Episode Summary

Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show serial entrepreneur, Dave Dinesen. Dave is the CEO of CubicFarm Systems, a local chain agtech company that provides unique automated onsite commercial-scale food and livestock feed technologies. Dave is committed to applying technology to address global challenges like food security and climate change. In this episode, Harry and Dave discuss the impact the pandemic has had on the vertical farming industry, why Dave places such a high value on equity in the workplace and the critical tipping point we’ve arrived at for the future of our food supply.

Episode Sponsor

CULTIVATD

Key Takeaways

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• 02:37 – Harry welcomes to the show Dave Dinesen, CEO of CubicFarm Systems Netled, who talks about the effects of the global pandemic and how the vertical farming industry has evolved throughout the years
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• 06:33 – What inspired Dave to launch CubicFarms Systems and early stages of the company
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• 09:53 – Dave talks about why he believes so many are leaving their fields to work in AgTech
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• 13:31 – Dave discusses his strong belief in equity, treating his employees the best he possibly can and where this vision originated from
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• 21:40 – Dave speaks to the evolution of CubicFarms Systems’ offerings, current offerings and the markets they serve
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• 29:53 – Dave talks about CubicFarms Systems winning the Dairy Farmers for Nexus Innovation Award
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• 31:22 – What excites Dave the most about the future of vertical farming
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• 33:33 – Positive trends Dave hopes to continue post-pandemic world
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• 35:46 – Challenges and opportunities that CubicFarms faces in the near future
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• 36:48 – A tough question Dave has had to ask himself recently
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• 37:54 – Dave provides best practices for leadership and who he looks to for inspiration
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• 41:08 – What Dave does to unwind at the end of the workday and what’s something Dave has changed his mind about recently
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• 43:22 – What has Dave excited about the future of CubicFarms Systems
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• 45:25 – Harry thanks Dave for joining the show and let’s listeners know where they can learn more about CubicFarms Systems and connect with Dave
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Tweetable Quotes

“We are looking for people that get really, really jazzed by what we are doing. So, literally the mission and vision of our company that share our values that know that something has to change. And it’s going to take a collection of entrepreneurial, visionary, courageous people to come into work every day and create this industry.” (10:29)

“Yes you want to invest in a company that’s helping to feed the planet, localize food production, save water and reduce greenhouse gases. And at the same time, treat the people doing the work as well as you possibly can.” (15:38)

“If our company succeeds, all of our employees succeed. If our company fails, it’s gonna be partly everybody’s fault. And I think when you’ve got skin in the game, you’re just gonna make sure it doesn’t fail.” (20:16)

“If you just talked about the greenhouse gas issue, HydroGreen significantly decreases greenhouse gases.” (30:45)

“I’m hoping that when the pandemic sort of ends that a lot of this doesn’t change. We still need to meet people and share a meal, but there’s a lot that’s good about this as tragic as it’s been.” (33:07)

“You’ve gotta have great people who are better at what they do than you are and you’ve gotta have that great, trusting relationship. And know that you’re not gonna have a blind spot. There’s that saying, ‘Nobody’s perfect, but a team can be.’ And I just so subscribe to that.” (39:39)

Links Mentioned

Dave’s LinkedIn

CubicFarm Systems Website

Dave’s Band

Sponsor Info:

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Cultivatd’s Twitter

Cultivatd’s Facebook

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Mentioned in this episode:

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or click the link in the show notes. So we are looking for people

that, that get really, really jazzed by what we are

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values, that know that something has to change,

and it's going to take a collection of, you know, entrepreneurial,

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and create this industry. And that is what we're doing.

Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations with

fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech visionaries.

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

farming with your host, Harry Duran.

Vertical Farming Podcast, Season 3. Welcome back. First-time

listeners, you're in the right place if you're looking for a show where we talk

to fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming

companies, or controlled environment agriculture companies,

or greenhouse companies occasionally. And you'll learn more

about why I bring all those up in As you stay tuned for

the interview today. I'm Harry Duran, and I want to thank

you for making time out of your day to listen to these episodes.

And I don't take your listenership lightly, so if you've been listening,

whether it's since episode 1, season 1, or you just found us,

welcome. Last week, we had a great conversation with Nona Yehia and

Caroline Croft Este, co-founders of Vertical Harvest.

The ladies are doing some amazing work in Jackson Hole, and I was really inspired

by their stories of how they came together and even their

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really, really inspiring. Please, if you haven't checked that one out, give

that one a listen. I'm grateful for an additional sponsor this episode.

