Episode Summary

Join Harry Duran, host of Vertical Farming Podcast, as he welcomes to the show Michael Sichenzia. Michael is the Managing Director at Go Global Advisors and today, he shares his passion for bringing food to communities and what led him to pursue work in the vertical farming industry.

Specifically, Michael speaks to the intricacies of developing container farms, everything from getting zoning approval from the local or city government to what he looks for when building a team. Michael is highly mission-focused and wants to leave a legacy of making the world a better place, or at the very least trying to. Michael touches on his involvement in the From Mary With Love project, his relationship with Freight Farms and his belief that education about the vertical farming industry comes through empowerment. 

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Key Takeaways

03:41 – Harry welcomes to the show Michael Sichenzia who talks about his background in real estate and how he made the connection between public storage facilities and modular hydroponic space  

08:46 – What Michael looks for when developing farms and when building a team 

12:01 – From Mary With Love 

15:09 – A budding relationship with Freight Farms 

16:38 – Zoning and effectively communicating with your local government and community 

19:39 – Empowerment through education 

26:34 – Michael speaks to an exciting new project he’s working on in Buffalo 

31:16 – Identifying the ideal investor 

34:36 – Why Michael is so passionate about bringing food to the community 

37:44 – Speculating on the future of vertical farming and why Marketing and PR are key 

44:52 – Harry thanks Michael for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can connect with Michael 

Tweetable Quotes

“Having owned and operated restaurants in my past, I saw that that was an area that I wanted to get back to. And I saw that my real estate experience would play into that because I knew how to put together deal structures. And I felt that farming, and urban farming in particular, had a tremendous opportunity with the right deal structure. And that’s how I got into it.” (05:51) (Michael) 

“I looked at the hydroponics space and saw it’s really a play on storage. Public storage facilities and the way those deals are structured are ideally suited for modular, containerized, hydroponic space in an urban setting. And that was the connection for me.” (07:32) (Michael) 

“Passion, sticktoitiveness, the idea that we’re gonna make this work no matter what the obstacle is, that’s very important in any entrepreneurial venture.” (13:32) (Michael) 

“Attacking that and making sure that the city has a variance process, whatever that process is, get it started sooner rather than later. That issue will affect everything. The last thing that you want to do is take delivery of your farm and deploy it and not be able to grow. To me, you need to understand the zoning, communicate with the city, and really work that process effectively.” (17:45) (Michael) 

“I’m a big believer in good PR and I’m a believer that you make things happen with good PR and good communications.” (22:28) (Michael) 

“We have to remember that social enterprise is still an enterprise. The key word there is ‘enterprise.’ We tend to forget that. These [containers] need to be self-sustaining otherwise they will fail.” (33:37) (Michael) 

“I’m not in this for the deal. I’m in this because I want to bring food to the community. And I think that there’s probably never been a better time to marry good deal structure with delivery and production of food. We need it now more than ever. It really is the time to own our own food again. I really believe that.” (34:36) (Michael) 

“I’ve always tried to be a year ahead of The New York Times. My whole career has been focused on if I can be a year ahead of The New York Times, I’m gonna be doing something.” (40:51) (Michael) 

“You have to self-promote. If you’re not gonna promote yourself, who is? So, you gotta get out there. You gotta talk about your things. You gotta fail. I fail all the time. There’s that saying, ‘If you want to succeed then double your failure rate.’ Well, I’ve probably quadrupled my failure rate, but that’s part of the process.” (44:20) (Michael) 

Resources Mentioned

Michael’s LinkedIn 

From Mary With Love

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Mentioned in this episode:

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and deploy it and not be able to grow. I mean, get a stop

work order or have somebody come in and say, you can't occupy this space anymore.

So to me, understanding the zoning, communicating with

the city what you're trying to do. For instance, in the project in Oak Forest,

we hired an architect to conceptualize what this would look like,

draw it. We wrote a really good narrative to this, and we expressed

that to the community development agency so that they would be our

liaison to the different city commissions and boards. And

really work that process effectively, do a really good job of

communicating the benefits of this program to your

municipal leaders.

Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations with

fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech visionaries.

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

farming with your host, Harry Duran.

Vertical Farming Podcast. Season 4, welcome back. We are

wrapping up this season, so I'm so excited to have you all here. If this

is your first time listening, well, welcome. You're in the right place if you're

looking for a show where we interview fascinating CEOs and

founders of the leading vertical farming companies from around the world

and those doing super interesting things in this space.

It just keeps getting more and more fun to have these conversations. I'm your host,

Harry Duran. I've been podcasting since 2014. I hosted another

show called Podcast Junkies, which is where this whole journey got

started, so you might want to check that out. In case you missed last week's

episode, I had a great conversation, long overdue, with Christina Zimmerman.

She's the chairwoman at the Association for Vertical Farming. It's an internationally

active nonprofit that focuses on leading and advancing

sustainable growth and development of the vertical farming movement, doing such great

things there. had Christine on my list of

potential guests for a long time, and I'm so happy that we were able to

make it happen. We had a really good conversation. Make sure you check that out.

This week I speak to Michael Skenzia. He's the founder of Fat

Village Enterprises, and in this episode, this fellow New

York from Brooklyn native shares his passion for bringing food

to communities and what led him to pursue work in the vertical farming industry.

Michael speaks to the intricacies of developing container farms specifically

Everything from getting zoning approval from the local or city government to what it

looks like when he's building a team. What are the characteristics

he's looking for? He's highly mission-focused and wants to leave a

legacy of making the world a better place. And he talks about his involvement with

his first project, From Mary with Love, his relationship with the Freight

Farms team, and what he and the team are cooking up for

their new project in Buffalo, New York. Michael has a belief that education

about the industry comes through empowerment, and it's a belief that I share as well.

