Shownotes
Episode Summary
Brandy Keen is the Co-founder & Senior Technical Advisor at Surna, an organization that designs, engineers and manufactures application-specific environmental control and air sanitation systems for commercial, state, and provincial-regulated indoor cannabis cultivation facilities in the U.S. and Canada. Today, Harry and Brandy discuss the origins of Hydro Innovations and their acquisition by Surna, the powerful impact that controlled environment agriculture has on the world’s water supply, and what the future holds for the growth of the cannabis industry.
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Key Takeaways
07:06 – Brandy Keen joins the show to discuss the value she’s gotten from her experiences at conferences like the AgTech & Brazilian Harvest Conferences
10:21 – The origin story of Hydro Innovations and the decision to focus on climate management
16:06 – Engineering & Cannabis
19:34 – A strategic acquisition: Enter Surna
23:36 – The growth and maturity of the cannabis industry in recent years
26:37 – Surna’s offerings and ideal clients
29:30 – An increased interest in food production
34:43 – How the proliferation of new technology is shifting the cannabis industry
36:54 – Brandy speaks to her time with The Cannabis Sustainability Working Group
39:02 – Lessons in food production via vertical farming and why indoor farms fail
44:54 – Brandy speculates on the endless possibilities of controlled environment agriculture
49:42 – A tough question Brandy has had to ask herself recently and something she’s changed her mind about recently
51:38 – Brandy speculates on the future of the CEA and cannabis industries
54:45 – Harry thanks Brandy for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can go to connect with her and learn more about Surna
Tweetable Quotes
“There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ answer to climate systems, in particular, in cultivation facilities. Sometimes there are ten different ways you can do it and none of them are wrong.” (21:03) (Brandy)
“It’s interesting because somebody asked me, ‘what brought us to pivot from cannabis to food?’ And, my answer was that there was no pivot. We’ve always served the indoor cultivation market. And food just didn’t exist at the scale that cannabis did. So it was really just a product of the existence of a market, not of us consciously making a decision to also do this other thing.” (28:22) (Brandy)
“I think that in the food industry, folks are a lot more open to technologies that can drive down operating costs as opposed to in the cannabis industry where they can be a lot more wary of changing the way they do things.” (32:09) (Brandy)
“Traditional agriculture uses somewhere between seventy and ninety percent of the world’s water resources. And, if you are cultivating in a completely controlled environment, your plant doesn’t consume water. It uses water as a delivery mechanism and then transpires that same moisture right back out into the space. So the ability to recapture and reuse water and reduce or eliminate runoff entirely in an indoor cultivation facility, that could be hugely impactful to water resources in the world, especially when you start going places where water is exceptionally scarce.” (45:27) (Brandy)
Resources Mentioned
Brandy’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandy-keen-14651017b/
Surna – https://surna.com/
Surna Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/surnacultivationtech/
Surna Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/surna
Surna LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/surna-cultivation-technologies/
Surna YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGM4KwXBq4buUz6xDMcCRlw
Surna Twitter – https://twitter.com/surnaofficial
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Sponsor Links
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Mentioned in this episode:
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
2025 Precision Ag Report by iGrowNews
Transcripts
$680 million poured into precision ag last year.
Speaker:Autonomous weeding robots dominated, and John Deere made 2 acquisitions in 3
Speaker:months. A food company, not an equipment maker, bought a
Speaker:robotics startup to protect its own supply chain. The deals are
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Speaker:you need the full picture before your competitors get it. The 2025
Speaker:Precision Agriculture Intelligence Report From iGrow News is now
Speaker:available. Get your copy today at
Speaker:igrownews.com/precision. If you are starting a vertical
Speaker:farm and don't know where to begin or which technology would suit your needs,
Speaker:then reach out to the experts at Cultivated. As indoor farm brokers, they
Speaker:help connect you to the right technology and ensure your project is successful.
Speaker:Best of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners.
Speaker:Visit cultivated.com to learn more. And that's spelled
Speaker:C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com,
Speaker:or click the link in the show notes. And just being able to kind of
Speaker:look at a plant and know what it needs. One of the things that
Speaker:never gets old for cultivators, and really it's gardeners too,
Speaker:right? I walk around my backyard and I do the same thing, is looking at
Speaker:the plant and like loving on it, you know, and just, oh,
Speaker:look at how beautiful it is. Oh, look, I've got a new flower.
Speaker:Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast.
Speaker:Weekly conversations with fascinating CEOs, founders,
Speaker:and agtech visionaries. Join us every week as we dive
Speaker:deep into the world of vertical farming with your host,
Speaker:Harry Duran. Vertical Farming Podcast Season 6.
Speaker:Regular listeners to the show, welcome back. Welcome back. It's always nice to have you
Speaker:back, and I'm glad you keep returning and are getting value from these
Speaker:podcast episodes and hopefully brought along a couple of new friends.
Speaker:If you are one of those new friends, if you are someone who's finding this
Speaker:show for the very first time, as always, we'd like to roll out the green
Speaker:carpet and welcome you. Thank you, thank you for your support of this
Speaker:show and for giving us a shot. If this is your first time
Speaker:listening, I'm sure you're in the right place, as this is the show where we
Speaker:interview fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming companies from around the
Speaker:world. I'm your host, Harry Duran. Last week, great
Speaker:episode. Nedun Hanayaka, he's the founder and CEO at Gaia Project
Speaker:Australia, a company with a vision to combine the most developed technologies
Speaker:to produce Sustainable food and electricity to every human on this planet. That's
Speaker:very aspirational and very motivating. Nadun has over 20 years of
Speaker:experience in engineering and tech and well-versed in this arena. We had a great
Speaker:conversation about their partnership with NASA and the way in which his company
Speaker:is shining a light on technological innovations happening in the space. Make sure you check
Speaker:that one out. This week we have the pleasure of speaking with Brandi Keane. She's
Speaker:the co-founder and senior technical advisor at Cerna. Brandi and I
Speaker:connected briefly at Indoor AgTech NYC, and I'm glad she was
Speaker:able to make time to come on the show. Cerna designs, engineers, and
Speaker:manufactures application-specific environmental control and air
Speaker:sanitation systems for the indoor agtech and indoor cannabis
Speaker:cultivation industry. In this episode, we talk about the origins of Hydro
Speaker:Innovations, her first company, which was acquired by Cerna, and the impact
Speaker:that CEA has on the world's water supply and what the future holds
Speaker:for the growth of the cannabis industry. It's not a topic we cover often on
Speaker:this show, as it's a bit of a rabbit hole, and I've had a lot
Speaker:of thoughts about maybe branching out into a separate show just for that.
