Innovation

AeroFarms uses an innovative technology called aeroponics indoors in Newark, New Jersey. AeroFarms uses aeroponics, a soilless way of growing greens, to mist the roots of their plants with the nutrients, water, and oxygen needed. AeroFarms created a patented growing cloth medium for seeding, germinating, growing, and harvesting leafy greens. The cloth is a barrier between the mist and the plants, keeping them immaculate. They use a custom lighting array to create a custom light algorithm for each plant, giving them exactly what each plant needs to optimize the quality. AeroFarms scalable design allows their growing platform to be highly customizable, which can be stacked vertically. This will enable AeroFarms to grow in varied locations and achieve up to 390x the yield per square foot.

David Rosenberg is the Co-Founder and CEO, specializing in transforming technology innovation with circular economy solutions. Marc Oshima is the Co-Founder and deeply desires to make fresh, nutritious produce more accessible to communities globally. Ed Harwood, a pioneer of aeroponics, was inspired by the number of unused warehouse spaces he saw while traveling the rural areas of the US helping farmers. This inspiration led him to invent the indoor vertical farming technology used at AeroFarms.

AeroFarms growing process

Inspiration

AeroFarms inspiration came from David Rosenberg and Marc Oshima; they wanted the perfect opportunity to combine their environmental guidance and passion for feeding communities. Seventy percent of the global water resources go toward agriculture. Seventy percent of freshwater contamination comes from agriculture, which drove David Rosenberg to co-found AeroFarms. He wanted to do something about the possibility that his children would not be able to take clean water for granted, as most of us do today. Rosenberg started with salads since the salad industry would grow to seven billion by 2018 and ninety-five percent of those greens grew in either Salinas Valley, California, or Yuma, Arizona. The quantity of water required to sustain these farms largely contributed to the dire state of water in California. David Rosenberg said, “I partnered with Dr. Ed Harwood and Marc Oshima to create AeroFarms as we know it today. AeroFarms patented growing technology and expertise was initially developed in Ithaca in 2004 by Dr. Edward Harwood, a former professor at Cornell University, one of the top agriculture sciences research universities in the world.” They all wanted to contribute to living in a sustainable community. AeroFarms is innovating to do things differently with vertical farming rather than traditional field farming and is the only indoor vertical farm. They are a certified B Corporation and use ninety-five percent less water and zero pesticides on their produce. They use the latest technologies to grow the best plants, so consumers feel confident knowing their products are fresh.

Overall impact

With the patented vertical farming design and Aeroponics, AeroFarms is designed to combat twelve of the seventeen UN Sustainable Development Goals. By reducing agriculture waste, AeroFarms is increasing its production rate. AeroFarms has zero-waste thanks to their water recapture systems, thus allowing them to recycle the water using aeroponics back into the roots of the crops. The benefit of growing inside is producing food all year round as they don't use natural resources like land and sunlight. All their products are harvested inside their facility using vertical farming.

AeroFarms goal has been to continue growing and expanding as a business entity while positively impacting the environment. AeroFarms addresses goal #2, Zero Hunger, and they helped by creating a program called Community Farms. Food production will need to be increased by 69% by 2035 to feed the growing population, and AeroFarms vertical farming is up to 390x more productive than field farming, which means they can produce greens much quicker. AeroFarms also addresses goal #6, clean water and sanitation, using a growing aeroponic system. The global water demand is set to increase by 55% from 2000 to 2050, and AeroFarm's aeroponic growing system uses up to 95% less water than regular field farmers. AeroFarms also aims to be a sustainable and zero-waste company by using a low-waste thin plastic design which is 40% less plastic than traditional salad clamshells. The easy top film lid can be returned to AeroFarms for recycling through TerraCycle's Zero Waste Box.

Business benefit

With vertical farming at the forefront of sustainable agriculture, we can see that the innovation of such a unique business model is the same. With more efficient methods of agriculture producing the same or even superior results, it's no wonder why AeroFarms is expanding at such a rapid pace. AeroFarms has opened up two new bases of operations, including overseas in Abu Dhabi, for R&D purposes focused on higher temperate/desert areas. This comes in partnership with Cargill, the world's largest producer of cacao.

In the focus of further expansion, AeroFarms has also opened a new location in St. Louis, Missouri, at the scale of 2 ½ football fields in length and 50 feet in height! All this can only benefit the new product lines launched in 2021 for items like Baby Bok Choy, Micro Arugula, Micro Broccoli, and Micro Kale.

Social and environmental benefit

Vertical farming has benefited AeroFarms as this new form of farming has proven effective. In the long-term-run, as technology takes over, this is one of the best ways to harvest crops while helping the environment. According to a 2022 study by Grand View Research, "The global indoor farming market size was valued at $39.5 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $44.3 billion in 2022." AeroFarms has a community farms program aimed at ending hunger, and to this end, they have partnered with cities and schools to build customized community farm programs.

The innovative solution to AeroFarms is creating a more sustainable fresh food system that lets everyone enjoy and participate in making a change. AeroFarms contributes to helping solve more than one of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals because they want to end world hunger by 2030

Interviews

Emily Gee, Associate Marketing Director

Anna Fagan, Marketing Associate