Speaker:although they're different businesses, our solution fits really
Speaker:nicely. When you think about the challenges inherent in, as you mentioned,
Speaker:keeping all these farms connected, speaking to each other, learnings
Speaker:from each other, it feels like now there's a component of what you do
Speaker:that's almost like a technology again, and then, you know, back to your roots.
Speaker:If you will. And so do you think about how you build out the team,
Speaker:what your current needs are going to be, and the type of skill sets that
Speaker:you're going to require as you think about the different needs
Speaker:to support production at this scale? Yeah, the
Speaker:way, it probably is sort of biased by my
Speaker:technology background, but I think 5 years ago when it was
Speaker:just me bouncing ideas myself in a WeWork office
Speaker:in You know, I sort of coming from a software background, right? I
Speaker:was able to draw a map of a platform that
Speaker:would underpin many applications, right? And that's kind of a very
Speaker:sort of typical software architecture. And that was how I thought about, you know,
Speaker:how Square Roots would work at scale, right? Where you would have an underlying technology
Speaker:platform. It was hardware and it was software, the data pipe that
Speaker:talked to each other. And then the applications that sit on top of that platform
Speaker:are the 4 walls of a farm. in any particular market, right?
Speaker:So when you're working in that farm, you know, if you're a team member
Speaker:in Springfield, Ohio, right, you turn up to the Springfield, Ohio facility
Speaker:and you open the Square Root Farmer Toolbelt, which is the, you
Speaker:know, sort of the application that we built to help that team. You and the
Speaker:app is going to know that, okay, today's Wednesday, you
Speaker:know, your job today is to harvest the basil, you know, here are
Speaker:the 10 steps do it, you know, the app kind of gives you the instructions
Speaker:on how to do it. Maybe what you don't appreciate is that your,
Speaker:you know, Square Roots teammate in Kenosha, Wisconsin has
Speaker:also opened their app that day and, you know, been told that today's the day
Speaker:they harvest parsley and here's how you do it. And, you know, underpinning
Speaker:all of that is this very scalable technology platform, you
Speaker:know, that is allowing us now to pop up these new farms and new
Speaker:markets really, really quickly. And then very importantly, get them up
Speaker:and running to hit production capacity really quickly. Right. Because now
Speaker:every new farm is standing on the shoulders of all of the other farms that
Speaker:we've already opened. Right. In Square Roots, we talk about pressing
Speaker:the basil button, right? Being able to walk into a brand new farm, you hit
Speaker:the basil button and boom, the farm configures itself to grow basil that
Speaker:day and you're up and running. And like, we know what the yield is going
Speaker:to be 28 days later. And, you know, we'd always
Speaker:conceptualized that that was how it's going to be. But I think this year
Speaker:especially, that has really come to fruition. And that is
Speaker:exactly how the system works now. It's really exciting, actually.