Speaker:But right now I've got my hands full. So every once in a while when
Speaker:I find a founder or CEO at a company
Speaker:in the indoor farming space that I want to share with you, that's my first
Speaker:priority. And so I'm glad we got a little peek into what's happening in the
Speaker:cannabis industry. It's really fascinating to see some of the parallels, and
Speaker:it's great to hear Brandy's inspiring story. Okay, as always, don't
Speaker:forget, we're on the lookout for new reviews. Please leave yours at
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfb so I can read that out
Speaker:next. We are wrapping up season 6. I'm so
Speaker:excited for this journey we've been on since starting this
Speaker:podcast in 2020. I'm grateful for all the comments, all the
Speaker:support, all the engagement we got on social media. The one
Speaker:slight blip was the, the closing of our Instagram account, which
Speaker:I'm still in the progress of figuring out how that happened. I can't imagine
Speaker:any of the content there. would have been objectionable to
Speaker:anyone watching it, as we're just trying to raise awareness of this amazing
Speaker:space. So if any of the listeners know anyone at Meta who
Speaker:might be able to help with that, by all means reach out to me,
Speaker:[email protected]. But other than that, I really can't
Speaker:complain. This was an amazing year for me. I got to
Speaker:go to my first indoor ag conference, Indoor AgCon,
Speaker:followed by Indoor AgTech NYC. DC, and then rounding it out in
Speaker:October courtesy of our great sponsor Cultivated with a trip
Speaker:to Dubai, which was eye-opening on so many fronts. And it's
Speaker:great to see the team in action at AgriMe. So a lot of those
Speaker:are on the calendar for next year already, so I'm excited, starting with Indoor
Speaker:AgCon in Vegas in
Speaker:February. So hopefully I get to see you at one of these conferences. If you
Speaker:are a regular listener, by all means, if we cross paths Come up and say
Speaker:hi, as I always like to put a face to an ear. I
Speaker:don't know if that's a thing, but yeah, I always like to connect with folks
Speaker:that are listening to the show on a regular basis. Sometimes as I record these
Speaker:intros, it feels like I'm talking to myself because I actually am. I'm in a
Speaker:room right now just recording this intro after
Speaker:usually the conversation I've had with my guests, so I can get a good
Speaker:idea of what to talk about in terms of what we shared. So Always on
Speaker:the lookout to meet new folks in the community. I'm looking at ways to create
Speaker:an online space. I know there's been a lot of talk about what's happening on
Speaker:Twitter with regards to everything that Elon's doing, so
Speaker:it's having folks look at alternatives. And one of them that I've been digging into
Speaker:for my other podcast is called Mastodon. There's a
Speaker:variety of different servers, so I'm thinking of spinning off something maybe just for this
Speaker:community, if that's something that makes sense or you think would
Speaker:be something you'd be interested in joining. Again, same email,
Speaker:[email protected]. Let me know. I'll start to get something in the
Speaker:works and try to pilot it out in Q1. This should be
Speaker:all the episodes that we have in the can for this year as we wrap
Speaker:up and finish season 6. Depending how the next couple of days
Speaker:go and what I can get done with, uh, everything that I'm trying to get
Speaker:accomplished before the end of the year, I may drop a bonus episode So
Speaker:keep an eye on your podcast player for that. Something small,
Speaker:some content that I came across that I think might be helpful for this audience.
Speaker:But if we don't get to speak or connect until the new year,
Speaker:I'm wishing you and your family a happy holiday. I hope you find this
Speaker:time to renew, relax,
Speaker:recharge, whatever it is that's helpful for you during this time. I'm looking
Speaker:to do the same and hoping for nothing but good things for
Speaker:this community in 2023. Okay, before we jump into this
Speaker:uninterrupted conversation, one last word in 2022 from
Speaker:the amazing folks that support this show. This episode is brought to
Speaker:you by Indoor AgCon 2023. I'm so happy to
Speaker:have been working with the team last year. Indoor AgCon
Speaker:2022 was my very first indoor farming conference,
Speaker:so it was really eye-opening for me. So I'll always be grateful to the team
Speaker:there for rolling out the carpet for me, and I really had a good
Speaker:time meeting a lot of past guests And excited to join them again this year.
Speaker:Entering its 10th year in a row, it's the largest trade show and conference for
Speaker:vertical farming and CEA, and it's returning to Caesars Forum Conference
Speaker:Center in Las Vegas on February 27th and 28th of
Speaker:2023. Once again, they'll be co-located with the National Growers Association
Speaker:Show as well, which is a really good fit for them. The conference keeps growing,
Speaker:and this year it's doubled in size. The expo floor now has more than
Speaker: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
Speaker:other potential new business partners at their great networking events. I haven't
Speaker:even gotten to the best part. The team at Indoor AgCon has
Speaker:given 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. Regular listeners to the show
Speaker:will know that we are also fans of the work being done by the iGrow
Speaker:News team. The team at iGrow has been kind enough to provide a
Speaker:free month of their paid subscription to the Indoor Vertical Farming
Speaker:newsletter, and those will be available to the first 3 listeners
Speaker:that send in a review. So
Speaker:ratethispodcast.com/vfp, the first 3 reviews that come
Speaker:in. Once it's sent, send an email to [email protected]
Speaker:along with your preferred email, and we'll be sure to get that set up for
Speaker:you. So, Brandi Keen, co-founder and senior technical advisor at Cerna,
Speaker:thank you for joining me on the Vertical Farming Podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm
Speaker:excited. So we briefly connected at
Speaker:Indoor AgTech NYC. Yeah. Have you been to any
Speaker:other conferences since then? Yeah, actually, I just left Resilient
Speaker:Harvests in Long Beach, which was really nice. It was
Speaker:You know, the AgTech conference was very focused on food and Resilient
Speaker:Harvest was a similar kind of format, but it
Speaker:was food cultivators and the cannabis industry were
Speaker:kind of brought together, which was really interesting. And then of course we've got
Speaker:MJ Biz next week in Las Vegas, which is the, uh, the biggest show
Speaker:in the cannabis industry. So, which is always kind of
Speaker:overwhelming. I'm looking forward, looking forward to it, but looking
Speaker:forward to a very long nap when we get back. I saw that you posted
Speaker:on LinkedIn as well. And the nap was not related to the
Speaker:topic that's going to be covered at the conference, right? No, more
Speaker:of the early mornings, late nights. And I,
Speaker:I'm a glutton for punishment. I do this thing where I try to
Speaker:make a game of how long I can stay in heels at a trade show
Speaker:booth. And so I usually need a pedicure
Speaker:too. How do those usually end up going for you? And, you
Speaker:know, conferences and the experience you've had doing them for Cerna?
Speaker:Is it the traffic at the booth? Is it the connections you
Speaker:make from the conversations that you meet throughout the conference?
Speaker:And knowing that conference space from the podcasting side a little bit,
Speaker:and the couple that I've been to in the indoor farming space, it may be
Speaker:a combination of everything, but there's also like, you know, the one-off hallway
Speaker:conversations as well. So, you know, where's the value for you?
Speaker:Yeah, you know, that's a good question. And it's really evolved over
Speaker:the course of our business. I would say that, you know, Early
Speaker:on in the early stages of our company, and then you
Speaker:know in the early stages of the cannabis industry, trade shows
Speaker:were really how you got leads. I mean, that's really how
Speaker:you know how how you found folks, you know, and how folks found you.
Speaker:And I think to a certain extent that is still true in
Speaker:specific markets. I think that shows like this one,
Speaker:and really our presence—we're a big enough company now that not many
Speaker:folks who are thinking of entering this space don't. Aren't aware
Speaker:of us, you know, on some level. But this show is,
Speaker:you know, there's a lot of thought leadership. They're very, very selective about,
Speaker:you know, who speaks at this event and what the subject matter is.
Speaker:So I really like, you know, to kind of pick and choose
Speaker:the folks that I like to hear speak at these events. And then just because
Speaker:of the size of this one, it's a great opportunity to
Speaker:reconnect, you know, with folks you haven't seen in a while, whether that be clients
Speaker:or partners or Even coworkers now that we're also, you know, kind of
Speaker:spread out. And then also, you know, networking and hallway
Speaker:conversations, that kind of thing. So, we kind of run the gamut
Speaker:with shows as far as the value that they bring to us.
Speaker:From the folks that I've spoken to, and I've started the show in
Speaker:2000, I think something unique that you bring to the table is
Speaker:your experience in this industry. I mean, you started with
Speaker:Hydro Innovations. So, to the extent that we can wind the clock back a little
Speaker:bit, Can you talk a little bit about the founding story and then work our
Speaker:way up into Cerna? But can you tell— talk a little bit about the origin
Speaker:story at Hydro Innovations? Yeah, I would love to say that this
Speaker:was our master plan. It wasn't.