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I'll definitely read it out on next episode. Okay, enough from me. Let's

hear from our fantastic guests. So Dave Denison, CEO of

CubicFarms, thank you for joining me on the Vertical Farming Podcast. My

pleasure, Harry. So we are in April 2021,

and I'm curious to ask, given the tumultuous year and a

half we've all experienced globally, has there been a takeaway for

you when you look back and what we've been doing? I know we've all been

through varying degrees of ups and downs. I'm wondering if there's something

that stands out for you over the past year, year and a half. Well, being

in the agtech space, the pandemic has shown that

our— the world we live in, which is, you know, centralized

farms relying on diesel fuel and jet fuel to get food to where people

live, it already wasn't sustainable and it was already being

questioned and challenged and needed to change. But the pandemic

showed that we can have borders closed.

We can have a world where we don't have airplanes landing in every

airport every 30 seconds. And so, you know,

you add these things together and being able to localize

commercial-scale, you know, quantities of food is a necessity. I

mean, a third of the planet already has to, you know, import all their food.

That's only going to get worse. So all of these things together, it made me,

you know, appreciate the industry that, you know, it's certainly an emerging industry,

but boy, is it necessary. So that's been, you know, right thing, right

time in history. Yeah, that's been a common thread in the

conversations that I've had, especially as we actually kicked off the podcast in the middle

of the pandemic. So it made very apparent

the need for local access to food, the need for different ways

of getting food delivered to people, fresh food, and even people's definitions

of what fresh food looks like and the

possibilities of what can be grown in-house. So

can you talk a little bit about how the industry

has grown, evolved, changed since you got started with CubicFarms in

2015? Sure. So the technology actually started in

development as far back as 2010. Our founders are

Dutch greenhouse propagation farmers, and they

started, you know, messing around with this kind of technology, sort of leveraging

that lifetime of innovative agtech. So going

way back, and back then it was early, you know,

LED light efficiencies and spectrums were early. The

public perception of it early, different groups willing to

be your customers early. And so, you know,

the good news is that a lot of these things have really begun to mature.

So, you know, the industry is sort of coming into its own. So, for

example, seed companies are now making, you know, seed varieties that are

optimized for indoor hydroponic growing under LED lights.

And now, I think people are looking for this kind of produce. They're

seeking it out. Yeah, so it's gone from being, you know,

very early to now it's, you know, hurry up, you know, we need

more of it. I've certainly seen demand change. I've also seen the number of players

in the industry change. You know, it felt like, you know, way back we were

sort of— there was only a handful of us. But now there's certainly

lots of people getting into that localized growing, which is what we need.

You know, we're focused on the technology space at CubicFarm. So we

developed the automated indoor commercial-scale technology for

both growing plants, vegetables, and live green animal feed. We have 2

divisions. So we're focused on the technology, and then we

provide that technology to farmers to grow commercial

quantities locally. So we aren't doing the growing, but

we are farmers to begin with, developing technology, supplying

that technology to growers. And there's just far more demand for this

kind of technology than there was even just 24 months

ago. I'm always interested in origin stories and how, you know,

the founders got connected to you. So can you talk a little bit about, you

know, how you were introduced to them, how that meeting went, and then also

curious about what it was about their story or about

those conversations that convinced you that the move to Kubrick Farms is

something that you wanted to do as the next step in your career? Sure. So

I'm actually very good friends with one of the founders of the

technology. His name is Leo Benny. We've been very, very close friends for

almost 20 years. And I was— I had started another

company called Backcheck. It was a human resources technology company.

Started that in 1997, sold it in 2012.

And so I saw the beginnings of CubicFarms when I would, you know, go and

visit my friend and see a cool thing that he's doing. He had already built

a very large, actually the largest propagation greenhouse operation North

America, VivoFarms. So, very well-established

agtech expert. And, he was beginning to build

the next thing. And, I saw this machine

that was able to produce enormous amounts of produce

with very little energy and very little labor. And, it was

very different than anything else out there. And, I always said to him, boy, if

I ever had the time, I want to get involved in that. And I sold

my company, had a short period of retirement at the ripe old age of

45. And he phoned one day and said, you know, I think

this is ready, you know, do you want to put a team together and

start taking this to market? So that was 2015. And so

5+ years have gone by very, very fast.

It's always interesting because, you know, being an entrepreneur myself, I always wonder about the

mindset as you think about building a team and thinking about

Strategically, like, who do you want to hire? When do you want to hire them?

How quickly do you bring a team on? Do you go to try to raise

money as quick as possible? So what was going through your mind in 2015

as you're thinking about those things? Sure. So 2015,

because we were focused on the technology side, so

automating indoor farming, who is your customer? Like,

even just figuring that out took a little while. So early

on, it was Yeah, I'm a hands-on entrepreneurial guy. And

so we began to very slowly put the team together. So, you know,

early biz dev type person, we need to get a website up, you know, like

you're literally starting from zero and coming from a company that I just

sold that, you know, had 2,300 employees, you

know, it was literally going from, you know, okay, I need to

fill the photocopier with paper myself, you know. Yeah. So it was

literally beginning to build the team from ground up. So started by raising a

little bit of seed money. So myself and a couple others funded the

initial, along with BevoFarms, we funded the initial capital,

did our first few hires. So, you know, your first few engineers and

growers, and then you slowly begin to put that

team together and you slowly begin to figure out who is your customer.