Speaker:You start to think about, you know, I know a lot of, when you think
Speaker:about science and vertical farming, people talk a lot about plant science, but, you know,
Speaker:what you're describing almost requires a need for, as you grow, data
Speaker:scientists as well to analyze what's happening. You know, what do you do with all
Speaker:this information? Yeah, no, we have a data science team, you know, big
Speaker:data and analytics and, you know, insight,
Speaker:AI, and all of those things, like kind of part of what we do. I
Speaker:mean, what I will say though is, you know, it doesn't really matter how clever
Speaker:all of this technology is. If it doesn't help you grow
Speaker:delicious food, then no one really cares. At the end of
Speaker:the day, you can't lose sight of the fact that your company lives or
Speaker:dies based on the quality of the food that is produced,
Speaker:you know, at each of the endpoints on that network, right? For that gets sold
Speaker:from each of the farms. And for sure, you know, we can geek out
Speaker:about data science all day long, but The best meetings
Speaker:for me are the monthly product sample meetings,
Speaker:right? Where we sit down with team members and chefs and other people whose
Speaker:palate that we trust and just eat food and talk about what
Speaker:experience that kind of elicits for us. And that's what
Speaker:keeps us honest, really. Yeah, it's great to hear. So I want to shift gears
Speaker:a little bit. You also recently had an initiative, completed a
Speaker:project with Watershed to measure emissions. And I want That's
Speaker:really important because sustainability is obviously top of mind for a lot of folks. And
Speaker:then I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you accomplished there.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm happy to. Actually, I'm really actually quite proud of the work
Speaker:that our team did there. So I think, you know, intuitively
Speaker:indoor farming seems like, you know, a more
Speaker:responsible way to grow food, right? A more sustainable way to grow food. If
Speaker:you can eliminate supply chains and, you know, and the CO2 emissions associated
Speaker:with that, and you use less land and use less water, But I
Speaker:kind of started beginning to feel maybe 18 months ago that a lot of people
Speaker:in the industry were kind of waving their hands around talking about
Speaker:sustainability, but there wasn't really too many hard numbers and sort of
Speaker:targets or goals out there. So we worked with Watershed that
Speaker:are sort of an independent third party, if you like, that will measure your
Speaker:carbon emissions across the entire operations. That was the first thing that we did,
Speaker:right? Which was like CO2, are we actually using it? And what was very,
Speaker:the punchline there or the headline number was that in 2021, which is the last
Speaker:obviously full year that we did the emissions, I think we emitted
Speaker:something like 4,700 metric tons of CO2, right?
Speaker:Until we did that exercise, I would have had no idea what that meant. But
Speaker:it translates roughly to driving across the country and
Speaker:back 2,000 times in a family sedan, right? So I'm like, okay,
Speaker:how do we get that to zero is the question? How do we get to
Speaker:sort of a carbon neutral company, right? Carbon neutral food production. So
Speaker:the first thing you got to do is figure out, okay, well, where are those
Speaker:emissions occurring, right? And that's where a company like Watershed can help. So it
Speaker:turns out that 50% of our emissions are actually produced during
Speaker:the construction of these new farms, right? The steel that we
Speaker:use, the concrete that we use in the foundation pads, right? In the manufacturing
Speaker:of those raw materials, they're like pretty intense in terms of carbon emissions.
Speaker:So now as we think about future farms that we're deploying,
Speaker:you know, we've had to relook at the design, right? To sort of halve the
Speaker:amount of steel that we've used, think about different materials like carbon capturing
Speaker:concrete for the foundation pads. So there's a big program that we're doing there around
Speaker:materials to reduce emissions there. Is that part of the work you're doing with Via
Speaker:Chicago? Correct. That's right. Yeah. They're our architecture
Speaker:partner who have been like amazing partners for us for 5 years. And they're really
Speaker:helping us lead the charge on some of these new and innovative materials. So that's
Speaker:really cool. The second biggest category for us was
Speaker:energy, right? Surprise, surprise. I think that was about 20% of our
Speaker:carbon emissions. And, you know, the answer there is more obvious, which
Speaker:is onsite renewables, right? How do we take these farms off the grid?
Speaker:And we've got some pretty exciting news to come there next
Speaker:year, actually. So watch this space. And then the
Speaker:third category for us was, was distribution, right? You know, the
Speaker:trucks that take the food farm to the store or the restaurant. And so the
Speaker:way we've started to tackle that, actually, we've started that work in New York
Speaker:City. And what we do in New York is we do a lot of the
Speaker:distribution ourselves in New York City. And we now do that on a
Speaker:fleet of battery-powered tricycles with cold storage units
Speaker:on the front. And we literally cycle around town, dropping our food off at
Speaker:all of the supermarkets that we sell to here. I think about
Speaker:120 supermarkets every week we get that food to. So that's now,
Speaker:you know, zero emissions distribution network in New York,
Speaker:right? Which is pretty cool. And listen, battery-powered tricycles aren't necessarily going to work in
Speaker:every market that we're operating in, but it's a start and it's, you know, it's
Speaker:teaching us how to do this. And we're on a journey where we have said,
Speaker:you know, explicitly that we want to line up with the sort of Paris Agreement,
Speaker:right, and halve carbon emissions on an absolute level by 2030,
Speaker:and then make that zero by 2050 or sooner.