Speaker:But so our company, Hydro Innovations, was founded in
Speaker:2006. And my background was
Speaker:technical sales. I worked in the semiconductor industry, a lot of clean rooms
Speaker:and a lot of consumables associated with semiconductors. And
Speaker:my husband had a commercial construction company at the
Speaker:time and an automotive background. And we had
Speaker:just a little indoor hobby garden at the time. And at the time,
Speaker:the indoor gardening industry was not the
Speaker:cannabis industry, right? It was indoor gardening. Right. And
Speaker:he just, you know, kind of was like, some of the ways that
Speaker:people are doing things specifically related to climate management is really cool. Really
Speaker:dumb, you know. It just seems really silly and wasteful. And
Speaker:he's, I would say, not an engineer by education, but certainly by
Speaker:application to some extent. And he came up with a couple of
Speaker:product ideas, and we had some connections with the big
Speaker:distributors at the time, which at that time, you know, Sunlight Supply, which is
Speaker:now Hawthorne and Hydrofarm. And we just
Speaker:kind of showed them what we had, and they were pretty interested in it. And
Speaker:we said, "Oh, okay, great." You know, I was still. at my job
Speaker:and kind of doing the office side of Hydro Innovations moonlighting.
Speaker:And then Stephen, you know, kind of stopped taking on new construction projects
Speaker:and started focusing his time on getting these products manufactured.
Speaker:And we also built a house and had a baby that year, which
Speaker:I don't necessarily recommend doing all 3 the same year. Yeah,
Speaker:that's a lot. But it was, you know, and then
Speaker:there was a second product and then a third product. And then, you know, that
Speaker:was We, you know, now suddenly we had a company and a
Speaker:warehouse and employees. And that's
Speaker:really how it happened. We did have, you know, I
Speaker:think we made a series of good decisions and we also had a lot of
Speaker:lucky timing, right? Yeah. We happened to kind of enter
Speaker:the market at a time of big growth and then happened
Speaker:to expand our company and kind of turn into Cerna.
Speaker:Concurrently with a huge amount of growth in the industry.
Speaker:And that wasn't necessarily roadmapped, but we certainly,
Speaker:you know, took advantage of opportunities when they presented themselves. What was
Speaker:the focus of Hygro in those early days? Like what specific
Speaker:parts of the industry were you looking to specialize in? So we were
Speaker:always focused on climate management and
Speaker:heat and humidity control. And that was always— so our
Speaker:very first product was—
Speaker:stop me if this is a little bit too granular, but way, way back in
Speaker:those days, everyone used HID reflectors for lighting
Speaker:systems and they were all air-cooled. And we just
Speaker:designed a simple radiant barrier,
Speaker:custom-fitted overlay that went over a
Speaker:reflector. And we put it in a tent and the temperature
Speaker:in the tent went down 4 degrees in about an hour and a half. And
Speaker:we went, huh. That's interesting. And so we
Speaker:didn't have any, any real money. We didn't borrow any money to invest in
Speaker:the business at the time. And so that's when we reached out to Sunlight
Speaker:Supply and we said, hey, if we made this for you, you know, could you
Speaker:use it? And it was custom fitted to each of their, I
Speaker:don't know, 50 different reflector models that they had. And they
Speaker:said, yeah, that's kind of a cool idea.
Speaker:And it was great for us because all we had to invest was in the
Speaker:fabric. And we didn't— they packaged it, they marketed it, they,
Speaker:you know, they did all of these things. And so it was a great
Speaker:start. And then our next product was a
Speaker:water-cooled CO2 generator. At the time, everyone used CO2
Speaker:burners and they, you know, created an enormous amount of heat
Speaker:in the rooms that you then had to cool. And so Stephen
Speaker:built one and he went, huh,
Speaker:I just made a tankless water heater.
Speaker:Right? And I was like, yeah, you actually, that's what you just made.
Speaker:And so what we did is we reached out to
Speaker:manufacturers of tankless water heaters and said, you know, this is
Speaker:what we're looking for. Do you want to build this for us? Instead of kind
Speaker:of reinventing the wheel and building something that people would have to spend, you know,
Speaker:$2,000 for, what we did instead was found
Speaker:a, you know, we had to make them cleaner burning. We had to put in
Speaker:a number of safety features, a lot of things that made them suitable for indoor
Speaker:use. As opposed to, you know, water heaters,
Speaker:right? But the concept was essentially the same. And that's
Speaker:the first product that was actually marketed under that brand name. And
Speaker:it was enormously helpful to a lot of folks.
Speaker:Gigantic pain in the you-know-what. I mean, you know, we
Speaker:were obsessive about it being safe, you know, for folks
Speaker:to use, which also made it a little temperamental, right? And so, you
Speaker:know, it was a lot, it took a lot of support. a lot of phone
Speaker:calls helping people, you know, figure out how to keep it from turning itself off.
Speaker:So it, you know, if it wasn't unhappy for some reason. But
Speaker:then from there, then we started making heat exchangers
Speaker:to help kind of boost the output
Speaker:of the air cooling and reflector systems. And then that led us
Speaker:down the path of chiller systems and chilled water, which then led us
Speaker:to climate systems and You know, by
Speaker:2013, we were, you know, at that
Speaker:point, an engineering company. How much of it was learning,
Speaker:like, on the job, so to speak, or just— and also learning the industry that
Speaker:you were in? Because it seems like, you know, coming from an engineering background,
Speaker:like, definitely have the— sounds like your husband's definitely got the tinkering chops
Speaker:to just trying things out and seeing what works, what doesn't. But then there's also
Speaker:an understanding of the industry that you're entering and, like, all the
Speaker:nuances, you know, that come with that as well. Yeah, it's
Speaker:interesting because you're right. I mean, that's really what he did is
Speaker:he always, you know, was willing to kind of go do something new. And it
Speaker:was my job to kind of hold it down while he, you know, went off
Speaker:adventuring, you know, into risk-taking, into whatever that risk, you
Speaker:know, was. And so, I think we
Speaker:knew the industry well enough just from the
Speaker:perspective at the time that we entered it, right? It changed.
Speaker:so dramatically over, you know, has changed so
Speaker:substantially over the years. But at the time, because he was,
Speaker:you know, a hobby cultivator, we knew several retail store owners,
Speaker:you know, that we were, you know, got to be pretty good friends with or
Speaker:close with. Like I said, we had some contacts at some of the major
Speaker:distributors and those folks. So I don't think we were really
Speaker:surprised by the industry as it existed at the time
Speaker:that we entered. industry. We certainly had to learn,
Speaker:you know, what it was like to be on the product
Speaker:manufacturer side of things, right? And, uh, and of course, my
Speaker:kind of practical mind is always, okay, where's the liability
Speaker:insurance, right? How are we protecting ourselves and then making sure that we're
Speaker:putting out products that are safe, you know, for folks to use? And his
Speaker:brain was always, you know, how do I make the next thing? What's the next
Speaker:thing that people are going to be able to use? And I'm— Mine's How am
Speaker:I paying taxes? And his is, how am I paying for the next production
Speaker:run of something? Right. And so that was really kind of how it
Speaker:went there for a long time. When the industry
Speaker:changed, you know, Colorado, Arizona, Washington,
Speaker:and then shortly after that, Canada, I mean, it was kind of an overnight
Speaker:shift, right? And, you know, we went from
Speaker:doing 12 light rooms to 50
Speaker:Lightrooms, which seemed huge at that
Speaker:point in time. Obviously, that's a, you know, cube now, but no.