Really engaging high vibe conversation with a fellow

New Yorker. It's fun to have those chats, and I can't think of a better

way to wrap up season 4. I'm so excited to be attending

Indoor AgCon this year. They are the premier trade show and conference for

vertical farming. It's going to be in Caesars Forum Las Vegas,

and it's going to be the 28th of February through March 1st, and I

plan on being there for both days. They're co-locating with the National

Growers Association And you can expect an expo floor filled with new product

resources and business solutions. Attend educational sessions led

by top CEOs and thought leaders and connect with peers,

grocers, and other potential new business partners at great networking events. Looking

forward to meeting past guests there and making some new friends

as well. There's still time. You can register at

indoor.ag and use promo code

VFPOD22 for 25%

off your registration. Don't forget to check out and give us

honest feedback on our latest offering,

verticalfarmingjobs.com. I'd love some feedback from

any of the listeners as well. My emails are open,

[email protected]. But please check that out,

verticalfarmingjobs.com. And if you haven't signed up yet, head on over to

our Twitter account, Vertical Farm Pod. You'll see a link there for the newsletter, Vertical

Farming Weekly, which we've picked up again Thanks to Noah,

who's just joined our team and has been helping out with that as well. So

it's a nice way to get a recap of the headlines from this week's

activities in the space, an update on the latest

episode, and any other new news we're looking forward to sharing.

Happy to report that we've got a new review coming in from Canada. It's from

Savage419, and Trevor

writes, I have over the past 2 weeks binged every single episode.

Whew! Let me just tell you, listener, as

a podcaster for almost 8 years now, I

never take for granted these reviews. I never take for granted

you as a listener coming in week in, week out. And to hear that

someone took the time to binge episodes— I've done it myself.

I've listened to episodes or I've listened to podcasts where I'm like, wow, this content

is so great, I want to learn so much. I go back and I binge

the entire catalog. And it gets harder and harder to do with all these

podcasts that I love. But one of my secrets is to listen at a higher

speed. I can listen to shows at

2x, which takes some getting used to. But

one of the examples I like to use is that if you were driving on

the Autobahn and you were going, you know, 120 or

130 miles an hour, the only thing you can do is focus on the road

at that point. And that's some of the effect that happens when I'm listening at

2x. I can't do much else, but if I'm like Doing something

like washing the dishes or going

for a walk with my dog or my partner, then— oh, not with my partner,

sorry— something where I'm not having to engage in

another conversation. So the passive activities usually help.

I find I can listen at that higher speed. So a little bit of

podcasting tips that I've picked up over the years. So

back to Trevor's post, I have over the past 2 weeks binged

every single episode This is something I've been considering for some time but found it

hard to find info. Thank you for all the great information and

contacts. Keep up the great work, Trevor. Again, thanks

so much, Trevor. I really appreciate it. If you would like your review read

out on the air, as I do every single week when they come in,

head on over to ratethispodcast.com/vfp.

Nothing brightens my day more than reading these out. Okay. Let's get chatting

with Michael, shall we? So Michael Sikenzia,

founder and CEO of Fat Village Enterprises, thank you for joining me on the Vertical

Farming Podcast. Thanks for having me, Harry. Where's home for

you now as we, as we connect today? Home now is

Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Okay, and were you born and raised there,

moved there, relocated? No, I'm a country boy from Brooklyn, New

York. Okay, what part of Brooklyn? Originally from the

Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Okay. I grew up in Yonkers. So,

and I've— okay. So you're— yeah, very familiar with New York. I've lived in, uh,

East Village, Williamsburg, and Upper East Side. So

very familiar with, uh, the city. All good neighborhoods,

but they're completely different from when I was growing up. Yeah. What are some

fond memories of growing up in Red Hook? My dad was a lifeguard and a

competitive swimmer in the Red Hook pools. And, uh, My

fondest memories are playing softball in

Coffey Park off of Van Brunt Street in that area. And I still have

family that live in the Hook, and I visit them occasionally when I'm in

New York. Actually, I visited them last— I was there for the blizzard. Unfortunately,

I didn't plan that to happen. But I go back

to New York as often as I can. Obviously, I still have family there. But

yeah, I try to get back. I don't want to lose my tan. So I

get back as fast as I can. The whole point is to go— is to—

you— I'm assuming you're in Florida to escape the winter. And so you actually managed

to make it back for the winter there. So— I came to Florida 17

years ago for a work opportunity and, uh, I

loved it. And I— there's no getting me back, although I travel to the snow

often. My projects take me to places generally where it's cold. So

I try to go there the least amount of time as possible. And when you—

can you talk a little bit for folks that may not be familiar with the

projects that you're working on, a little bit of your background and we'll

know need to do the long version, but we'll get caught up and as it

relates to what we're talking about on this show. So I'm generally a person who

had no experience in farming whatsoever 5 years ago, primarily

a real estate background. And the pandemic— about 4

years ago, I discovered that the food space was a space that needed

a different approach. So having owned and operated

restaurants in my past, I saw that that was an area that I wanted to

get back to. And I saw that my real estate experience would play into

that because I could— I knew how to put together deal structure.

And I felt that farming and urban farming in particular had a

tremendous opportunity with the right deal structure. And that's how I got into it.

And I met a group of fellows who started Freight Farms out in

Boston. And I visited there. And once I visited that and

walked through a shipping container set up to do a

farm, It was the ultimate science project for me and it had me

hooked. And at that point I said, this is the space I want to be

in. This is the future of farming. Mm-hmm. And that's been my primary

focus since then. So the projects that I do are primarily

based on really the hyper-localization of food

and procurement, production, delivery, and on a

hyper-local level, because I think that localization is the key

to taking back our food system. What was it about the space

that attracted you to it? And you mentioned you did have the real estate

background, but was it something that you were looking into studying

or just what you were seeing was happening around you at the time? Land is

the biggest issue for food. And there's

a lot of underutilized space in inner cities.