Speaker:And we're doing that in the context of being a very
Speaker:fast-growing scaling company, right? So it's sort of, you know,
Speaker:it makes the challenge to hit those targets more difficult when,
Speaker:you know, every single day the company's getting bigger. But we're still kind of on
Speaker:track to half emissions. So yeah, it's really cool. We're doing a lot of good
Speaker:work there. I'm curious, as the study was underway and once you had the findings
Speaker:in hand, was there anything about that that surprised you? Because I know,
Speaker:you know, people think about electricity, but, you know, probably not as much
Speaker:thought goes into construction, which is mentioned half of it. And so I'm wondering
Speaker:how much of that was surprising for you. Yeah, I mean, that was a surprise.
Speaker:I mean, it might be more of a surprise for you to hear that
Speaker:my degree is actually in civil engineering. So you would have thought I should have
Speaker:known about you know, how nasty concrete was in
Speaker:terms of carbon emissions. Again, dating myself somewhat,
Speaker:you know, when I was at school in the '90s doing civil engineering,
Speaker:you know, climate change wasn't really something that everyone was talking
Speaker:about today, you know. And so, yeah, that was a bit of an eye-opener for
Speaker:me. But again, thanks to partners like the University of Chicago, you know,
Speaker:we got the right people around us who also felt that sense of
Speaker:urgency and that sense of obligation, quite frankly. And You know, like I
Speaker:said, I'm really proud of the work that we're doing there. We didn't get to
Speaker:touch on this in our first interview, but I'm just curious, how much
Speaker:day-to-day work do you have or do with Kimbal and how involved is he in
Speaker:the projects going forward? Yeah. So for those listeners who don't know,
Speaker:so Kimbal Musk is co-founder of Square Roots, executive
Speaker:chairman of Square Roots. I'm lucky enough to work with Kimbal
Speaker:now for 16 or 17 years, I think. We
Speaker:started working together in tech, but, you know, even when I first
Speaker:started working with him, he was already spending, you know, the majority of his
Speaker:time in food, right? You know, he's really, really passionate
Speaker:about getting America off the industrial food
Speaker:system and onto a local sustainable food system. And, you
Speaker:know, 15 years ago, right, he was doing that through a
Speaker:chain of restaurants called The Kitchen that sources all of its food from local
Speaker:farmers. And that sounds like a very sort of familiar concept today, but 15 years
Speaker:ago, that was crazy, you know, so he's been like a real leader in that
Speaker:regard. And I've been very, very fortunate to, you know, be able to work
Speaker:really closely with him as he's kind of thought through those
Speaker:and frankly get inspired by him. You know, it's hard to be around,
Speaker:you know, someone like that for any length of time and like not be inspired
Speaker:and energized. He's a bit of a force of nature. So yeah, I mean, we
Speaker:talk, you know, 2, 3 times a week, like he's pretty involved in Square Roots.
Speaker:He, you know, knows all the KPIs, what today's challenges are and, uh,
Speaker:all the rest of it. You know, he tends to think sort of, you know,
Speaker:5, 10 years into the future, you know, where the company's going.
Speaker:And I tend to, you know, think, okay, what are we doing day to day
Speaker:that's leading towards that vision? So yeah, it's a really nice partnership.