Speaker:And, uh, but I think that we were— we didn't have to go
Speaker:backwards to learn about an industry. We were in the
Speaker:industry and we were kind of living it as it was changing, right?
Speaker:And so we just were kind of Evolving right along with
Speaker:the industry itself and maturing right along with the industry. And
Speaker:keeping in mind too, that at that time, if you had
Speaker:$50,000 in Colorado in 2012
Speaker:to build a cultivation facility, you were pretty well funded. You know, that
Speaker:was because it's not like you were getting huge investment, you know, and
Speaker:now the industry has continued to mature and to evolve. And now
Speaker:it's, you know, we're seeing $30 and $50 million facilities as opposed to
Speaker:$50,000 facilities. And so we,
Speaker:we started seeing what the industry was going to
Speaker:need and what they were going to need from us
Speaker:specifically, not just from a product standpoint, but also
Speaker:from an engineering and design and construction management standpoint,
Speaker:right? Started adding those resources. So when did you
Speaker:start having the conversations with Cerna and How big
Speaker:had Hydro gotten up until that point? So, I can't
Speaker:remember the exact dates. You'll forgive me. I can give
Speaker:you plus or minuses. I think it was
Speaker:2013 is
Speaker:when, you know, we were acquired by or merged into Cerna.
Speaker:And Hydro Innovations' biggest year, we were,
Speaker:we only had about, there were 5 of us, 5 employees. We had 6
Speaker:at our, I think our biggest, and we weren't making anything,
Speaker:right? We were buying things from factories and having things made for us. And then
Speaker:we had the warehouse and receiving, you know, sales, that sort of thing.
Speaker:And our best year was just right at $1 million
Speaker:in revenue for a year. And then, you know, then we
Speaker:went to $3 million and then to $8 million, right? And that happened
Speaker:very, very quickly. And, you know, that was something that we
Speaker:learned was at that time was how
Speaker:difficult it is to manage growth like that, right?
Speaker:How many systems— when a system is dependent on you talking
Speaker:to the shipping and receiving guy next to you, right? That's a lot different
Speaker:than, you know, making sure that you have a process, right, to
Speaker:fulfill a set of orders. But we were still just
Speaker:providing products and equipment at that
Speaker:time. Right. And then, you know, from that through those
Speaker:years is when we picked up— there's no
Speaker:one-size-fits-all answer to climate systems in particular in cultivation
Speaker:facilities, right? Sometimes, you know, there are 10 different ways you can do
Speaker:it. None of them are wrong, right? And, you know, there's probably
Speaker:100 different ways you can do it, but it really, you know, it's— you quantify
Speaker:the problem and then you apply the solution, right? Yeah. And
Speaker:it's really about kind of identifying what solution to apply.
Speaker:And so, you know, we learned very quickly that we needed to
Speaker:not just sell one solution, right? That we needed
Speaker:to be able to provide all of the solutions that could be
Speaker:applied and then, you know, have the expertise to engineer those
Speaker:solutions so that when they are applied, they're applied well. How did your
Speaker:role change with the merger? So I went— Your position.
Speaker:Yeah. Well, I went from, you know, kind of
Speaker:running the show to not, which
Speaker:was welcomed. A sigh of
Speaker:relief, maybe? Yeah.
Speaker:And I mean, I'm good at what I'm good at and I'm
Speaker:not prideful enough or so prideful that I can't acknowledge
Speaker:what I'm not good at. And which is why I feel like
Speaker:I tend to get more credit frankly, than I really should have
Speaker:for what Cerna is today. It had very little to do with me
Speaker:and had everything to do with the folks who lead this company and everyone else
Speaker:who's here. But primarily, I was
Speaker:working in sales and, you know, having these conversations with
Speaker:owners and helping to kind of project manage
Speaker:also for a while until we realized that, you know, that's probably not something
Speaker:that person can really do, right? Yeah. And my
Speaker:role now is I'm very, very
Speaker:familiar with every conceivable cultivation
Speaker:practice, very, very familiar with every conceivable, you
Speaker:know, application of climate systems, that sort of thing. So
Speaker:while I do work in a sales capacity to some extent, what I really do
Speaker:is communicate, right? And, and explain
Speaker:go through these systems with clients, you know, kind of help them identify
Speaker:the, I would say, pros and cons, or everything has
Speaker:good things about it and bad things about it, right, when you apply them into
Speaker:a cultivation facility. So kind of helping them understand those, you know,
Speaker:and guiding them to a decision that fits their goals the best. And then I
Speaker:participate a lot in content and blogs and,
Speaker:you know, white papers with our amazing marketing
Speaker:How have you seen the industry grow or
Speaker:mature? Obviously being there in Colorado on ground zero
Speaker:as everything was taking off, you've alluded to the fact that it's,
Speaker:you know, you could do a lot with a little bit of money back then
Speaker:because everyone just sort of getting their feet wet and figuring out, like,
Speaker:not necessarily wild, wild west, but a little, a little of
Speaker:just like flying by the seat of your pants, right? And I think I remember
Speaker:seeing one of those Netflix documentaries about the early days,
Speaker:what it was like. It was pretty crazy. So it must be interesting for you
Speaker:to see how, I don't know if corporatized is the right word, but
Speaker:just how it's grown, how it's matured, the sophistication of the technologies
Speaker:that are now being used for cultivation. And can you talk a little bit about
Speaker:like how you've seen that growth over the years? Yeah,
Speaker:I heard somebody refer to it as there was a period of time where the
Speaker:cannabis industry desperately needed some adults in the room.
Speaker:And I think that that's accurate in a number of
Speaker:ways. That doesn't mean that the folks who
Speaker:dived into the commercial, you know, legal cannabis industry
Speaker:early on aren't absolute pioneers and
Speaker:didn't pave the way for what this industry is today. Right.
Speaker:Because without them, we aren't here. Right. But I
Speaker:would say that there was very little, it was all about just
Speaker:First of all, we call it anecdotal science, right? Meaning
Speaker:this is what's always worked in my basement or in my,
Speaker:you know, utility building or, you know, whatever it is. And therefore
Speaker:that's how I'm going to do it now. And probably
Speaker:not the best way to do certain things, right? And, but
Speaker:it was, I've got to get as much as I can as fast
Speaker:as I can and whatever I got to do. Right.
Speaker:And so we saw a lot of that. We had folks pay us in cash
Speaker:a few times, which, you know, our bank didn't
Speaker:like. Definitely Wild West there.
Speaker:Yeah, that was always interesting. We are actually— our
Speaker:first medical facility was actually in
Speaker:Arizona. And then we, you know, Colorado, Washington,
Speaker:and Canada all kind of hit at one time. Canada was
Speaker:different from, you know, from the United States just because there
Speaker:was investment, there was corporate dollars, you know, kind of
Speaker:going into these facilities where in the US it was
Speaker:just so much bootstrapping in those, you know, in those
Speaker:early days of particularly those first few states,
Speaker:right? Now, new states that come online, if there's
Speaker:any difficulty or any barriers to licensing,
Speaker:you generally have a pretty sophisticated group getting those licenses, right? They
Speaker:may not be super experienced, but they're, you know, kind of business-minded
Speaker:for the most part. We still see a rush to be first to
Speaker:market, sometimes at the expense of wise decision-making,
Speaker:but it's not nearly as prevalent as it was, you know, back in
Speaker:those days. So for the benefit of the listener who may not be
Speaker:familiar with CERNA, how would you describe you know, who
Speaker:your ideal client is, who are the partners that you work with, and what your
Speaker:current offerings are? So Cerna, what we do now
Speaker:is we are a supplier
Speaker:and service partner to commercial cultivators,
Speaker:whether that's in the cannabis industry or in the food industry. We do everything
Speaker:from, you know, kind of initial real estate assessment,
Speaker:architectural design, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design, which
Speaker:are the kind of the 4 permits you have to get when
Speaker:you're contemplating building a facility like this. Very, very
Speaker:specialized to cultivation operations.