And I saw inner city warehousing and industrial

space as an opportunity if we could get into the right technology

and we could get to commercialized production and commercialized

yield, then that space would be ideally suited. And I

also saw it from a capital perspective because the capital perspective is the

key. You can do good work if you have a checkbook with money in it.

And I looked at the hydroponic space and said, it's really a

play on storage, public storage facilities

and the way those deals are structured, are ideally suited

for modular containerized hydroponic

space in an urban setting. And that's how I— that was the connection for me.

Did you start to connect with folks that were in the space or anyone

in the industry at the time, or how were you educating yourself? I met a

fellow up in Canada who had a company called Locally Grown

Salads. And we started talking.

I couldn't make a deal with him because his technology was just too expensive for

me. But he had this modularized concept of

hydroponics in grow units, much like Freight Farms had.

Only his concept was to put them in, you know, 10 to 20 of them

in a building, build a clean package room in the facility, and

then go out and do this. What happened is back in

2017 or '18, I'm not exactly sure the exact year,

but when the Trump administration changed the tax code and brought in

this whole concept of opportunity zones, for tax deferment.

That changed the space dramatically. And I saw that as a way

of attracting dollars into the space. And to me, that was

critical to making this work. Given your background in real estate,

how do you think about the viability? Do you think

about what are the conditions you're looking for in a project when you decide to

take something on like this? You know, being new in the space, do you look

at things like long-term viability, profitability, you know, Implementation,

you know, things about, you know, thoughts about building the team. Because I'm not a

farmer, quote unquote, right? The first thing I'm looking

for, my whole concept is there are many

really well-run not-for-profits who have funding sources,

who have boots on the ground, infrastructure in the community.

And what they really lack is programming. So I look at hydroponic

farming as a programming component. And I search for

inner-city nonprofits who need programming, who

don't have the ability to go out there and put all the necessary

components together, don't have the expertise to put the deal

structure together. And then I go out there and I try to team up with

them. So the first thing I'm looking for is a nonprofit that has boots on

the ground in a particular area. The second thing that I look for

is, is it based in a designated opportunity zone? Because that's how I

know we're going to get the money that we need. And then I start to

look at the enterprise aspect of it. Is there a need? What's

the demographic? Are we going to be able to get this out to, you know,

X number of people and derive a return on that investment over a 5-year

period of time? Because that's usually the criteria for an opportunity zone

investment. So when we put all of those things together, there are tremendous

opportunities. It's a wide open field. When you look at

a not-for-profit team, I'm curious what specifically you're looking for in the

team. Is it the makeup, their experience, Their success with previous

projects? What's the criteria? Just dive in specifically in that

aspect of it that you look for. I look primarily to operations

that are small in nature because they tend to be less centralized.

And I think centralization is the enemy of actually of all of the things that

we're trying to do. I want a group of people that are more hands-on,

small team that is really looking to get into a project

and really make this their signature. project. And food

today, because of the pandemic, has become, you know, a very

important aspect of these discussions. And there

isn't a community that I talked to that doesn't want a food-growing

component to what they're trying to do. And that's what's going on here.

So to me, I'm looking for a small team,

a team that's— the decision-making process is more

streamlined. and a team that needs what I offer. And what I'm

essentially offering is, and I hate to use this, no pun intended,

but a project in a box, a farm in a box, where

we can deliver it, deploy it quickly, and get the crop growing.

That's really what this is all about. How much of it is related to,

for lack of a better term, personality of the founders or the founding

team? Are there certain traits or characteristics when you start these

initial discussions with some of these founders that you're looking for? You know,

the BIPOC community has been particularly affected by food sovereignty

issues and food injustice issues. And I'm looking for

people who have a personal experience and have a long-term background in

the neighborhood. So the reason I picked— the Wilson brothers are a perfect example who

run the From Mary with Love organization in Chicago. Their

brother was a, one of the top-rated basketball players in the country

back in the '80s, a fellow by the name of Ben Wilson, Benji Wilson. This

is— he was the Michael Jordan before there was a Michael Jordan, believe it or

not. And he was tragically killed. He was tragically killed in

a— from a gun incident. And when I started to talk to the Wilson brothers,

I got a feeling that they really cared because their mother had instilled

upon them— Mary Wilson, the late Mary Wilson. She became a community

activist. She was very much involved in the community after the death of her son.

And that was her legacy. And they wanted to continue that legacy. And

the legacy revolved around food. Mary came

from Mississippi. Her family, you know, picked cotton and food, and the

Wilson brothers related to that. Tony Wilson, the director,

had a background of urban farming and starting some urban farms in

Chicago, and it was a natural fit. There was a passion there,

and that shared passion was— enabled us to really pull off the, the

first phase of the project. As you know, These things are not a straight line.

There were ups and downs. You think you have enough money, then the money is

not there. I can't tell you the number of false starts that we had with

that project over the last year and a half. And finally, to be able to

get our box delivered was a big, big moment. And I have to say,

we would never have pulled that off if it wasn't for a benefactor that came

to, you know, that made that happen, a company called Synergistic Solutions. They put up

all of the money and they made it happen for us. So.

Passion, stick-to-itiveness. We're going to make this work no matter

what the obstacle is. That's very important in any entrepreneurial

venture. Yeah, that's one of the projects that we first connected on, the From Mary

with Love project. And so I'm wondering, now looking

back, because that project, since it's been started and the work that you guys, your

team has put in, it's completed. Have you moved on from that? Are you still

working with them? It's— our role is finished. Our role was

to Our role was essentially to put the deal structure together.