And, you know, you need time to make mistakes and learn lessons.

And, you know, it took us, we've been more than doubling every year. Wow.

Each year at our Christmas party, there's always a bet. Okay, how many people in

the company this time next year? So I think in 2019,

we were at 40-something, and this year we were at 90. So we're

literally, you know, growing very, very quickly, and

fortunately able to, you know, attract, you know, some of the best talent on the

planet in the space. So yeah. What do you think is happening right now in

the space that people are looking at this as a

potential career, and some people even changing careers completely, coming

from a space that's not controlled environment agriculture, you know, not

vertical farming, but they see something in either, you know,

what you're building or the potential for this to do good for the

planet. As you have those conversations with new hires and

people that have been on the team, what's the sense that you're getting for, you

know, what's driving people to take part in this journey with you?

Yeah, so it's a great question and one that we're passionate about.

So we are looking for people that get really, really

jazzed by what we are doing. So literally the mission and vision

of the company that share our values, that know

that something has to change. And it's going to take a collection

of entrepreneurial, visionary, courageous people

to come into work every day and create this industry. And that is

what we're doing. So just lately, we've been able to attract some top

talent. Most recently, Eduardo De Martin, who is the

general manager of Microsoft in Vancouver, one of the

top, you know, agtech guys on the continent—

sorry, technology guy on the continent— made the

shift from Microsoft to CubicFarms.

You know, a guy that could literally go anywhere, write his own ticket, you know,

one of the most sought-after technology leaders, and he's

joined us. And it was, he wants to do something

meaningful for this next chapter of his life, something that he's proud to

show his kids that truly will make an impact.

And that's been a very common theme, I would say, for the last couple of

years of the new talent that's come our way. And one of the

things that we've just done to further that is we've

just started— and so we are publicly traded and

we've just started an employee stock participation program.

Where employees can invest a percentage of their paycheck

in stock and the company will match it. So, in a sense, you get

to buy shares at half price to you as the employee, right?

And I'm so excited about our company

investing in our employees in this way because at the end of the day,

they're the ones creating the value. And we need to attract and

retain the very best talent. And they are going to be

creating an industry And I think it's so important that

companies not only are doing something good, but as

they're being successful in that, that they are sharing in

that wealth creation, if you will, with the

people that are creating the wealth. Far too many companies today

don't do that. And it's why we have such

inequity in the developing world where you have a handful of

people that are— I'm certainly capitalist, and, you know,

I believe in, you know, business. And but at the same time, I also

believe in those that create the wealth should be absolutely sharing in it. So

we're super excited and really passionate. So we're trying to give that

passion back. So, you know, you're coming and bringing your time, your passion,

your talent, and you're helping us create value. We want to

do whatever we can to give that back to the very people. Obviously, our

shareholders need to have a good return. But I think our shareholders are

excited that the people they're betting on every day, which is our

wonderful staff, are also able to invest

and share in that value creation. So we're— it needs to be

reciprocal. And so I think everyone can feel that within

CubicFarms. Yeah. Is that a model or an ethos

that you brought with you from previous management experiences, or is that just a

worldview that you've just Is that has changed for you over time?

I'm wondering how that, where that comes from. Yeah. So in my last company, I

wanted as many employees as possible to have share options. We

weren't publicly traded, but we did have a stock option

program. And so when we finally sold the company, it was one of the

best days of my life is, you know, we had about 500 employees

and there must've been at least 100 that

did participate in our stock option program. And

so, and often we were the first real job they had out of university. And

so, they were with us for 5, 6, 7 years. And along that journey

and bumps along the way, challenges, lessons, all these trials of

that anybody who's ever run a company, there's lots of hard days.

And but because we had so many employees

that were shareholders in the business and they also invested

when we raised capital. So, we had all these shareholder option holder

employees. And it's not surprising to me that we became one of the

largest in the world very fast. We were based in Canada. We were the

largest in Canada by— we were 4 times larger than all our

competitors combined. And I credit that to

our people. They just gave that extra because it was their

company. It wasn't just my company. It was their company.

And so, when we sold the business, we were able to walk around and hand

out very large checks to lots and lots of people,

Life-changing amounts of money. And they earned it. They earned

every nickel. So they're paying off cars, they're putting down payments on houses, paying

off student loans. Like, this is life-changing amounts of cash.

And that was just one of the best days ever.