Speaker:I love working with him, actually. One of the posts that you had on the
Speaker:site recently talked about just shining a light on
Speaker:plastics and packaging. And it's one of those, you know, wastes that we don't—
Speaker:those topics that we don't talk a lot about in the industry. And it's a,
Speaker:I guess what you would call a necessary evil for now. But I loved is
Speaker:that how much you broke down, you know, what you're doing,
Speaker:how it's an initiative at Square Roots, you know, to get to the point where
Speaker:you don't have to use them. So, you know, in line with, I'm assuming, the
Speaker:work you've done with Watershed on sustainability, can you talk a little bit about, you
Speaker:know, why it was important for you to be visible with your efforts there as
Speaker:well? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know,
Speaker:transparency has been a core
Speaker:value at Square Root since day one. And we
Speaker:do that because we believe, we hope that transparency breeds
Speaker:trust, right? Yeah. You can't just say to the consumer
Speaker:or to, you know, a teammate, you know, trust me as a sort of command,
Speaker:right? You have to earn that trust by being transparent all the way so
Speaker:people know what's going on. And we even embody that like literally
Speaker:in the design of the farms by putting windows in the
Speaker:farm so that anyone can walk by and have a look in and see what
Speaker:we're doing, right? The whole idea with transparency in food supply. So,
Speaker:so yeah, talking about plastic packaging, the challenges that, you know, that we face
Speaker:there and what we think that journey is, being transparent
Speaker:about that, blogging about that specifically sort of comes very naturally
Speaker:to us. And also, you know, it is important to point out the work that
Speaker:has been done, right? The, you know, people understand why we need some
Speaker:kind of packaging, right? It helps sort of minimize food waste. It's, you know,
Speaker:impermeable layer to, you know, to oxygen. So it sort of, you know, keeps the
Speaker:food fresher longer, all those reasons, all those justifications. And then
Speaker:what we do today is package our product in recyclable
Speaker:and recycled packaging, right? So in a perfect world
Speaker:where all of our packaging gets recycled, there is no
Speaker:virgin plastic in our system. Right. Yeah. Now, I think
Speaker:the reality is, is that the end consumer does not recycle
Speaker:everything, right? Or frankly, you know, local authorities, local cities don't
Speaker:have the infrastructure to be able to do that, right? So I think, you
Speaker:know, sort of if we were to stop at where we currently are,
Speaker:right, recycled and recyclable packaging and assume we've solved the
Speaker:problem, I don't think that really solves the problem, right? So you've got to go
Speaker:a step further. And, you know, one step is to reduce the amount
Speaker:of packaging that's on the product. And we, you know, next year,
Speaker:actually, in with our new farm in Kentucky, we'll roll
Speaker:out new packaging, which reduces plastic that we use by about
Speaker:30%. And then we have a ton of conversations going on with really
Speaker:sort of innovative companies looking at different types of packaging, right, whether
Speaker:that sort of coated paper packaging,
Speaker:you know, there's lots of work going on with, you know, kind of mushroom-based packaging
Speaker:and other vegetable-based packaging. So it's a pretty interesting area,
Speaker:to be honest with you. And yeah, it's like a continual stream of innovation
Speaker:for us. Mushrooms are a hot topic nowadays. I'm
Speaker:wondering in terms of crops, what you're seeing, what you saw, you know, obviously everything
Speaker:started with leafy greens, but from a, if you could call it a
Speaker:crop trend perspective, what are you seeing an interest in? What are you
Speaker:seeing, you know, folks gravitating towards or, you know,
Speaker:top of mind when it comes to crops that Are you currently working with or
Speaker:might be on the horizon? Yeah, I think there are 2 ways to answer that,
Speaker:right? So as far as Square Roots is concerned, we listen
Speaker:to our customers and we grow what they want us to grow, right?