In that particular location, we had to help rewrite the zoning code. And that's another

issue that's a big issue when you're talking about these things, because the zoning doesn't

allow for these permanent shipping containers to be deployed. We had to help

draft— they rewrote the code, which is now working its way through that

municipality's ordinance process. But our goal was to get the

box delivered, get the infrastructure necessary so that they could plant

the crop, train their boots-on-the-ground project manager,

and then liaison between them and Freight Farms to get to where we are. So

today they are in the process of planting their first crop. Looking back at

that project, Michael, if you were to think about tackling

something of that same size with that same type of team

in that same— with the same type of zoning challenges, is there anything you would

do differently? Absolutely. I would go public much

sooner. get more community support much sooner in the

process and line up the distribution of the end product much

sooner in the process because you have to be able to sell this stuff as

soon as it's ready to be harvested. So not having those things in

place made it much more difficult to put the money in place to get the

deal done. So it was a huge learning curve there. At what point did

you start working with the team at Freight Farms? And I know they've

got some, you know, they provide a lot of help with their projects as well.

So what type of relationship are you building with them? Let me just say, the

relationship with Freight Farms has been a blessing. They've been extremely

helpful to me. Many times they should have pulled the plug and said, sorry, we're

going to sell the box to somebody else. They didn't. They hung in with them

in there with us. And they're still helping out in terms of technical

expertise and whatnot. But I met Freight Farms about 3 years

ago. And I originally signed the contract to buy these

boxes with It's a 2-box deal, but we only took delivery of one. We just

couldn't come up with enough money to do both of them. About 13 months ago,

14 months ago. And so we— it was a long process

and it took quite a bit of time. We lost our first location. We had

to go find another location. Just the typical startup

problems that one encounters. But they've been extremely

helpful. They helped us in the process of the business plan all the way

from beginning to where we sit today. Absolutely a pleasure to work

with. It's interesting you talked about the zoning issues because I think a lot of

first-time farmers, first-time container farmers, they may not

think about those things because they think, well, if I have access to

land or if I have someplace I can put the box on, then that's all

I need and then I can figure out— there's a lot of moving parts, you

know, planting the crop, harvesting it, and then the marketing and distributing it,

which I think a lot of first-time founders may not be thinking of. But the

zoning issues is interesting. I'm wondering how you think about

those issues going forward and any advice for folks that are looking to

work in this space specifically with container farms. Granted, the bigger

box factories, they've got a whole team that

handles all that zoning for them. But I think for the one-off

folks, it'd be helpful to think about those things or maybe think about questions they

should be asking themselves when it comes to zoning. Absolutely. Because it

can be a very expensive proposition. if you don't have a person on your team

that is used to doing zoning work. I happen to

have that experience simply because of my real estate background. And I've, you know, I've

been in front of city councils and planning boards and zoning commissions, and that's

part of what I do. But it's an extremely important aspect.

The benefit of a freight farm or a containerized farming scenario,

modularized if you would, is that it's low-cost, quick

deployment. But the thing that will stop deployment is if the zoning

doesn't line up with where you're putting this farm. So if the site doesn't have

an urban farming that, you know, in the zoning code, your box is

only good for 30 days, and then the city's going to come and tell you

to move that box. So what do you do then? Right? Yeah. So attacking

that and making sure that the city has— that there's a variance

process, whatever that process is, get it started soon,

sooner rather than later, and deal with that issue because that issue will

affect everything. The last thing you want to do is take delivery of your farm

and deploy it and not be able to grow. I mean, get a stop

work order or have somebody come in and say, you can't occupy this space

anymore. So to me, understanding the zoning,

communicating with the city what you're trying to do. For instance, in the project

in Oak Forest, we hired an architect to conceptualize what this would

look like, draw it. We wrote a really good narrative to this, and we

expressed that to the community development agency so that they would be our

liaison. to the different city commissions and boards and

really work that process effectively. Do a really good job of

communicating the benefits of this program to your

municipal leaders. And then once they see those benefits,

they jump on board. There isn't a community that doesn't want this,

right? They all want this. And if you're a young person or

a new entrepreneur in this space, you're going to get help,

but you got to know how to ask for it. got to know what to

do. You have to follow the rule. You can't just go in there and say,

you know, we're just going to put it there and they're going to— it's not

if we build it, they'll love it. It doesn't usually work that way, right?

What's helpful guidance for first-time founders as they think

through the community aspect of it? Because you did mention earlier this idea of community

support, getting the buy-in from the community, probably some education, because

if they've never had access to this sort of fresh, you

know, produce locally, you know, they're I

grew up in, like I mentioned earlier, in Yonkers. I've lived in New York City.

So this idea of food deserts is something that's an idea that

I'm very familiar with. And just people who associate

or may not even have access to anything fresh growing up, they just have the

bodega on the corner. So I'm

curious how you think about the challenges of

educating community on the benefits of something, of a project like this. I

approach it from an empowerment perspective. I say, you know, you—

many community leaders talk the talk Sunday morning,

Monday morning, and then there's no further talk the rest of the week.

So it's an empowerment play, and especially in inner city.

There are 3 major components to inner city poverty: lack of affordable

housing, lack of job opportunity, and then health,

lack of quality health. Well, you can't have any of those things if you don't

start with a good diet. So if you take a generation of people and continue

to shove poor food product into them, you're going to

get— the next reaction to that is lifelong disease, more

ailment, more sickness, more of everything. It compounds everything.