And I want to do that again and again and again. Yeah. Anyways, I'm

super excited about the people that are coming to work here

at Cubic Farms and that they can do really well. for themselves and their

families. And I'm hoping that our shareholders, people

that invest in our company, want that at the

companies they invest in. So yes, you want to invest in a company that's, you

know, helping to feed the planet, localize food production, save water, you know,

reduce greenhouse gases, all these things. And at the same time,

treat the people doing the work as well as you

possibly can. Like, anyways, that's the company I want to work at.

That's the world I want to live in. So I can only affect where I

work and what I do. So that's what I'm doing. Where do you

think that you picked that up? You know, because you've held several leadership

positions in your previous companies. And I'm wondering if this is something that you

can credit to previous managers, other

mentors. I'm wondering how this sort of vision for you has been

building over time. I think one of the best examples I ever

saw in it was the Canadian airline called

WestJet. And they went from zero to second largest in the

company really fast. And one of the things that went whenever

you would fly on— so, there was WestJet and then there was Air Canada, the

big incumbent. And whenever you flew on a WestJet

plane, they were friendlier. They were happier. There was just— they were always

on time. There was a buzz about it. There was just extra oomph. And one

of their things was their slogan was, we care more because we're owners.

And all their staff got to participate

in equity opportunities. And you could

feel it. You could feel it in the business. You still can today.

And that had a real impact on me. And also, I knew that

I'm glad that I owned equity and the benefit that that had to

me and my family. And I want that for

people that I work with. I also want to be able to talk about

that aspect of our company. We want to be a great publicly traded

company. And so, we want excited

shareholders. And I want to be able to talk about that with our staff. Well,

it feels slightly self-serving if it's only myself and a

handful of others that might be benefiting from an appreciating stock

price. I want everyone to be—

I want that to matter to everyone. And so, This is

another way to really align interests between staff,

shareholders, the company. You know, it just brings everybody

together because while we all want to do— there's that saying,

you want to do well while you're doing good. Yeah. I want everyone in our

CubicFarms family to do well while they're doing good. We all want to do

good, but you got to be able to pay the bills. You know, you want

this to be worthwhile. And I want people, you know, great people. I don't want

everyone to leave. So, you know, Yeah.

I wonder if for some of the employees at CubicFarms, if this is

something that's new for them and it's not something they've experienced in previous

companies. And I'm wondering what their reactions are

when they start to experience a company that handles itself like this. Well,

yeah, most don't. Yeah, they've never experienced it before. And it

takes a little while. I think we're all used to wondering, okay, what's the

catch? Right? It's too good to be true.

And so, well, there is no catch. We just— myself, I just want you to

be excited, engaged, and never leave. So that's the catch.

If there's a bad part, you know, hopefully you're going to drink the Kool-Aid and

not leave. But yeah, so it takes a while to wrap your mind

around. So I can— wow, that's really good. So,

you know, so as we've been rolling this out, the enthusiasm, you know, it's just

been fantastic and everyone's super excited. So it's just sort of getting

used to that way of thinking. Because most people only think

sort of, the only thing that matters is my paycheck,

right? How much cash lands in my bank account? The thought of building

wealth and equity over time by being a shareholder

of the company I'm helping to create is new.

And so, it's a bit of a different shift in thinking. It feels like a

hearkening back here in the States to how companies were

originally created like Ford and GM and taking care

of pensions and just kind of like that mindset of always having in

as a way of doing business, thinking of how long-term we can

create stability for the people that work for us

and security. And then, and I think for a while it feels like

companies forgot about that and we're just looking at employees as

cogs. And it feels like the more I have conversations like this,

that companies are realizing the importance of You know, the

rising tide lifting every single boat in the company as well.

It has to shift the— and I think this is the healthiest

way to share because it's, you know, if

our company succeeds, then all our employees succeed. If our company fails,

well, it's going to be, you know, partly everybody's fault. And so,

and I think when you've got skin in the game, you're just going to make

sure it doesn't fail. Like, we are going to make sure that

that order goes out on time, that that customer is happy, that we're winning. And

when we have a good idea in the middle of the night, we're going to

make sure that we share it the next day. Like, that's the kind

of— and companies that just try

and do the opposite where they treat people as disposable commodities because

there's always someone behind this person willing to work.

It just has to stop. It has to stop. And I

think this is a healthier way than, you know, just taxing

people heavier and asking, you know, for example, government to

then distribute money, which is certainly what's, you know, what we're trending with

more now. I would much rather have more and more companies

share as they succeed, you know,

directly with those that are creating the wealth anyways.

Because at the end of the day, you know, if, if a handful of people

at the top, you know, make slightly less, it doesn't change their life at all.

But when you share that equity with those that are creating the wealth, that is

life-changing. So that's, I think, the

healthiest way to redistribute wealth,

myself anyways. Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Shifting gears a little bit.