Speaker:And then we provide equipment associated with their climate control
Speaker:in their facilities, which folks who aren't familiar with the industry is
Speaker:probably their biggest capital investment and probably their most
Speaker:critical decision as far as maintaining climate and
Speaker:cannabis in particular. So in food, we
Speaker:provide building automation and control systems and then certain
Speaker:other, you know, kind of parts and pieces to cultivation facilities.
Speaker:So we really get involved, you know, from concept all
Speaker:the way through to commissioning. And how much
Speaker:overlap or how much of what you've learned
Speaker:and obviously all the experience you had in your previous company and now with CERN
Speaker:in terms of all aspects of that climate control. You mentioned
Speaker:cannabis and then also food production. Are you seeing that
Speaker:the experience that you had all those years with cannabis is providing you
Speaker:sort of that trusted advisor status when it comes to like working with
Speaker:companies in the food production space as well? Absolutely. And it's
Speaker:interesting because somebody asked me, you know, what brought
Speaker:us to pivot from cannabis to food. And
Speaker:My answer was there was no pivot. We've always served the indoor
Speaker:cultivation market and food just
Speaker:didn't exist at the scale that cannabis did. Right. So it was really just a
Speaker:product of the existence of a market, not of us consciously making a
Speaker:decision to also do this other thing. Right. It's all indoor
Speaker:cultivation. It's all controlled environment agriculture. And I would
Speaker:make the argument that if you can design a
Speaker:facility for cannabis, particularly as it relates to
Speaker:mechanical systems and HVAC and climate control systems,
Speaker:it's a little easier in a lot of ways. And
Speaker:in some ways a little harder, you know, with leafy greens in particular, where you
Speaker:have multi-rack situations and, and you have to deal with
Speaker:microclimates and those sorts of things to a greater extent than you do
Speaker:cannabis. But it absolutely, the inputs are different.
Speaker:But the overarching kind of goals and
Speaker:the calculations and all of those things are really the same.
Speaker:When did you start to see at Cerna there was increased interest
Speaker:in folks from the food production side? I would say, you know,
Speaker:we have had interest in it forever, right? And
Speaker:it's extremely exciting to me. I get kind of amped up
Speaker:about it, honestly, but probably the last
Speaker:2 years is where we really started to see that industry, you
Speaker:know, start to really ramp up on the field. And where
Speaker:are you seeing, do you see it in specific crops or specific
Speaker:regions or specific parts of the globe as well?
Speaker:Like where you're seeing the most activity? So leafy greens is
Speaker:still the primary and certain herbs are still the primary crop
Speaker:for indoor facilities. And the Northeast is really kind
Speaker:of the epicenter. Center in the United States for that.
Speaker:Starting to see it, you know, drift toward the Midwest a little
Speaker:bit. And I expect it to, I mean, you know, there's
Speaker:some version of a CEA facility in most states,
Speaker:but the density is highest in, I think, in the Northeast where
Speaker:interestingly, you know, there's shorter growing cycle,
Speaker:shorter growing season, right? Denser populations. you
Speaker:know, that sort of thing. So it makes sense that that's
Speaker:where, you know, the first few would really get
Speaker:their feet wet. But I just, like I said, I could talk about this forever.
Speaker:I get so excited about water resources and food deserts
Speaker:and, you know, eliminating transportation as a barrier to
Speaker:getting fresh food. And, you know, there's so much about it that makes me so
Speaker:excited. I can't wait to see it. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting
Speaker:because I didn't plan it that way, but the timing of the show I literally
Speaker:was having my first interviews as COVID hit in March of 2020.
Speaker:So, you know, when you talk about the feeling, the direct
Speaker:impacts of supply chain issues, food deserts,
Speaker:accessibility to fresh food, like everything was really front and center
Speaker:for everyone. It was like, you know, people were talking about it up until that
Speaker:point, but they were experiencing it now. And I think that's really what
Speaker:caused a big shift. And, you know, it's something that you alluded to. And so
Speaker:when you Obviously you're going to MJ BizCon, but then you were also at Indoor
Speaker:AgTech NYC. So do you find that the nature of the conversations are
Speaker:different or the concerns or the needs for folks that are in the food
Speaker:production space? Yes and no. I think
Speaker:that in the food production space, folks are a
Speaker:lot more— investments are longer term,
Speaker:right, than they are in the cannabis space, meaning that, you know, the investors in
Speaker:the cannabis industry are looking for a faster payback in
Speaker:general. I think that in the food industry, folks are
Speaker:a lot more open to technologies
Speaker:that can drive down operating costs, as opposed
Speaker:to in cannabis industry, they tend to be a little more— I
Speaker:don't want to say resistant because that's not really the right word,
Speaker:but a lot more wary of changing the way they do things,
Speaker:right? Yeah. So that's You know, that's part of it. And then also,
Speaker:you know, that— I mean, investments are limited everywhere, right? You have X dollars and
Speaker:that's what you have. But investors in food facilities,
Speaker:I think, you know, there's not a human on the planet who doesn't have
Speaker:to eat, right? And so you have maybe a
Speaker:slightly different mindset from the investment side of things.
Speaker:I see a lot more plant scientists
Speaker:in food. than, than you do in cannabis.
Speaker:And although, you know, we do see more and more, you know, degree
Speaker:horticulturalists and that sort of thing on the cannabis side of things too. And
Speaker:that's not to take away from the growers who've been cultivating cannabis for
Speaker:20 years. And maybe they can't, you know, define
Speaker:why a certain process works the way that it does, but they've certainly perfected it.
Speaker:Right. And there's a, you have a lot of respect for folks who've been
Speaker:able to perfect a result, you know, through risk-taking
Speaker:and application too. It's almost like they've
Speaker:honed in their ability to grow almost from an
Speaker:instinctual nature or just trial and error and just knowing
Speaker:what works. And it's almost like a really good chef who can just— who's got
Speaker:the recipe down, but, you know, he's not very specific in terms of the
Speaker:science of like the exact measurements, but he knows, you know, just
Speaker:leaning on those years of experience and Decades of experience, like what
Speaker:works and what doesn't. That, and just being able to kind of
Speaker:look at a plant and, you know, know what it needs. You know, it's always
Speaker:really— one of the things that's always been really funny to me too is
Speaker:how much, you know, one of the things that never gets
Speaker:old for cultivators, and really it's gardeners too, right? I walk around
Speaker:my backyard and I do the same thing, is looking at, like, loving on
Speaker:it, you know, and just, oh, look at how beautiful it is. Oh, look, I've
Speaker:got a new flower. I've got a, you know, And then, oh, it's week 9,
Speaker:let's chop them down and start over, right? You die now, you die. I love
Speaker:you, but you're dead. Yeah. That cycle, right? Yeah.
Speaker:But I've seen it in those cultivators, the same like feeling I get when a
Speaker:daylily blooms or, you know, or something in my backyard, you
Speaker:know, walking through these rooms and just being so
Speaker:excited by how your crop looks. It's really cool. Do you see a
Speaker:shift in, uh, on the cannabis side with you know, the
Speaker:proliferation of these newer technologies, robotics,
Speaker:cameras, sensors, you know, everything that's coming into like the food
Speaker:production space, and I imagine it's making its way into the cannabis space as
Speaker:well. Is that changing the dynamic of
Speaker:the types of teams you need to succeed, or the mix
Speaker:of experience or skill sets necessary nowadays?
