Eden Green Tech, a vertical farm company, based in Texas, USA, has opened its new hybrid farm of 83,000 sq ft with the second phase on its way. Phase one of the North Texas farm expansion, which is now open, was completed about a year ago, despite supply chain delays and roadblocks. The latest vertical greenhouse that Eden Green Tech is opening will be producing 1,8 million pounds of produce per year. This is done in 'just 62,000 sq ft / 5760m2' of growing space, making it a high-yield facility for CEA.
Phase two, which is now under construction, will triple the total production to over five million pounds of produce a year. The $31 million expansion will encompass 125,000 sq ft (11613m2) and employ an additional 50 employees.
The farm
Increase in yield and efficiency
"People always ask us how we make sure the produce on the bottom of our vertical vines are exposed to equal sunlight as the ones closer to the roof. We've developed a unique mobile lighting solution to provide adequate and quality light to our grow system, which is optimizing yield, morphology, and efficiency," says Eddy Badrina, CEO of Eden Green Tech.
The company's Mobile Light Bars are designed to provide quality supplemental light at specific locations and times, as needed by our plants. As a result, they have seen a 60% increase in yield.
Lowering resource use and footprint
Eden Green Technology built its foundation on accessibility and sustainability. "Our hydroponic systems reduce water waste, energy consumption and proudly boast less than 3% food waste across our facilities," Eddy adds.
Besides that, the mobile LED bars guarantee consistent product weight and high quality while maintaining lower energy consumption. Eddy explains that by using supplemental LED lighting, the farm consumes 90% less light energy than other vertical farms.
Since the company's farms are built close to urban centers, right next to the Walmart distribution center in Cleburne (Texas), e.g., they are able to guarantee a 48-hour turnaround from farm to shelf. In this way, Eden Green Tech can avoid delays because their trips are shorter, as well as save its clients from rising shipping costs.
With the new farm, national retailers and top grocery distributors will be supplied. However, these names cannot yet be disclosed. The team gives away that the first greenhouse harvests are already effectively sold out. On top of that, the current demand is propelling the expansion construction faster than Eden Green Tech even anticipated.
"For example, Romaine, which is one of the most-recalled and logistically tricky types of produce, is something we're able to do really safely and really well due to our controlled environments and is a big part of these first offtake agreements."
Intrinsic to its business model, every Eden Green facility will reserve up to 10% of each weekly harvest capacity. This first facility will donate its reserves to local nonprofits Veterans Produce, OurCalling, and the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.
For more information:
Allison Dupuis, Director of Marketing
+1 201 293 6182
[email protected]
Eden Green Technology
www.edengreen.com