So as you came on board and you were looking at the current landscape

of what other companies in the space were offering, what markets they were

serving, whether they were going to focus on B2B,

B2C, or even serving farmers as you do with your

offerings. How did you think about that in the beginning? And was that

clear from day one who you wanted to serve? I wouldn't say it was clear

from day one because we were certainly trying to figure out, okay, we've got this

machine that grows, you know, great commercial-scale quantities of

produce in an energy and labor-efficient way.

Well, now what? Like, you know, how do you turn that into a global agtech

business? So it was, you know, a few years of figuring

that out. How do you take this technology to market? Who's your customer?

How do you scale it? And all of those sorts of things.

And we saw in the market that there was beginning to be

companies that were a bit more B2C. So I'll

sell you infrastructure to grow sort of smaller

amounts locally and a wide variety,

wide variety of harvest dates, wide variety of cultivars. So

And I know there's a huge market for that, and that is a much-needed thing

to do, and I think it's great. So, you know, there's a few companies that

have emerged that are doing that sort of thing. Our machine works really well

when you want to grow enormous quantities, often of

the same thing, and you want to harvest enormous

quantities a few times a week and service, you know,

larger institutions, larger retails, food service, things like this. So

We saw that our thing's best. So we typically won't sell one machine at a

time. We will for propagation, if you just want to propagate

lots of seedlings or it's some sort of other application.

But we'll often sell 15, 20,

25 machines at a time. And then that gives you the

volume, variety, and harvest dates. So we saw that there was

a spot in the market and needed for

commercial-scale automated indoor farming.

So I don't expect that in a city there's ever going to be, you know,

50 different CubicFarming, you know, companies. You know,

there's going to be, you know, 1 or 2, and they're going to be large.

And that's really been our focus is

larger-scale indoor automation. And then, you know, yeah.

So for the benefit of the listener who may not be familiar with CubicFarms, can

you Outline what your current offerings are and which markets you're serving?

Sure. So the company has 2 specific divisions. So our

CubicFarm division, the first one, grows plants. So

we do hydroponic indoor automated farming. So our machines are

built inside stainless steel growing chambers.

We do use the same shape as a 40-foot high

cube shipping container, But, this isn't container farming.

We use that as a convenient growing shape

so that we can manufacture centrally and then ship our machines pretty much

ready to go. And then, we'll assemble them

as a system. So, as I say, we'll put 15, 20 of them together.

So, a couple machines for propagation and then a whole bunch for

cultivation and then an irrigation system. So, it'd be a larger system.

And, that 20-machine setup is going to produce millions of heads of

produce a year. So, that's one side of the business.

And, we can do obviously the leafy green space. We can

propagate from seed to seedling most plants

that can be grown hydroponically. So, our propagation machine,

it'll propagate even for nurseries or greenhouses or

at very high quantities. With great germination

success rates. And then, we can do edibles,

non-edibles, nutraceutical ingredients, flowers.

We've done trees for reforestation companies. There's

lots of different crops that the machines can grow.

Of late, we've been focused on the leafy green space just because there's such an

acute need. So many recalls with centralized farm

shipping things. Yeah. And, it's just been disastrous. And more and

more vegan vegetarian diets requiring more and more localized leafy

greens, and more and more demand from the public just because they all taste so

good. Like, once you've started eating this kind of grown produce,

you struggle to go back, you know. So the

demand's there. So we're certainly focused on that. So that's what the Cubic

side of the business or the plant side of the business. Yeah. The other technology

that we have is a company called Hydrogreen. And we actually are able to

grow commercial-scale amounts of live green animal

feed. So in other words, we can recreate grazing lands indoors.

So it's not that the animals run around and graze indoors, it's that one of

our HydroGreen machines is 80 feet long, 20 feet high,

10 feet wide, and it's 8 layers high. It will

produce the amount of live green feed, the equivalent to

200 acres of grazing land. Wow. So using a

fraction of the fresh water, And consistently.

You can have all the grazing lands in the world, but if they're covered in

frost and snow, they're not overly helpful. Or if you don't have the fresh water

available to irrigate, not very helpful. So our

HydroGreen technology literally lets livestock farmers

feed dairy, beef, camel, sheep,

goat, racehorses, whatever. You're able to feed them

with live green feed every day consistently. Now, your animal's going to

perform better. You can have more animals per acre.

Their manure is far less nutrient-dense, so much better for the environment.

The animal lives longer, they have more babies, you'll get more milk, better quality

meat. You know, you'll finish animals faster, they'll perform better.

So you're treating the animal well, you're looking after the environment well.

Yeah, it's just so needed in this world. Have you noticed, or

was anything surprising for you in terms of the different industries that we're

starting to see applications for your technology? So you do mention botanicals,

nutraceuticals, and that in previous conversations, it's something that struck a

chord for me. It's just, it was sort of like an aha moment, like, wow,

I didn't realize this could be used for this application.