Speaker:And right now, you know, in the last 12 months, we've
Speaker:launched a number of mixed salad lines in our
Speaker:facilities. And as well as growing, we also harvest and then pack
Speaker:on site. And so we're able to pack really
Speaker:innovative salad mixes, right, with a mix of, you know, leafy greens and
Speaker:microgreens and they're all going together and, you know, they're really beautiful products and
Speaker:customers right now are saying grow more of those, please, right? The, you know, packaged
Speaker:salad industry hasn't really seen too much innovation in the last decade and,
Speaker:you know, people are really loving what we're doing there, right? So that's
Speaker:kind of one way to answer it. If we kind of step back and think,
Speaker:okay, next 50 years, right, what do we need to do? You know, we've got
Speaker:to be able to grow a full basket of produce for
Speaker:consumers. So how do we do that? And, you know, everyone listening to this
Speaker:podcast in particular is, you know, pretty sophisticated. You've got, you know, an
Speaker:informed audience. And so, you know, you know,
Speaker:right, the sort of, you know, more biomass, right, the heavier vegetable,
Speaker:quote unquote, the more energy is required to create that biomass. And so that
Speaker:then becomes a more expensive crop, right? And the name of the game is
Speaker:how do you drive more efficiency in your system, more efficient lighting, more
Speaker:efficient, you know, climate control, you know, whatever it is. to bring that
Speaker:cost down so that those quote unquote
Speaker:heavier vegetables become more and more feasible in terms of economics,
Speaker:right? You can grow them all today. You know, in our R&D facility in
Speaker:Brooklyn, I think we've grown over 200 varieties, right? Eggplants and
Speaker:turnips and, you know, whatever, beetroots, right? You name it, we've grown it.
Speaker:But the energy, the energy required to grow a beetroot
Speaker:kind of puts that out of the reach of many people right now. But I
Speaker:think this is good to remember, right? If you are a farmer
Speaker:in a field outdoors, you cannot look at your
Speaker:source of energy, which is the sun, and make it twice as
Speaker:efficient to reduce your costs, right? Whereas if you are an indoor
Speaker:farmer, you can totally do that, right? And that
Speaker:is what is so wonderful about being this technology-enabled business, right, is that
Speaker:every day with the next breakthrough and the next insight and the next innovation,
Speaker:Those costs come down, which then translates to these, you know, quote
Speaker:unquote heavier vegetables, right? Become more and more feasible economically. And there we
Speaker:go. Right. So obviously, you know, strawberries and small fruiting crops
Speaker:like are right there, you know, in the industry today. But the way I kind
Speaker:of look at it sort of longer term, I imagine walking into, you know, name
Speaker:your favorite supermarket, let's say Whole Foods in Brooklyn, right? Just around the
Speaker:corner from me. And I like to imagine lining up every single fruit and
Speaker:vegetable from the lightest to the heaviest. And it's like, okay, that's
Speaker:our product roadmap for the next 50 years. And that's kind of the way that
Speaker:I think about it. That makes sense. One thing that I really applaud
Speaker:Square Roots for doing is, you know, just having a whole section on the site
Speaker:dedicated to how you think about community. And I think it's,
Speaker:you know, you've got, you know, pictures there from the folks in Wisconsin and Harlem
Speaker:and, and even students being taken on tour. And I'm wondering, like, you know, how
Speaker:you think about that and, you know, maybe tie that in with, like, the
Speaker:education educating people of the benefits of this and why
Speaker:bringing the community into these conversations, into what you're doing at Square Roots is
Speaker:important for you? Yeah, that's a good question actually. So I think we've
Speaker:always thought about running Square Roots with
Speaker:a triple bottom line mindset, right? So do it in a way that's
Speaker:good for people, planet, as well as profits. And then in the
Speaker:last sort of 12 months or so, we've really begun to
Speaker:formalize that people and planet aspect, right, into
Speaker:what we now call an impact strategy. And there are sort of 4 key
Speaker:pillars of our impact strategy. One is DEI, right, diversity, equity, and
Speaker:inclusion. One is, you know, and the aim there is over time we
Speaker:need to become an anti-racist company. And we're doing a lot of work,
Speaker:you know, working with world-class consultants who sort of
Speaker:embedded in our team helping us really weave that into the DNA of
Speaker:the company. You know, like a lot of companies put a black square on Instagram