So we look at it from the perspective of empowerment. So when I talk to

community leaders, I say, if you want to attack these problems, you have to

start with a holistic mentality. And then you have to attack it at its

core. You start with these 4 components, right, that I just mentioned.

And food is one of them. So food is easy. Food is easy. You know,

you get a person, get a young person in

their 18, 19 years old and get them to grow, you know, a tomato,

or get them to grow some lettuce, they're hooked. And the beautiful thing

about hydroponics is really is the ultimate science project. You know, when

you can do that, and it— and you see this thing growing and the Harry,

the first time I walked into a box with the lights, you know, and I

was— it was like, this is it for me. I was hooked. Yeah. So

I try to show— and again, it's been very helpful

because we have some great video that comes out of Freight Farms. We've been able,

you know, there's good marketing material. They have a track record of working with

nonprofits and others in the community. So we take all that,

package it together, and when we make the presentation, there isn't a person in the

room that isn't shaking their head saying, how do we get a You become a

part of that. Yeah, so interesting, especially folks that have grown up in

the city and, you know, their only interactions have— and

thinking about farms has been the typical traditional, you know, head out

upstate, you know, New York, or head out to, you know, somewhere outside

of the city. And it's their first experience with

dirt, with cows, with chickens. And it's a bit of a shock.

And I think we're so disconnected from understanding where our food

comes from. And to your point, that experience that you had

is something that is— what's exciting for me is that that's a feeling that can

be replicated. And I'm wondering, as, you know, the From Mary

with Love project came online, if you started to see some of

that from the community members, you know, as people were

connecting with the project, and people that may not have had this

type of experience before, if you got to see some of that. So the morning

the box was delivered to the site You know, I'm a big believer in good

PR, and I'm a believer that you make things happen with good public relations and

good communications. So, you know, we had the video crew out there, and we had

the crane come in because we had to do a crane placement of the box.

And, uh, it was a showstopper. Everyone wanted to be

out there. Everybody wanted to take a picture. We bought a used, uh, unit from

Freight Farms, and it happened to have a logo on the side that said, this

is a farm, and had a picture of that bucolic farm scene

that you're describing. And people were just amazed. Everybody wanted to

go in the box. At this— we delivered the box in early

October. And for Thanksgiving, we did a turkey fun— a

turkey giveaway. And we brought in a lot of the local food banks to

basically introduce ourselves to what was going to go on there and the whole food

concept. People just wanted to walk inside that thing.

And that's the buy-in that you want. Because you'll get city

governments to do pretty much anything you want them to do if there's buy-in from

the community. If there's— if the community says, I don't want that ugly box

sitting out in front of my, you know, in the parking lot, then no

matter what you do, you're never going to get that buy-in. But community

awareness, being a good neighbor, showing people that you're

going to employ people in the community, especially

disadvantaged people. Yeah. This is, this is, you know, what more

could you ask for, really, at a grassroots level? There's nothing like

growing food. There's nothing like helping someone eat. It's a beautiful

thing. And I'm a big believer in the more local you can make

that and maintain that, the better off you're, you're gonna be.

Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree. So I'm wondering what connection you

maintain with the From Mary with Love team now that the project is up and

running. I imagine it presents a whole new set of challenges for them

because, you know, you've obviously articulated what was needed to get to where they are

now. And I'm just curious as they move forward, because as new farmers think about

these, you know, there's phases as to how these things happen. So I'm wondering to

what extent you've been in contact with them and how they think about what, what

they should be focused on going forward. So I play more of a consulting role

now, and I try to defer all the technical aspects of the

farm to the tech team at Freight Farms. They're the ones that are best geared

to deal with those issues. And there are many, because when you're starting these things

up, you have connectivity issues, you have timing issues, there are all kinds of

technical questions relative to the hydroponic process. which are unique

to Freight Farms to a certain extent. I mean, Freight Farms has a, you know,

Farmhand app, which allows for remote monitoring, which is a beautiful thing.

So my role is more of helping them now to look

at the bigger picture, interact with state and government

agencies, talk about different other relationships

with food banks that they might be able to deal— make arrangements with,

opportunities with drug rehab centers and transitional

programs for job training, which I think is a huge, huge component here

that is yet untapped. And it's, it's those things, it's

developing the big picture, the longer term, where are we going to be 3 or

4 harvests later? This whole concept of

pre-packaging, the concept of cuisine

concepts. You know, we started a company down here with a

young entrepreneur called Badass Cuisine. We help seed

that with the idea of gourmet, wholesome gourmet,

you know, that can be delivered using good fresh products. So

these are all the offshoots that come with that empowerment

process. And I always circle back to that. This is not only a

food generation process and food production,

production process, but it's also a job creation. It's a job training. It's an

educational component. And these are all the things that we need to change

the paradigm about food. And the sooner we start that, if we get

that with younger people and younger people anticipate, you know, if a,

if young people grow up with this education, they'll want that

and they'll demand that from the business sector. We just haven't had that in my

generation. We went to the store and we bought our food in the supermarket.

That's all we knew about food. Yeah. Period. So

having the experience with From Mary with Love and

understanding what worked and what didn't, Where did you go next? And how did you

think about, you know, what were the characteristics you're looking for in the next

project? So the project in Buffalo is 10 acres in

an opportunity zone with an existing facility that's

underutilized. And what we're doing there is we're trying to

acquire— it happened to be an entity that went through a bankruptcy. So we're dealing

with the trustee and the bankruptcy process up there. In that

situation, we are looking at it by a factor of

10. So not 1 box, but 10 boxes.

And it's a whole different return on investment. It's a whole different business model

there. It's more of, all right, what are we going to grow?