Yeah, probably the strangest one that I'm just thrilled about is

that there's a group called Agrigene in California and they do biologicals.

So biologicals is growing good bugs to eat bad bugs,

maybe in a greenhouse, or you can do, you know, bugs for alternative

proteins and things, right? It's in a real emerging market. They actually bought one of

our systems to grow the larvae and

bugs in. So, we advertise, don't need pesticides because there's

no bugs in our machines, yet someone bought a system to

put bugs in. So, because the machine is so flexible, we have

several watering solutions, several different tray designs,

the same machine. It's like we've built the iPhone and the

farmers are coming up with the apps. Because there's so many different crops

that you can grow in these systems, yet very

flexible, food-grade, automated system.

So we're the indoor tractor of farming, and

farmers are going to figure out lots of things to use that tractor for,

right? Yeah. One of my earlier conversations was with Virginia

Emery, and she's the founder of Beta Hatch, and they actually grow

insects indoors as well. So it's been fascinating to see all the applications.

And all the— it's interesting to know that

your technologies can be adapted to these different use

cases, which is fascinating. Yeah, our machines are patented,

and it's the undulating path that is a very powerful part of our

patent. It lets us have only one row of light at the top,

yet hundreds of trays of plants, or in this one

case, bugs growing. And yet you can use every

cubic foot of space. You don't need hallways for people because the The machine brings

every tray to the front for harvesting and planting. So

you're reducing your labor, reducing your energy. So then it's just, okay, well,

what else can we grow? And so we've developed a few watering

systems, a few tray designs, and it's just a very

flexible, powerful piece of kit. You've

also recently won an award from the

dairy farmers, a Nexus Innovation Award, I believe it was? That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, we're very proud of that. 300

different companies considered, and so winning that, you

know, it's being— that's for our HydroGreen technology, so the live green animal

feed. Livestock farmers know that that is— it's

just such a crucial change in how

they're feeding animals to be able to, you know,

reduce the amount of land required, reduce the water, and

yet feed the animal better than they've ever been fed before. It's a

combination of all these things. And then the animal rewards you by performing

better than they've ever performed. I mean, livestock

farming is responsible for a significant amount of greenhouse

gas emissions. So just that, forget about all those other benefits. If you

just talked about the greenhouse gas issue, HydroGreen

significantly reduces greenhouse gases by both

Reducing the amount of gases from the fermenting

ruminant, so the animal waste, because they're able to absorb the

nutrients so much more readily and then they're not then passed through

their waste. And then because you're able to feed in

a much more sustainable way, the growing of the feed is much

more environmentally friendly. So you add these things together and there's a

significant environmental impact, but then there's also all these other benefits

to the farm. the animal, the consumer. As you think about

how fast the industry is growing, and even just from the time I've been

hosting the show, it's been so interesting just to— if you just watch the news,

there's lots of funding coming in, lots of money entering the space.

What has you excited about where the industry is headed? And

also, can you talk a little bit about any relationship you have with other

colleagues in the space as well? Because the industry as a whole hasn't been able

to get together for almost a year and a half now. Yeah. So one of

our shareholders is Osprey Ag Sciences and they

invest in other, you know, similar sort of farming agtech businesses.

So they've been great at bringing together, you know, their

portfolio companies, which we're now one, and just

introducing CEO to CEO. So we share ideas, industry

insights, things like that. So for example, we have a great relationship with

Freight Farms. So Freight Farms— Yeah. does the localized container farm.

And, we get along great because we aren't competing, we are

serving very different markets, yet we can share

stories and referrals and things like that. Agrigene is another

example of that. There's another one called LOVE,

Local Urban Vegetables, that are building some

really cool substrates. And so, yeah, there are

opportunities to still fellowship and share

ideas and things like that. And in some ways, it's almost been

easier because it's actually fairly easy and

efficient to do 90 minutes on Zoom.

You can bash through a lot of stuff and you don't have to get on

an airplane and stay overnight. So if you want to

stay in touch, you're in touch. And same with reaching

out to different investors and And it's actually

easier. So I'm hoping when the pandemic sort of

ends that a lot of this doesn't change. We

still need to meet people and share a meal. Yeah. But

there's a lot that's good about this. I mean, as tragic as it's

been, optimistic people will find the positives. And

one of them is less needless business

travel and more efficient ways of building relationships. That's

interesting. Yeah. And I think people who were questioning

whether this was possible and even things like remote work,

they were forced into the experiment whether they were ready or not. And I think

surprisingly found that things not only survived,

but in some cases thrived when there weren't distractions

that you would find in person or the need to commute and all that sort

of stuff. So I think each company's handled and responded to it differently, but I

think A lot of them were surprised at what is possible and speaking probably a

little bit to what you were talking about as well. Yeah, I hope a lot

of it sticks. I find meetings on Teams or Zoom,

man, they're efficient. You can quickly share your screen and show what

you're— the room doesn't get stuffy because you've got 30 people in it.