Speaker:It does, and it's one thing that we really
Speaker:Sometimes in the cannabis industry struggle with,
Speaker:and that is the folks who know
Speaker:how to operate the facilities, right?
Speaker:You have these folks who really know the gardening side or the cultivation
Speaker:side of things, but when it comes to me, you know, we're building
Speaker:rocket ships and as amazing as your head
Speaker:cultivator is, he can't work on your rocket ship. You know,
Speaker:and so, you know, kind of helping folks understand the
Speaker:systems engineers that they might need or the folks, you know, that they need to
Speaker:be able to call to come help them take care of their facility.
Speaker:And the more technology there is, you know,
Speaker:certainly yes, the more that helps me to optimize
Speaker:yields and to optimize quality and whether that be, you know,
Speaker:odor and terpenes and visual results on the cannabis side, or whether
Speaker:that means flavor or— or volume on the food side, that
Speaker:also makes us more and more and more and more dependent on technology,
Speaker:right? And when we get into a position where
Speaker:the technology needs to be serviced, somebody's got to be
Speaker:around who knows how to do that, right? Yeah. And, uh, and so we do
Speaker:find, you know, the cannabis side of things in
Speaker:particular, sometimes the folks who are planning
Speaker:the facilities may kind of overlook that when they're,
Speaker:you know, planning for their employees or salaries or offices,
Speaker:you know, those sorts of things where on the food side of things, I think
Speaker:folks are more kind of prepared that they need
Speaker:folks with that skillset. Yeah. It's interesting to see how the industry is
Speaker:maturing. You also participated in the Cannabis Sustainability
Speaker:Group in Denver. Can you talk a little bit about that as well? Yeah. I,
Speaker:uh, I'm kind of a, more of an observing member these days.
Speaker:I don't join as many of the calls and meetings as I,
Speaker:as I would like to, but I was part of the original
Speaker:work group. And what we did is we developed the very
Speaker:first set of best practices for
Speaker:cultivators, and it was really for the city of
Speaker:Denver, but a lot of folks ended up kind of using that as a
Speaker:basis for you know, for some of their own other
Speaker:regional references. It was a really cool group of folks. It was a
Speaker:mixture of cultivators and ancillary service providers
Speaker:and equipment suppliers and marketing
Speaker:professionals. And there was a lot of different things that the group did,
Speaker:but, you know, my primary role was to
Speaker:contribute to the authorship of the best practices for HVAC
Speaker:systems. And then I, you know, kind of helped to edit some
Speaker:of the lighting and other things that we developed that first year.
Speaker:That's evolved enormously, right? It has been added to and edited and
Speaker:changed. And, you know, as the industry continues
Speaker:to mature, in fact, I don't think there was even a controls section in that
Speaker:first best practices guide, you know. And obviously controls
Speaker:is a huge, huge part of the conversation. But again,
Speaker:back then, That wasn't a real common investment, right?
Speaker:And a lot of timers and that sort of thing. But, you know,
Speaker:the group of folks that worked on that were so knowledgeable and so
Speaker:dedicated to, you know, to producing something that
Speaker:promoted sustainability in cultivation facilities. And then,
Speaker:you know, also gave cultivators a real resource. I mean, it was valuable
Speaker:information. And I don't— I think it was the first really
Speaker:of its kind. I don't know of any area who really did anything like that.
Speaker:Since then, like I said, you know, some other folks have. There's, you know, there
Speaker:are a number of other groups that are working on some kind of
Speaker:national standards and/or best practices that I think are pretty great.
Speaker:Given your experience in industry, are there lessons
Speaker:that you could see would be applicable for folks in the, you know,
Speaker:food services, just, you know, still not necessarily early days,
Speaker:but definitely doesn't have the track record of everything
Speaker:that you've experienced in the cannabis industry. So, you know, having had
Speaker:that experience from early on, can you think of anything that
Speaker:might be something that could be lessons learned or something to look out for or
Speaker:something that would be helpful for, you know, for an industry that's a little bit
Speaker:more mature than where we are in vertical farming in terms of food
Speaker:production? Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know,
Speaker:try your hardest not to sacrifice
Speaker:operating expenses for time to market, right? I mean, everybody's
Speaker:trying to get it done as fast as they can, as fast as they can,
Speaker:as fast as they can. But, you know, if you
Speaker:shortcut something or go, I'll deal with that later, you
Speaker:almost never end up dealing with it later. You almost always end up dealing with
Speaker:it for the life of the facility because of how difficult it is
Speaker:to, you know, stop your production and go
Speaker:retrofit, you know, to do something along those lines. The other thing that I would
Speaker:say is there are, back when we first started
Speaker:in the cannabis industry, cannabis cultivators did not
Speaker:have experienced engineering and design resources,
Speaker:right? Yeah. It was whoever can design a building,
Speaker:help me get permits for this and, you know, I'll figure it
Speaker:out. And now the vertical farming and food
Speaker:industry has this Benefit, frankly,
Speaker:of all these folks that learned how
Speaker:to do these, this stuff in the cannabis industry, right?
Speaker:And learn the questions to ask. And so don't
Speaker:overlook really experienced design help
Speaker:in favor of, you know, someone who maybe works
Speaker:in the municipality that you happen to be building in, right?
Speaker:Because there's a, there are a lot of nuances. This is really
Speaker:specialized. And, you know, like I said, everything from
Speaker:microclimates to, you know, figuring out your actual
Speaker:transpiration situation, right. And everything in between.
Speaker:There's a lot of folks who've done a lot of it and, and they can
Speaker:help you without having to teach someone else on
Speaker:your dollar. Right. Yeah. Or starting from scratch.
Speaker:Yeah, that's very helpful. I noticed that the team also published a
Speaker:report on the blog about why so many indoor
Speaker:farms fail. And so I was wondering if there was a
Speaker:couple of takeaways from that that might be helpful for this audience, because it's something
Speaker:that's top of mind. Obviously, as of this recording, you know, there's the news of
Speaker:Fifth Season shutting its doors, a couple others, you know,
Speaker:there as well. And so I'm wondering, it's, you know, something that's definitely top of
Speaker:mind for folks. I'm wondering, you know, as if you can speak a little bit
Speaker:to what, you know, some of the things were that you covered there. Yeah. And
Speaker:that, that's actually, I would highly recommend anybody to go out and read that blog.
Speaker:Courtney wrote that one. She's one of our
Speaker:marketing team and she's, I just, she's amazing.
Speaker:But, you know, kind of at the very top of her
Speaker:list is diving into a market, just
Speaker:racing to get there without really understanding the market. Right.
Speaker:Who's your customer, you know, buying your product?
Speaker:And then how do you tailor your
Speaker:approach to who that customer is? Right.
Speaker:You know, do I need to go out and build a 300,000-square-foot
Speaker:facility in a market that has 4 million consumers?
Speaker:Probably not. Right. But do we see folks contemplating
Speaker:that or something along those lines? you know, we do. The
Speaker:other was, you know, and I kind of alluded to this earlier, one of the
Speaker:other, the other points that we make is sacrificing
Speaker:long-term operating costs and sacrificing longevity
Speaker:for the sake of getting to market quickly. Right. And this is a
Speaker:little bit different between cannabis and food.
