AppHarvest Inc. (Nasdaq: APPH) opened its newest high-tech farm in Berea, Kentucky, on Wednesday.
The 15-acre, 654,000-square-foot indoor farm is designed to grow about 35 million lettuce plants at a time, which go from seed to maturity in about three to four weeks depending on variety, according to a news release. It is expected to be the world’s largest high-tech indoor farm for autonomously harvested salad greens with a touchless growing system.
The farm is opening on a phased approach, beginning with five acres then bringing on additional productive acreage over time. AppHarvest began first commercial shipments of salad greens earlier this month.
“The opening of AppHarvest’s new salad greens facility in Berea is a major milestone for the company as well as for the commonwealth as a whole,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in the release. “Kentucky is emerging as the agritech capital of the United States, and AppHarvest continues to be a major reason for that success. I want to both congratulate and thank company leaders on their vision and commitment to our workforce.”
The AppHarvest Berea growing environment leverages sunshine and rainwater and is automated for lighting, humidity and temperature. The farm uses a closed-loop irrigation system, which enables expected water savings of up to 90% compared to open-field farming and allows for precision dosing of nutrients, resulting in far less use of fertilizer compared to open-field farming while avoiding pollution from agricultural runoff, the release states.
The packaged salad market in North America was estimated to be about $5.9 billion in 2021. As traditional lettuce-producing areas in California and Arizona experience ongoing drought and other severe weather conditions wreak havoc on crop yields, AppHarvest believes its controlled environment agriculture (CEA) approach producing more predictable yields with less water and other resources will be critical in providing fresh fruits and vegetables that are affordable, the release continued.
“The AppHarvest team has set new precedents in the CEA sector by quadrupling our number of farms in such a short time,” said AppHarvest founder and CEO Jonathan Webb, in the release. “With the Berea opening, we now have two farms shipping produce to national customers, and our 30-acre Somerset berry facility also is expected to ship in the next few weeks. We expect Morehead to start its third harvest and to start planting our 60-acre Richmond tomato farm in November.”
AppHarvest has about 600 employees, and that is expected to increase to roughly 1,000 by the end of the year when all four of its farms are operational, Travis Parman, chief communications officer, told me via email.
In an earnings call earlier this year, Webb said he expects the four farms will enable the company to become financially self-sufficient, and attract new investment to Appalachia.
As I reported last month, AppHarvest's net sales in the second quarter were $4.4 million on 6 million pounds of tomatoes sold with a net sales price of 72 cents per pound versus net sales of $3.1 million on 8.6 million pounds of tomatoes sold with a net sales price of 36 cents per pound in the second quarter of 2021, representing a nearly 40% increase in quarterly net sales year over year.
AppHarvest's share price closed at $1.75 on Wednesday, down more than 2% from when trading opened.