Someone can please open a door. There's lots to like. And I think

we all like not commuting as much. Yeah, there's lots to

like. I think, though, that we do need to make sure that we learn how

to turn it off. Yeah, that's important. It's 5 o'clock,

okay, I'm done today. And, you know, yeah, that thing's going off. So

otherwise you just won't stop. So there's a bit of that. Yeah, there's things like

repetitive stress injuries or work injuries, and

ergonomics are now topics that are coming to mind for people and employees as

well, because I imagine people would have a tendency to probably

perform longer just to demonstrate that they, they are being active and

And I think each company— is there anything you're doing

differently because of what's happened and the changing environment

in terms of how your organization is running? Well, we've

had to get really good at remote instruction. So,

it's forced us to build a video and a training video for

every nut and bolt. And you've got to have those

tools. But the positive about that is now it's,

we see global expansion being much easier and faster

because it's forced us to build these tools that can then

be quickly translated and reused. So for

scaling, it's forced us to build some things where we

otherwise might've put someone on a plane and they, you know, so

that's been positive. I think our ability to reach and just get

great talent and almost be agnostic as to where they are, that's nice. Yeah.

So what do you think, for you, as you think about where the

industry is now and if it's any different than when you started in 2015,

what do you see as challenges or opportunities for CubicFarms

going forward? I think the world is ready for it. I think in 2015 when

we started, it was early, but I think fast forward, you know,

5 and a half years, the world is ready and not only ready but

anxious. And it's gone from a, boy, you know, someone should probably do this,

to You know, this needs to be done. We need to localize

food production. So localizing

food production within countries' borders,

reducing the distance between where it's grown and where it's eaten,

has gone from a nice-to-have to a must-have for so many reasons.

So I think, you know, timing is certainly positive. And that's not only

from, you know, our perspective customers, but our customers' customers. Right. So,

you know, the end, you know, the groups that want to pull this produce

through or this live green feed through, yeah, it's just the timing's

now. What's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently?

Well, probably turning down certain opportunities

that present itself. As you can imagine, my phone rings every day with, you know,

can we expand to this country or can we, you know, acquire this company?

So there's a lot that I have to say no to on a very, very

regular basis. A colleague of mine once said, if you're not kept up at night

by what you're not doing, you're not focused enough. And I would say

that that has been of late the—

I've obviously run another large business and the

discipline to stay focused and not get distracted and stay

on task, on mission, on point, it

can be challenging. It doesn't matter who you are. New and shiny is always exciting.

And so I would say keeping that focus and

executing has been, as the industry

accelerates and more and more opportunities present themselves,

you're saying no to more and more things

that deep down you're like, oh, I wish I could, you know, let's just start

another division and do that. And let's, you know. I'm curious because

I'm a fan of productivity and I even took a course called Building a Second

Brain to learn how to process and like, you know, all these articles that

come in, there's no shortage of information and You know, whatever

statistics you look at, we've got more, I think it was something

like, I'm probably butchering it, but we've received more information in the past like 10

years than in the past 100 combined or something like that, some crazy

stats. So what do you do as a leader? 'Cause we, you know, there's

a lot of CEOs listening to the podcast as well and other founders. So

what's worked for you? Any tips on how you actually

manage that workflow and how you do, what's that decision process for you look like

as you think about, is this something we wanna work on, is it not? And

so, Is there some sort of practice that you think through in your mind or

that you work through to make those decisions? Sure. There's no

other answer to that other than you got to have a great team. There's

no way I could even begin to

make, you know, should we do this or should we not do this decision on

my own? No chance. So that's why I need

spectacular engineers, growers, technology

people, finance, business development,

just, you know, every department that, you know, every division of our

business needs a great, great leader in that.

And they need to be 1,000 times better than I am at what they do.

And so then having that team, and I trust them,

and they're going to tell me, you know, you should look at this,

or I'll ask them. So if something comes across my desk and I think it's

kind of cool, I'll send it over to one of my colleagues

and, you know, what's your thought on this? Or I'll send it to a couple

of them and I'll ask for just that candid feedback. But you've got to have

great people that are better at what they do than you are.

And you've got to have that great trusting relationship and know

that you're not going to have a blind spot. So, you know, there's that saying,

nobody's perfect, but a team can be. And I just so

subscribe to that. You've got to be self-aware. You got to know what you're good

at. More important, you got to know what you suck at. And most of

us are good at one or two things. And you've got to have great

people that you trust doing all that stuff that you don't do well. Who do

you look to for inspiration either now or in the past and

has helped you to shape the way you think about these types of

things? There's certainly no shortage of great business

books and leaders that— so like The Good to Great and

all of that. And so I'm a big subscriber to several of those things, but

I have a handful of mentors in my life that will be candid

and honest and who I respect.