Speaker:Inevitably in a mature market, the pound price For
Speaker:cannabis declines, right? There are
Speaker:some exceptions, you know, really, really
Speaker:well-regulated markets where, or where there were, I say, say, well,
Speaker:tightly regulated markets where there were high barriers to
Speaker:entry. But for the most part, you know, when it's a new
Speaker:market in a state, you have a really high price of a product and then
Speaker:it just goes down and down and down and down and down. And, you know,
Speaker:there are periods of time and Colorado and Washington where the cost
Speaker:of a wholesale pound was well below what it
Speaker:costs to produce that pound, right? And so
Speaker:really, you know, looking at what you expect prices
Speaker:to do in a market and making sure that you can
Speaker:produce that product, you know, within the
Speaker:confines of what that product is going to sell for. A lot different from food,
Speaker:right? We're not going to see lettuce prices all of a sudden just, you know,
Speaker:drop by 80%, right? But you
Speaker:still, you know, you still need to have a realistic
Speaker:understanding of what it's going to cost you to produce
Speaker:and then make investments wherever you can in minimizing
Speaker:those production costs. Because at the end of the day, the folks who can
Speaker:produce a high-quality product at the lowest price are the folks who are going to,
Speaker:you know, kind of survive the ebbs and flows of any market. We'll be sure
Speaker:to have that article linked in the show notes as well so they can read
Speaker:through it because I think it was very insightful, eye-opening, and a helpful reminder
Speaker:that it's not all roses and rainbows in
Speaker:this market as much as people are really hyped up on the promise of vertical
Speaker:farming. You alluded to it a little bit earlier about how
Speaker:excited you are about what's happening in this space,
Speaker:fixing the problem of food deserts. What else specifically when you think
Speaker:about the promise of what's possible? And just, you know, from your
Speaker:experience, where do you see the potential for growth, or
Speaker:the, you know, the possibilities for some really interesting progress in this
Speaker:space? Oh, man, water resources is a big one for me,
Speaker:right? And, you know, we see it in commercial agriculture.
Speaker:I, you know, I've read varying statistics, but, you know, traditional
Speaker:agriculture uses somewhere between 70% and 90% of
Speaker:our, of the world's water resources, right?
Speaker:And if you are cultivating in a completely controlled environment, you know,
Speaker:your plant doesn't consume water. Your plant uses water as a
Speaker:delivery mechanism and then transpires that same moisture right back out into the
Speaker:space. So the ability to recapture and reuse water
Speaker:and reduce— eliminate runoff entirely, potentially.
Speaker:So runoff and then the pollution into the
Speaker:waterways, you know, that is associated with that runoff.
Speaker:Eliminating that entirely in an indoor cultivation facility and then
Speaker:recapturing and reusing water. And it's just the water cycle over and
Speaker:over and over inside, you know, that is— it could be hugely
Speaker:impactful to water resources in the
Speaker:world, right? Especially when you start going places where water is
Speaker:exceptionally scarce, right? Or where, you know, droughts are
Speaker:an even bigger deal. That's a big one for me. Poverty
Speaker:and the access to
Speaker:unprocessed foods for children who are kind of
Speaker:growing up in underserved areas, right? You know, what does it
Speaker:mean to a child who's never had a salad? That's a true story. You
Speaker:probably heard it at the— Oh yeah. And at the Indirect Tech. Yeah,
Speaker:that's right. He's eating a salad for the first time in his life. I
Speaker:can't even wrap my mind around that. And what that
Speaker:means, you know, for the cost of healthcare over the long term, right? I
Speaker:mean, that can be really meaningful. Reduction in
Speaker:transportation costs associated with moving food
Speaker:from, you know, Mexico to Alaska, right? Why in
Speaker:the world are we shipping, you know— Jalapeños.
Speaker:Right. It just, you know, now with the
Speaker:understanding that there's the elephant in the room being the energy component.
Speaker:Of course. That's a solvable problem. You know, it really is.
Speaker:I mean, there are, with investment in renewable energy resources and those sorts of things.
Speaker:So then what we've got to turn our attention to is how do we make
Speaker:it affordable? Right. And it's beyond— I
Speaker:know that we can make a head of lettuce
Speaker:that we grow 4 miles away from a grocery store. I
Speaker:know we can make it every bit as affordable as one that we grow 3,000
Speaker:miles from that same grocery store. There's no way that we can, right?
Speaker:And that's exciting. They're making a lot more people and
Speaker:we're running out of arable land, right? So then we get into,
Speaker:well, you know, GMO is kind of a dirty word in a lot of
Speaker:circles. They don't like it. But in a lot of cases, we use genetic
Speaker:modification to make crops more
Speaker:suitable for their environment, right? We want to, you know,
Speaker:boost production, right? We want to make the corncob bigger or the apple redder or
Speaker:whatever we want to do to make it look better for folks. But we also
Speaker:want to make it, you know, less susceptible to climate
Speaker:anomalies, right? Less susceptible to extreme heat or cold, or we want to
Speaker:make it more, you know, stand up to certain pests and that sort of thing
Speaker:better. What happens if we don't have to do that because
Speaker:we're controlling the environment and we're managing that climate? Right?
Speaker:What can we do to boost output even further in a controlled
Speaker:environment if we really turn our attention to just
Speaker:doing that? That's exciting. I think that there's real
Speaker:possibility there. And then, like, you know, I go back to climate
Speaker:change and the extreme waste, how much
Speaker:food, you know, how many crops are just destroyed, how much—
Speaker:how many farmers have to be subsidized for hailstorms and floods?
Speaker:floods, you know, and all of these things that, you know, and then
Speaker:what that does to food prices, right? If we have a
Speaker:repeatable, sustainable, we know exactly what we're getting, we
Speaker:know exactly when we're getting it because we're not susceptible to the whims of Mother
Speaker:Nature, then shouldn't that stabilize
Speaker:food prices to some extent, right? I'm not saying that we replace
Speaker:traditional agriculture entirely. That's never going to happen, right? It's not like This
Speaker:isn't the solution to a food problem, but it's certainly one
Speaker:of the solutions, right? Yeah, definitely.
Speaker:What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently? Ooh,
Speaker:that's a tough question.
Speaker:You know, I still, even today, as much as I
Speaker:love what I do, I'm also a mom. And, uh, So
Speaker:that's, that's always kind of in the back of my mind, like, am I
Speaker:doing enough for my children? And am I doing for
Speaker:my work? Right. And so that's a tough one.
Speaker:That's a, you know, not that, that you're my therapist,
Speaker:but— No, but it's something that, you know,
Speaker:anyone who's either, you know, an entrepreneur, a
Speaker:business owner in an industry that's, you know, rapidly
Speaker:growing, that asks a lot of you. That's a very valid
Speaker:question, and it's something that I'm sure everyone has to figure out
Speaker:for themselves, you know, where that balance lies and, you know, how
Speaker:much of that, uh, affects your day-to-day decisions about, you know, how
Speaker:deeply enmeshed and how much of yourself you want to give to this business.
Speaker:Because, you know, at the end of the day, your children are going to model
Speaker:what they see in you, right? And they're going to see, you know, work
Speaker:ethic, behaviors, work-life balance, all those things.
Speaker:Whether you realize, and I'm sure you know it as a parent, that they're always
Speaker:looking, they're always observant, they're always paying attention. They are.
