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Plant Factory Racks Up $10M in Orders for Tiny Veggies

How does 16 acres of produce grow in a 5,800-square-foot hall?

You stack it, says Ed Horton Jr., owner of Urban Produce in Irvine who said he’s looking to fill about $10 million in orders once his new venture is fully operational come January.

“I’m oversold,” Horton said. “It’s the best problem I ever had in my life.”

Think of it as farming on dry-cleaner rails—small trays of leafy greens or micro veggies planted in beds of organic coconut core and sitting on racks stacked 25 feet high. Much like dry-cleaned garments waiting for their owners to pick them up, the racks of plants are suspended from a conveyor belt and travel by turns to watering and low-heat, LED-powered light stations.

“We call it high-density vertical growing,” he said.

Kertz

Horton learned about the indoor farming method from plant physiologist Glen Kertz, who developed it and patented its use. Kertz now works for Urban Produce as vice president of operations. Horton, who also owns a software technology company, automated the process.

Horton said no pesticides are applied in the operation and that water used to hydrate the plants is purified beforehand by reverse osmosis.

“We have total control over the environment,” he later said. “We give our produce exactly how much water [and nutrients are required.]”

Compare that to challenges facing the field-based farmer, whose profits depend on Mother Nature and her sometimes overabundant gifts of rainfall or scorching sunshine, Horton said, later adding that, “the automation makes us very competitive.”

Urban Produce held an open house last month. Its first harvest will be micro greens and baby vegetables—he said they’re in demand and have quick growing cycles.

“When you’re starting out as a grower, if anything goes wrong, you want the shortest harvest product that you can get,” he said. “From the seed to when I’m shipping out the door on micro greens is about eight days.”

Cities

Horton said he plans to open Urban Produce growing centers in other cities, such as Cincinnati, Baltimore, Nashville, San Antonio, Atlanta and Denver.

Urban Produce is looking to hire local workforces in cities with solid logistics, enterprise zones, and tax incentives for its “sustainable growing practices.”

“We’ve hired a national real estate company to evaluate all that,” Horton said.

Horton has an unnamed capital partner in the enterprise. Expansion plans include obtaining debt financing to purchase five 80,000- to 100,000-square-foot buildings next year. Each would hold four 5,800-square-foot growing units, which would increase the company’s capacity twentyfold to roughly 320 acres.

Urban Produce’s prospective customer base is a mix of food service and smaller retail clients that are much more manageable.

Horton said he’s “avoiding big chains for now,” and later added that he’s “being very methodical, and my goal is to be in full production in January and get through any bumps. I left myself that curve.”

Different Method

Urban Produce’s method of farming is different from what Horton’s father asked him to do while growing tomatoes and other seasonal vegetables on a family farm in El Paso, Texas.

“I was the kid that came home from high school and had to water the trays manually, rotate shelves,” he said of working in the farm’s greenhouse. “I always thought, ‘There has to be a better way.’ ”

Horton is now ready to share the experience with his own children.

“My daughter graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and majored in agribusiness, and my son has one more year there,” he said, later adding that, “My wife and I have been praying for years that we would find something that we could bring the kids into and leave a legacy for our family, and Urban Produce is it.”

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