How can we get that out into the marketplace as a prepackaged salad,

prepackaged whatever, and begin those distribution

channels? It's also very close to several universities. So

we're also looking at a company called Bike Technology. with their smart

vending machines. And how do we service those in that

whole Northwestern section of New York? And how do we deploy those machines?

Because it's distribution, right? Growing is one aspect, but the business

model has to bring that return. It has to bring the capital in.

The way we do that is by getting the distribution channels established. So by

owning your distribution, not being reliant upon

restaurateurs or cafeteria food service people.

By owning your distribution, now you're starting to get into the—

how do we monetize? What's the revenue model here? And that's what I'm doing

in Buffalo. It's a different play utilizing the opportunity zone

enterprise aspect. That's an underutilized aspect

of this whole conversation of capital. Many people who are in

the opportunity zone space have— the low-lying fruit has been

picked. You know, we do a hotel and we do multifamily, and that's where you've

seen most of the investment. The enterprise aspect is

where the future is. So, if you do— if you set up an entity

that's going to do business in an opportunity zone, you get the same benefits as

if you were doing the real estate. So, there's much more reach that way. And

that's why we picked that site. It met all the criteria. We have an existing

building. We don't— the retrofit costs are not as great as if we were building

a new structure. And we can house 10 Freight Farm

containerized units in the facility and then have room for a clean

package room, a clean packaging facility. And that's, that's the goal

there. Yeah, I was gonna ask you if you were working with Freight Farms, and

I guess you're happy with the relationship that you built up with them.

And so you like their model for especially going from 1 to 10? I'm wondering

if there's any difference in that thinking process. There is. The biggest problem with

Freight Farms is that they've— they're building— they're so busy that the time to get

a box is lengthy. Yeah. That's the biggest issue.

But when you look at the— I'm a big believer that, you know, in this

space, go with the guys that have the proven track record and do what you

do best and let the other people provide the hardware, which is what they do

best. I've looked at a lot of different people, a lot of different

manufacturing. I mean, someone would say, why can't you just re— you know, hire

somebody to re-engineer or reverse engineer what they do? And I'm like, we don't have

time for that. We have a house that's on fire. We need to put the

fire out. So I'll go with the proven technology always. And then

I'll figure out how to make that work. And that's why I liked that team

there. And I have to tell you, this was not a, you know, a

simple deployment with no issues. Having that

relationship and having the feedback, that's what allows you to sleep at

night. Is that a project that you can speak publicly about, or is that still

in the beginning, early stages? It's very early. We're set to

close on the property in the coming weeks. And then once that

occurs, everybody there thinks we're doing some kind of cannabis play because

New York just legalized cannabis. You have a

lot of people in the cannabis industry making big moves and especially in a

hydroponic space, but it's not. It's purely a foods play.

But in the coming weeks, we'll go public about what we're going to do there.

And we're just waiting for the transaction to close before we do that. And

obviously when you're working at a project at that scale, Did you bring

in additional partners to work with you on that as well? Yes.

So the primary issue here is the initial capital raise. Yeah.

So we're using skilled money people who know how to put opportunity zone

money together, because that's a component. My job there is to be the, you know,

the ringleader, again, the circus ringleader, just keeping all of the component

parts moving in the right direction, deal structure. As far as the

on-the-ground farmers, Okay. We're interviewing people and the

response has been phenomenal. That I can tell you. I've got so many

people that are interested in this project and wanting to be a part of this

project that it's very exciting. So it's a good time. I'm

curious, as you start that, there's again, so many moving parts and

you've 10x the scale of what you did from Mary of Loveland. And

obviously I imagine there was a lot of lessons learned in what you should do,

what you could do better in different zoning challenges. And so I'm curious

because of your background, when you start to structure these types of deals and

you look for partners to work I imagine that these are investors that have

done previous deals in other industries. How much of it is an

education process into what's happening within vertical farming, the

potential risks as well? How do you think about those

things in terms of figuring out who would be a best fit for you to

work with from an investment perspective? So early on, I saw that

the public storage space type of investor would be

ideal for this situation. And I'll give you the reasons why for that.

Without getting too technical into the deal structure, you could

theoretically make each individual container its own

investment vehicle housed under one management structure in

one centralized location. So from a deal structure perspective, it's

beautiful. You can pretty much do a good pro forma on what the

revenue model is from that one container, and you just multiply

that out. So I visited a farm in

Paraguay doing this on a regular

farm. Yes. Typical farm situation. And I said, okay, that's the

model. We have a better model because we don't have the environmental risk

and the climate risk associated with growing. So, if you're an

investor and you want to be in a non-sexy space,

this is the ideal space. There's nothing sexy about this. It's just,

we're going to grow lettuce. Lettuce sells for X dollars a pound.

There's so many pounds of lettuce that are eaten every month. Got it?

It's not sexy, but just the numbers work. So

you can replicate. If you can do it once, you can do it 100 times.

Then it's just a management issue. And my job is to

find the right managers. I'm not that manager. My job is to find that right

manager. My job is to build teams and give those teams what they need to

succeed. And usually that means giving them a good deal structure,

giving them enough working capital to get through the initial stages. And

that's what makes any good enterprise work. And I think that's part of the

problem with food in general is that when we start to move it into

the nonprofit sector, and we have to remember that

social enterprise is still an enterprise. You know, the key word there is

enterprise. Yeah. And we seem— we tend to forget that these have to be

self-sustaining, otherwise they will fail. And The cannabis industry is a good

corollary because you look at the valuations that were given to cannabis companies

5 years ago, especially in Canada, and look at the number of bankruptcies

because the valuations and the performance, they just didn't have any

sense of reality to them when you started to look at the operation.