And so surrounding yourself with great, smart people has just been crucial.

I've got a fantastic chairman of the board who just adds value to my life

every single day. And so as a CEO, having a supportive

board where you know they have your back, that'll give you honest,

candid feedback, but at the end of the day, they support you.

That is so empowering and refreshing. And so having

that candor and that trust, just so crucial. Yeah, like

your brain trust sounds like what you're describing there. It's really important to have

that by your side at all times. Crucial. What do you do to

disconnect? Because as you just stated, it's very

easy to be on all the time. But, you know, for our

own sanity and for your own mental health and well-being, I imagine

you need to have some strict rules about

how to disconnect and when and what's been helpful for you

there. Yeah. So, 2 things for myself personally.

So, one, I'm actually a professional musician as well. So,

I'm in a band called Kick Drive and we

record albums. We've got a few on Spotify and Apple Music. So,

there's a shameless plug for Kick Drive. I'll make sure to include those in the

show notes. So I'm lead guitar player, love playing

music, got lots of musician friends. And so getting together and playing music

is just a hoot. And then as a family, we're avid boaters. So

we spend a fair bit of time on the water. And I've found that to

be almost life-saving that no matter how stressful of a week,

if you can untie the lines and float for a few hours, all of a

sudden you're a million miles away. way. And so I encourage, you

know, a lot of— you've got to have that outlet. So whether it's golf or

motorcycle, or I do a bit of that as well, not the golf,

motorcycle bit, but you know, you've just got to have an outlet.

You have to, and ideally with your family. So something that you can all

share and make memories together and where they know

they've got your undivided attention

and you've got theirs as well. So that's been crucial. So yeah.

What's something you've changed your mind about recently? I think I used

to be more jaded about the public markets because this is the

first company where I've been CEO and we've been public. And so I'm

actually very excited about the fact that we are

publicly traded because we've been getting some just great,

great shareholders that are so supportive and

that are excited about the next decade in this industry. Yeah.

So yeah, I don't know that that's an overly, you know, great answer to your

question. You know, the beauty of it is that, uh, I've received a

wide range of answers to it when I've asked it. So there's no wrong answer

there. So thank you for sharing that. So just as we wrap up, like, as

you think about where you've been, where you're at, and where you're

headed, what has you excited about, you know, the, the next

couple years? Uh, right industry, right time in history. And

I've seen this movie before. In my last business, BackCheck,

it was an HR technology company. We did— and we focused on background screening.

Started in 1997 in Canada. Yeah.

Nobody wanted to do background checks before they hired people in 1997.

And then September 11th happened. And we were in the right business, right time in

history, right country. And the business

just exploded. And I would say that the pandemic

has been that for this industry. Mm-hmm. And so

I've felt this, I've seen this before when you have this

catalyst, this sea change, this tipping point,

because we all knew deep down

that localized growing needed to start happening, that

sustainable growing had to start happening, that yes, we need

things at a good price, everything needs to be affordable, but also where is it

from and how's it grown? We got to finish that sentence. So it has to

be affordable and accessible, but it also has to be sustainable. So if you

can finally bring all that together, and that's where the technology is now.

And so it's gone from a nice-to-have to a

must-have, and then the pandemic has made it, okay, it is crucial

because borders can shut, ships can go sideways in the Suez

Canal, and suddenly, you know, so everybody's realized

that the global supply chain for food is

far more fragile than we've all sort of hoped it was.

So right business, right time in history. And I get to have a front row

seat at being a small part of it. Yeah.

And it's interesting that you have the perspective having gone through a similar experience

before with your previous company. So knowing what the signs are, what to look for,

and when you see them happening, knowing that sensation like, oh,

going through this again, it's happening again. So it's nice perspective. So thank you for

sharing that. So I really appreciate you just sharing your

story. And that's really what this show is about, getting to know a little bit

more about the founders and the CEOs of these companies that are doing some really

exciting things in the controlled environment agriculture space, vertical

farming space. And I appreciate you coming on and sharing your story, Dave. A

pleasure, Hari. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I hope we speak again. Yes, definitely,

when conferences are back online. Awesome.

Thanks to Dave for coming on the show, spending his time, precious time with us,

and sharing his story. As always, full show notes available at

verticalfarmingpodcast.com. For those of you that are not aware, we do a

summary, timestamps, links mentioned, and a couple of quotes from the

episode. And we're also starting to put together transcriptions for each episode, as well

as formatted PDFs if that's easier for you to consume. consume. So

please check those out at the website. Thanks again to our title sponsor,

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next episode for my conversation with Charlie Guy, co-founder of Lettuce

Grow. Until we meet again, here's to your health. Thanks

for listening. To read the full show notes for this episode, which

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