Speaker:up, you know, at the height of Black Lives Matter and sort of like, tick,
Speaker:done, yeah, we're DEI. But it's like, no, no, no, there's like a lifetime of
Speaker:work that needs to be done there. So DEI is one, employee
Speaker:empowerment is the second aspect, which is really all around making sure
Speaker:that Square Roots is an equitable place, but, you know, a really exciting
Speaker:place where you can come and have a great career, right, and learn lots and,
Speaker:you know, feel empowered to become the next leader in this space. The
Speaker:third area is around environmental sustainability,
Speaker:right, where the aim is to become carbon neutral and then resource positive. And we
Speaker:talked about that through the work with Watershed. And the fourth pillar, then back
Speaker:to your question, is community engagement, specifically around
Speaker:the communities where we're deploying the farms. And so that sort of
Speaker:manifests itself in a number of ways. One, we have internal
Speaker:targets for hiring locally, right? So as we open a new farm in
Speaker:Kentucky, right, we want at least 75% of the team in that facility
Speaker:to be hired from that local community. Community. So we're creating jobs where we're
Speaker:deploying these farms as well. But then also then that team, how do they get
Speaker:engaged and involved in the local community, right? And to your point,
Speaker:that can be anything from, you know, opening up the farm to tours to
Speaker:inspire, you know, younger kids, and maybe they want to, you know, become indoor farmers
Speaker:one day. But also things that we can do in the community that are
Speaker:sort of, you know, values aligned with what we're all
Speaker:about, right? So for example, our team in Kenosha, You know, last week
Speaker:they all went out and cleaned up the local river for the weekend, right? And
Speaker:it's just, you know, we want to become good
Speaker:players in those local communities as well. So yeah, like I said, it's all
Speaker:part of a kind of a wider impact strategy, but it's really all part of
Speaker:us formalizing this idea of doing things in a way that are
Speaker:good for people, planet, and profits. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And
Speaker:appreciate you outlining the 4 pillars because I think it provides some context And
Speaker:the listener and whoever's watching understand, like, uh, how you think
Speaker:about these problems and from a strategic standpoint. As we get close
Speaker:to wrapping up, Tobias, is there a tough question you've had to ask yourself
Speaker:recently? What day of the week are we talking about?
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, look, I think,
Speaker:I mean, you touched earlier, you know, we talked about the Gartner hype cycle. We're
Speaker:sort of heading into that, into that, you know, we're heading into that off the
Speaker:back of 2 and a half years of COVID which
Speaker:have been extremely challenging. And I
Speaker:would say primarily challenging
Speaker:mentally for our team. I'm looking at
Speaker:team members now that we've hired who we've never met in
Speaker:person. I'm looking at the teams on
Speaker:the individual farms that have been operating
Speaker:under COVID protocols with distancing and
Speaker:masks and you know, the compliance related to that. It's been really
Speaker:tough for, for, you know, a lot of people. And,
Speaker:you know, back to, I guess, employee empowerment in that impact strategy, one of the
Speaker:things we've really made sure is available, you know, to
Speaker:Square Roots is, you know, is help, right, for people dealing with that
Speaker:anxiety and that mental stress. And, and, you know,
Speaker:it's something that we pay a lot of attention to at Square Roots,
Speaker:right? And I think, you know, in the sort of pre-pandemic world, when you're all
Speaker:in one office, you know, body language can help a lot, right? You can
Speaker:literally see someone having a tough day and, you know, metaphorically
Speaker:put your arm around their shoulder or listen and figure out what's going on. And,
Speaker:you know, when you're stuck behind a Zoom, it's harder to do that, right? So
Speaker:we've really had to make sure that we've gone above and beyond to make sure
Speaker:that, you know, people feel supported and connected and that we're able to offer the
Speaker:help that, you know, people need if they are, you know, facing a particularly
Speaker:challenging time, which again, given what we've all been through in the last 2 or
Speaker:3 years, It's, you know, I think sort of, you know, mental health
Speaker:support is rightly and probably belatedly, but I think
Speaker:now that's been normalized. And, you know, there's kind of no stigma attached to that.