And we're seeing it now in the California market where we have a depressed market

for pot, which is they used to own the industry. So then you look at

what's going on in these industries, you can try to show the corollary to what

goes on in food. And you pay attention to those things and you can track

them and you can say, okay, these are the pitfalls we need to avoid here

from a deal perspective. So I'm not in this for the deal.

I'm in this because I want to bring food to the community. And

I think that there's probably never been a better time to marry

good deal structure with delivery of food

and production of food. we need it now more than ever. It really is,

you know, the time to own our own food again. I really believe that. What

do you think, Michael, has changed in you in terms of

like why you feel like this is something that's important? So that, you know,

the short version of that question is why you and why now? I've been a

guy that's been in my own business since I was 20 years old. I'm

62 now. I have to tell you that I've done a lot of good things,

a lot of bad things. I've been all around and up and down. And you'll

hear this from grandparents all the time. I had grandkids. And I started to say,

well, you know, what's— what kind of world? It sounds cliché, you know, but

it really isn't. It rang home to me. And what do we do? What are

we doing here? And then the pandemic came. And when the pandemic

came, and I started to see food shortages, which have not gone away,

probably will get worse, I really understood it to understand that, you know,

eating is not— we can't take that for granted, can't take food for granted.

And here we are now. So I feel an obligation to

use whatever skill I have and use it to do something

that's good instead of just to do make money, because

making money is not— that's the other issue here, Harry. And that is that the

whole concept of what is growth and what is capital is

changing. And it's good. It's good that it's changing. This is a new

kind of growth capital, pun intended. Right. How much

of it has been an education process for you in

terms of how you describe this to your, your colleagues,

people you've grown up with, people you've done business with in the past? You know,

are some of them like saying like, Michael, what are you doing now?

Absolutely. Yeah. They think I'm crazy. So I didn't know that I

could do this. I didn't know. I didn't, I wasn't a believer in this hydroponic

thing. So I decided to start growing some hydroponic vegetables on my

balcony in my apartment here in downtown Fort Lauderdale. just to see if it worked.

Sure, sure. And then posting pictures on Facebook, and people would say, what are you

doing? I'm like, well, I'm growing this stuff hydroponically. And I come—

my family is a family of engineers, so they're, they're technical

wonks, you know. And, uh, then they started to say,

hey, what about this? And what about that? And what kind of— what's your nutrients?

And I'm like, once I got that buy-in, I said, you know what, this thing

is— this thing works. So yeah, it's been a big education process, but

The more I talk to people about this, the more I hear

them really understanding that we

got to do something with our food system. It's not working. And that's

a good thing. And I think, you know, educating people and pointing something out to

people that should be obvious— it wasn't obvious for me. Once I got that, the

light bulb went off and I said, hey, this is something good. Let's try to

make a difference here. And that's what it comes down to. You're doing that with

your show. You're educating people. Even people that are seasoned

veterans in vertical farming, you know, this is a space that's changing. Look at light

technology, how much that's changed in the last 3 years.

The biggest thing that I would get from people, well, the electrical costs will be

so high, it's not cost-effective. And look at how that's

changed in 3 years' time. So this is an exciting time to

be in this space. And I'm just, I'm thrilled to be a part of it,

frankly. Have you had connections with other folks in the industry? And how do

you think about, you know, Conferences, marketing,

networking, as it relates to what you're working on? I have to be honest

with you, my experience in that has been people are very close— not all,

but the people that I have been talking to are very protective.

Companies and entrepreneurs that I've been talking to are very protective of their space,

and I can understand that being an entrepreneur in a competitive world. But

this is about decent— if we're going to take this and make this work, as

a country and as a world, frankly, we really have to be an

open-source scenario. We have to get less— we have to be

hyper-local. We have to educate people. We have to

share and collaborate as much as possible. That teamwork

really does work in this arena. And the more we do that

and the more we talk about it and the more we find ways to get

this out to people, the better we'll be in 3 or 4 years. But This

has to happen now. We don't have 50 years to make this

work. We have to do this in a hurry, and it can be done.

Yeah, I agree. And how many parking garages are there that you go in that

nobody ever parks their car on the top floor of a parking garage, right? Well,

there's, you know, 100 acres. It's true.

It's interesting because when you think about— I'm just educating myself,

I'm bringing my listeners along the journey with me because there's a lot that I

don't know, but I always know that I'm learning as

my listeners are learning. And hopefully I'm asking the questions that my listeners would

want to ask as they're discovering all the different ways you can get involved in

this industry. What's funny is that I used to work at E-Trade and one of

my coworkers there, a guy named Ben, he left and this was in

2005, '06. He's like, I'm going to go start a rooftop

farm in Brooklyn. And everybody was kind of laughing, just like, what are you

doing? That's kind of weird. And he was a bit of an eclectic

kind of guy. And then fast forward, he runs, I

think it's, I forgot the name of the company, but it's Brooklyn Farms. It's a

rooftop farm in Brooklyn. And I've been meaning to circle back with him, but

sometimes some people are ahead of the curve and they're forward thinkers and

they have to wait for everyone else to catch up with them. And this

idea of available space in big cities, it's nothing

new. And all this unused real estate, a lot of

companies are in for a bit of a shock, you know, because workers have had

a taste of remote working, you know, they're not really prepared to go back into

offices. So now what do you do with all this space? And I think to

your point, and especially for people that have grown up in and around big cities,

I think we're going to have to rethink what can be done on from a

small scale to a big scale to make the most of that for the benefit

of the community. I agree with you 100%. I think it's the commercial— I listen

to every commercial real estate seminar and webinar that's

out there. And I can tell you that no one, top guys in the

industry, have any idea what's going to happen in the commercial office space. It's

totally in flux and it represents an opportunity. And,

but what happens, Harry, is, you know, as you get older, you get

lazier and you're not more, you're not as innovative as you used to be.