Speaker:And it's interesting because I feel like I have to tell my children,
Speaker:I'm sorry, I can't come to that event with you. I have this work thing
Speaker:that I have to do. And I have to say that too much. But
Speaker:I also have to say more commonly than I'm comfortable with, I'm sorry, I
Speaker:can't do that. you know, for work because my kid has something,
Speaker:right? In neither case do I feel like
Speaker:I, you know, like it's enough, I guess, is the, uh, is that's the
Speaker:question I ask myself every week was like, you know, did everybody
Speaker:get enough of Brandy this week? Well, I
Speaker:definitely appreciate you making enough of your time for this show. So just one
Speaker:last thought, like the future of this industry having been around
Speaker:for long time to see it, you know, from its early days on the cannabis
Speaker:side and then the move into food production. You know, how
Speaker:do you, you know, when you look out 6 months, a year from now, like
Speaker:what has you excited about what's possible and the potential? So
Speaker:future of the industry, I, you know, the 2
Speaker:industries, controlled environment agriculture, although
Speaker:both crops, you know, indoor cultivated, the cannabis
Speaker:industry and the food industry are you know, they're going to follow divergent
Speaker:paths, right? It's not the same. What I get
Speaker:excited for in the cannabis industry is the real
Speaker:possibilities for medical intervention. You know, we
Speaker:still are not doing
Speaker:enough at the federal level to really
Speaker:dive into all the possibilities of the plant. And,
Speaker:you know, something that we didn't really talk about is my husband in
Speaker:2007 had a grand mal seizure and
Speaker:since 2011 has used only CBD oil to
Speaker:treat it. Um, and has had, has not had a seizure since
Speaker:2011. That's great. And so it gets me, I get
Speaker:very, very, very excited about all the possibilities, you know,
Speaker:medically with cannabis. And now that the industry has kind
Speaker:of established itself and, you know, it's fairly well
Speaker:regulated, you know, in most states, the
Speaker:possibilities are really endless. And I just can't
Speaker:wait, right, for the real research and the real investment
Speaker:that goes into what kinds of treatments we can really come up with.
Speaker:On the food side, like, you know, I kind of dived into it a little
Speaker:bit, but I think, you know, there are some real
Speaker:benefits, financial benefits, economic
Speaker:benefits health benefits, climate benefits, you know,
Speaker:to cultivating food indoors. And I'm so excited to see
Speaker:the excitement from the investor side of
Speaker:things and the industry kind of really
Speaker:getting a foothold and the Plenties and the
Speaker:Caleras and the Bowerys of the world, you know, kind of showing us what's possible,
Speaker:right? And increasing sophistication, driving down
Speaker:those costs and all the things that they're doing to, you know,
Speaker:Definitely an exciting space to be in with all the
Speaker:development and technology making things possible
Speaker:that I think looking back 10, 15 years ago, didn't even think that something— stuff
Speaker:like this could be possible. So I'm sure even for you to see it and
Speaker:to have a front row seat all these years has been something interesting
Speaker:to watch and then gives you hope for what's possible, you know, in terms of
Speaker:what you've seen up until now and what's possible in the for future. Yeah, I
Speaker:think it's really exciting. the future. It's been fascinating, and
Speaker:I really think it only gets cooler from here. It's a nice pun,
Speaker:given what you cover in the industry. Oops, I
Speaker:accidentally made it that good. Pun intended. Yeah, very
Speaker:appropriate. Uh, Brandy, I'm glad we got to connect at Indirect Tech, and I'm glad
Speaker:you were able to come on and have some time to share your story, which
Speaker:is very inspirational as well. I, I also want to highlight as
Speaker:many you know, female founders or founders of color in this space.
Speaker:Because, you know, what I noticed in the beginning is, as I started interviewing, you
Speaker:know, there wasn't a lot of diversity there. And so, you know, we
Speaker:didn't even touch on that, you know, what it's been like to be, you know,
Speaker:a female in the space. But I think it's very inspirational to hear your story.
Speaker:And, you know, the more I can do to highlight stories like this, I think
Speaker:it just makes— paints a bigger, a better and broader picture of the
Speaker:industry. And then I guess gives people hope and inspiration for entering it
Speaker:as well. Yeah, well, thank you very much for that. It was a real
Speaker:pleasure to meet you. I'm glad we ran into each other. I appreciate you taking
Speaker:the time to chat. And yeah,
Speaker:I don't really think about the female founder
Speaker:component that often, but when I look around our industry, I
Speaker:see a lot of folks who— a lot more folks who
Speaker:look like me than in the semiconductor industry, for sure. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker:yeah, that's true. Well, we'll make sure we have links to Cerna.
Speaker:Anywhere else you want to send folks? Cerna.com? Anyone wants to connect with you? That
Speaker:would be great. You can find me on LinkedIn also. Okay. All right. Appreciate you
Speaker:taking the time. Thank you. Thanks again to Brandi for coming on the show
Speaker:and sharing her story. Full show notes are available at
Speaker:verticalfarmingpodcast.com. We take a lot of time and
Speaker:effort to put in a recap of the show, timestamps, key takeaways
Speaker:mentioned. Any resources that were mentioned in the show as well, you can
Speaker:find them there. And we also like to pull out a couple of quotes to
Speaker:make it easy for people to share, which they have been doing, and they have
Speaker:let me know that they're doing that, which I appreciate. So there's quotes in there.
Speaker:So if you're finding something that resonates with you in the content, you can always
Speaker:look in the full show notes and get something that you need. For those of
Speaker:you that have been sharing and talking about the episodes online
Speaker:and with your friends, I truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. One
Speaker:more time, thanks again to our season 6 title sponsor, sponsor Cultivated. I've been extremely
Speaker:honored for the journey that we've been on together. I'm looking forward
Speaker:to season 7, 2023. I had an amazing
Speaker:time connecting with the team in Dubai and can't say enough good things
Speaker:about them and their service. And as a reminder, if you are looking into a
Speaker:vertical farm and don't know where to start or which technology would suit your needs,
Speaker:reach out to them today. And best of all, their service is free because they
Speaker:work on behalf of their partners. Learn more at cultivated.com. And that's spelled
Speaker:C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D dot com, and just leave out that
Speaker:last E. Grateful for my team at Fullcast for all the marketing and
Speaker:production support provided to help in getting this show out to you on a
Speaker:timely basis. I really couldn't do it without their help. And so if you want
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Speaker:check out fullcast.co for more details.
Speaker:As a reminder, if you're enjoying the show, please leave us a rating and review
Speaker:at ratethispodcast.com. And I'll be
Speaker:more than happy to read those out on future episodes. I want to give you
Speaker:a little bit of a sneak peek if you've made it this far. We've got
Speaker:several episodes in the can. I'm always looking to stay ahead, podcast
Speaker:best practices. We've got conversations coming up in the new year
Speaker:with Tom Adamczyk of Planted Detroit, Isaac Berzin of Vaxallife,
Speaker:Tim Haigh of Scale Microgrid Solutions, Henry Erst of the
Speaker:Control Union talking about the criteria they've put in place for
Speaker:certification, which is a very interesting conversation. Back for round 2, we've
Speaker:got Tobias Peck from Square Roots, Tristan Fisher, Caleb Wilkins,
Speaker:Jazz Singh, Sky Kurtz, Trevor Williams, so many others that
Speaker:are in the works. Invites out for some pretty well-known names in the
Speaker:space. That's just a taste, and I'm looking forward to connecting with even more
Speaker:folks because what happens is when I get to these conferences, I'm going to come
Speaker:back with another 10 to 15 names. So I
Speaker:got I get ahead of these conversations. And lastly, to you, the listener,
Speaker:whether you've been here from episode 1 or you literally just found this
Speaker:podcast today, I am so grateful for you. I know it's a lot of
Speaker:investment of people's time to spend an hour listening to this show.
Speaker:You may or may not be doing it at a faster speed like 1.5 or
Speaker:1.25x, which I tend to do with my podcasts. Regardless,
Speaker:I'm grateful for your time, for this journey we've been on together. I'm
Speaker:looking forward to connecting with you in the new year. And as always,
Speaker:here's to your health. Thanks for listening. To read the full show notes
Speaker:for this episode, which includes any links mentioned in the episode, as
Speaker: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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