Speaker:And it's all about what support can the company provide? Yeah,
Speaker:that's very helpful. I think helpful for also your peers in the space to
Speaker:understand that it's— everyone's going through the same thing. Everyone's gone through the
Speaker:same, you know, tough 2 years. And so I think it's helpful to understand
Speaker:that it's something to that should be top of mind and that leaders should be
Speaker:considering. So one thing that I've been doing lately is leaving some space at
Speaker:the end of the conversation for you, having this
Speaker:platform, it's obviously speaking to your peers, your
Speaker:colleagues in the space. Do you have a message? Do you have a
Speaker:request? Do you have an ask of folks in the industry?
Speaker:And I've been leaving some time towards the end of these conversations to
Speaker:give you that opportunity if there's anything that comes to mind. Yeah, that's a good
Speaker:question, actually. I mean, I think that the message right now is probably hang in
Speaker:there, right? Because again, you know, back to this theme of, you know, the
Speaker:parallels with the dot-com bubble bursting, you know, we're on that kind of
Speaker:scary downward slide on the Gartner hype cycle. You know, this
Speaker:is the time when the strongest companies
Speaker:emerge, right? You know, when there are these challenging times,
Speaker:you really have to focus, right? You've got to make sure unit economics are right.
Speaker:You've got to make sure you're really delivering products that customers want. You've got to
Speaker:make sure that your culture is solid. And, you know, the
Speaker:strong companies that emerge and, you know, the thing with
Speaker:indoor farming is without being too grand about it, but like
Speaker:literally the world needs this. Like climate change is not
Speaker:slowing down. It is getting increasingly harder and more risky
Speaker:and more expensive to grow food outdoors. We have to come up
Speaker:with, you know, other ways to grow food that are more responsible and indoor
Speaker:farming will be part of that solution. Right. So again, this
Speaker:thing is inevitable. We might not fully understand the shape yet, but it
Speaker:is inevitable. And so for anyone thinking, wow, this is feeling really tough
Speaker:right now, it's like, well, well, actually, this is the time when you need to
Speaker:dig in and really make sure that this stuff works, right? So
Speaker:yeah, and if anybody needs any help as they're going through that, then feel free
Speaker:to hit me up because I'm, I should say I'm lucky or I'm unfortunate to
Speaker:have been through sort of, you know, similar ups and downs in a couple of
Speaker:different industries before. It's not nice, but we will
Speaker:get through it. And, you know, we're all going to get through it in a
Speaker:much stronger position for sure. I'm wondering if we're at the pets.com phase
Speaker:when everything, every, there were stores branded. I remember being in New York City, seeing
Speaker:stores changing their name to the .com
Speaker:version and Yahoo having a billboard in
Speaker:downtown. And it was like a lot of things going on back then. So.
Speaker:Just be thankful you didn't decide to get into crypto. You went into indoor farming
Speaker:instead. Yes. Well, Tobias, I want to thank
Speaker:you for taking the time. I know you've been run a bit ragged with your
Speaker:travels, and so hopefully you're going to have some time, if it's possible, during
Speaker:the upcoming holidays to rest. You and the team can get a little rest,
Speaker:and appreciate you coming back. It's been an interesting 2 years, to say the
Speaker:least, through these conversations, and I'm sure from your front row seat as well to
Speaker:see what's been happening in this industry and how positive and inspiring
Speaker:it is, all the work that collectively everyone is doing. So I really appreciate you
Speaker:and I applaud all the work and all the good work the team has done
Speaker:over the past few years. It's really impressive. Thank you. That means a
Speaker:lot. And just, you know, keep on doing your great work as well, because, you
Speaker:know, you're providing a platform, but you're also doing a lot of education out there
Speaker:right through this podcast. And it's really good. So thank you as well
Speaker:for giving us the opportunity and staying interested in Square Root. Yeah, it's
Speaker:always never a dull moment in this industry. So it's really exciting to
Speaker:watch. So we'll send folks Square Root's squarerootsgrow.com for
Speaker:the website. And anywhere else you want to connect people? Yep, and
Speaker:@squarerootsgrow on Instagram and Twitter. And yeah, we're pretty active
Speaker:on social, so follow along. Okay, thanks again.