That's the illness that takes over as you age, right? I've always tried to

be a year ahead of the New York Times. And my whole career was always

about, if I can be a year ahead of the New York Times, I'm going

to be doing something, right? Well, the New York Times is writing stories all

day long now about this. So— Yeah, yeah. And the people that move

money need to find a return on that money.

So I'm not a big believer in centralized movements. I think that's a

problem, and we could just go from one centralized problem to another if we're not

careful. But this role of smaller

producers tying into a network is

gives you that same kind of scalability. I got involved right around

pandemic with a group called Co-op Gardens, and they've

got, you know, 3,000 people, 157 seed

hubs, you know, all decentralized, non-hierarchical,

just a beautiful group of people doing good things. Well, that's how this works.

And the managers that we are, the ones that have good managerial

skills, we really want to make a difference. Our job is to help promote that.

And that's really what this is for me. It's a mission. I'm on a mission.

Okay. And that's how I describe it to my kids. You know, Dad, what are

you doing? You should be thinking about retiring. And I'm like, you know, I don't

want to retire. I want to keep going. Yeah. I

think people have a new understanding of how

we can take care of ourselves to live longer and healthier lives. And

because we're doing that, you know, we're changing what we think is

possible in our lifetimes. And, you know, I remember it's so funny

because I'm a child of the '80s. I'm 51. I remember watching that show

Thirtysomething in the— and I was like, well, those guys are old.

Right. You think how funny that is. But now, I mean, I feel like,

like a thirtysomething now. And I feel like I think about the potential of like

living longer, healthier lives. And from a health perspective, that's

great. But then from a, to your point, mission perspective, you know,

you could typically get done. People were thinking 60s is like, okay, retirement

age, find a good rocking chair and I think I'm good.

Now, to what you're doing, you're just like, what's the next project? How can I

leave an impact? And I'm wondering if you think about the term legacy at all.

I do. I'm a lucky guy. I have parents who— my father was

a world-renowned electrical engineer doing really great

stuff. And he's still to this day, he's 83 and he's still working on

state-of-the-art stuff that, you know, is just amazing at 83.

So age is just a number. It's a state of mind. If your

mind is— if you have the blessing of having a good mind and

you're, you know, God gives you that, you know, you can do great things if

you choose to do that. You can also do bad things. You know, I'm no

saint. I've done a lot of bad things. I'd like to think that I've

changed and I try to do— I try to make sure that I'm doing things

from the right perspective. And that's how I start my day. I look at

my day and I, I see my day as what's the highest and best vision

of me. And then I try to put that out and that's how I start

each day. Some days I win and I think I do a good job and

some days I fail, but at least I'll try. That's helpful. Well, I'm

glad we connected. I think it speaks to somewhat of your, your

marketing chops. And you mentioned like with that first project,

this always thinking from a PR perspective. I'm wondering if

that's something you learned along the way as well. Like, you know, The squeaky

wheel gets the oil, right? You got to talk about the projects if you want

people to hear about them. You have to self-promote. So some people will say

that's arrogance. Some people will say that's ego. Some people will say that's

narcissism. I've never met a successful entrepreneur that

wasn't a bit of a narcissist. You have to self-promote. If you're not going to

promote yourself, who is? Right? So you got to get out there. You

got to talk about your things. You got to— you're going to

fail. You know, I fail all the time. There's, you know, that saying, if you

want to succeed, double your failure rate. Well, I probably quadrupled my failure

rate, but that's part of the process. And

is there a legacy to that? I want my grandkids to say, my

grandfather tried, he tried to make a difference. That's it. He may not have

been successful, but at least he didn't sit around and complain about it. Makes sense.

Well, I appreciate you taking that initiative and reaching out and, you know, we had

some technical difficulties, so it feels like we got to work, work through those,

but we made it happen. And that's what's important. We

prevailed. Yeah. It wasn't a straight line. Yeah. So hopefully

you'll stay in contact with us and keep us updated on the project and we'll

let you know. And we want to share the news of what's been happening and

how that's progressing. I certainly will. Thank you for the time. I appreciate the

opportunity to speak with you today. Where's the best place for folks to get connected

with you if they want to learn more about what you're working on, or maybe

even like opportunities to partner with you on future projects? The best way to

reach out to me is on LinkedIn, Michael Sikenzi, or just look me up. I

mean, everybody finds me on LinkedIn. And, uh, you'll see all the

projects that we're involved in. I always put posts up as much as I can.

And Facebook, I do a lot on Facebook, @michaelsekenslia, so you

can find me there. Okay. Yes. Make sure you get those links to us. We'll

put them in the show notes. So if you're listening to this, you can take

those, look for those in the show notes and connect with Michael. Again, Michael,

appreciate connecting with a fellow New Yorker. It's always fun. And

likewise, best of luck with your future projects. Thank you, Harry. Have a great day.

Okay. Thanks again to Michael, my fellow New Yorker, for coming on the show,

reaching out to me— we connected originally on Twitter—

and sharing the exciting news of what he's working on.

It's really fun for me to share these stories, and I'm always looking for

new ones. So if you know of a CEO and a founder who

has a great and inspiring story to tell, I'd love to

share it with this audience, and so please get them connected to me. And

you can do that usually through email is the best way,

[email protected]. I've also

gotten a couple of messages through Twitter DMs if that's your thing. You can read

the full show notes of everything we covered at

verticalfarmingpodcast.com. Special thanks to our

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We'll be sure to read these out on future episodes. It's been so amazing to

go on this journey with you for 4 seasons, cooking up some amazing

interviews for season 5. And stay tuned because we might have a

little something special for you guys next week. Still working on something to see if

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