Speaker:Thanks again to Tobias for round 2, coming on the show, sharing his story,
Speaker:sharing the updates on what's happening with Square Roots. It's always
Speaker:fascinating to see the progress, especially when it's been a while since we've had our
Speaker:last conversation. And just a reminder of how far this show has come. So I'm
Speaker:really grateful, and he's always welcome to come back on, and as
Speaker:are all my past guests. Special thanks to our Season 7 title sponsor, Cultivated.
Speaker:If you're looking to a vertical farm and don't know where to start or which
Speaker:technology would suit your needs, reach out to them today. Best of all, their service
Speaker:is free because they work on behalf of their partners. Learn more at
Speaker:cultivated.com, and that's spelled C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com.
Speaker:Just leave out that last E. This episode is brought to you by Indoor AgCon
Speaker:2023. I'm so happy to have been working with the team last year.
Speaker:Indoor AgCon 2022 was my very first indoor
Speaker:farming conference, so it was really eye-opening for me. So I'll always be grateful
Speaker:to the team there for rolling out that carpet for me, and I really
Speaker:had a good time meeting a lot of past guests and excited to join them
Speaker:again this year. Entering its 10th year in a row, it's the largest
Speaker:trade show and conference for vertical farming in CEA, and it's returning to Caesars
Speaker:Forum Conference Center in Las Vegas on February 27th and
Speaker:28th of 2023. Once again, they'll be co-located with the National Growers
Speaker:Association Show as well, which is a really good fit for them. The conference
Speaker:keeps growing, and this year it's doubled in size. The expo floor now has
Speaker:more than 170 booths filled with new product resources and
Speaker:solutions to explore. You'll hear from experts including CEOs,
Speaker:growers, investors, and others in the field during this full-scale
Speaker:educational conference. As always, you'll be able to connect with peers, grocers, and other
Speaker:potential new business partners at their great networking events. I haven't even gotten
Speaker:to the best part. The team at Indoor AgCon has given
Speaker:listeners of this show 20% off their full
Speaker:access conference pass. All you have to do is use promo code
Speaker:VFP, as in Vertical Farming Podcast, and sign up at
Speaker:indoor.ag. See you there. Podcast production and marketing
Speaker:provided by Fullcast. Learn more at fullcast.co. As a
Speaker:reminder, I mentioned at the top of the show, if you're enjoying this episode or
Speaker:past episodes, Please leave us a rating and review at
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp. We'll be sure to read those out on
Speaker:future episodes. Tune in next week for my conversation with yet another
Speaker:fascinating leader from the world of vertical farming. This time it's Caleb Wilkins
Speaker:from Renaissance Ag. We connected in Dubai courtesy of the team at
Speaker:Cultivated and was really looking forward to this conversation
Speaker:when we were back in the States. And Caleb did not disappoint. Very high
Speaker:energy, very informative conversation. And looking forward to sharing
Speaker:that with you. Until we meet again, here's to your health. Thanks for listening.
Speaker:To read the full show notes for this episode, which includes any links
Speaker:mentioned in the episode, as well as a full show transcription, visit
Speaker:verticalfarmingpodcast.com. There you can sign
Speaker:up for our email list to be notified when new episodes are published.
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