After relocating its San Jose, California facility and headquarters to the Phoenix metro, Silicon Valley vertical farming startup OnePointOne Inc. is already working on building its presence in the Grand Canyon State.
Sam Bertram, co-founder of the company, said its 6,000-square-foot production and research and development facility in San Jose will be shut down in the next 45 days, meaning the company will no longer have a footprint in California.
Now, the company is operating its headquarters out of an 80,000-square-foot warehouse in Avondale, which is located at 855 N. 107th Ave. just south of Interstate 10 in the city's growing industrial corridor. The company's executive team also is working out of office space in Old Town Scottsdale.
"Our headquarters are going to be here, we're going to be scaling artificial intelligence teams, plant science teams, typical engineering teams, business teams here," Bertram told the Business Journal. "There's also a decent chance that farm manufacturing, for some period of time, will be in Arizona as well, so if someone buys a farm in New York, the farm will be manufactured here and then shipped to New York, as an example."
The Avondale facility uses plant science, vertical plane aeroponics systems, robots and artificial intelligence to grow food plants indoors. Companies or entities can buy and virtually operate their own farms at the facility or in other locations using OnePointOne's technology.
OnePointOne also is using the building as a production hub for its affiliate operation, a personalized vertical farming service called Willo. Bertram said Willo, the direct-to-consumer brand, now has hundreds of members, mostly on the West Coast, who will start receiving their first shipments of plants this week.
First customer in Avondale
Since building its facility in Avondale, OnePointOne has also partnered with California Giant Berry Farms, which made an equity investment in the startup, to produce vertically-farmed strawberries through OnePointOne's "Opollo Three" technology for berries. These farms can total 2,000 square feet and produce more than 125,000 pounds of strawberries per year, the startup said.
Through this technology, IMEX Organics purchased its first strawberry farm at the Avondale location with plans to build another 12 farms by the end of 2025. IMEX said it will deliver berries to restaurants, resorts and retailers across the globe as it expands. Its first three farms will be located in Arizona.
So far, Bertram said they've received interest from a variety of businesses such as growers, retailers and entrepreneurial farmers. He added that he expects the Avondale facility to fill up with farms quickly in the next year.
"It's been fascinating to see where the interest comes from, and they each latch on to different value propositions, some really care about the supply chain surety, some care about the quality and shelf life," Bertram said.
In addition, Bertram said they plan to expand their research facilities and the plant science division of their company to serve as a "control center" for their farms. It's also in discussions and looking to partner with local universities such as Arizona State University.
Bertram said about 20 to 30 employees including growers, engineering technicians and more are moving from California to Arizona, while the company also has plans to triple its on-site team over the next two years. OnePointOne currently has about 70 employees.
Growing advanced technology industry in Avondale
Ken Chappa, Avondale's economic developer director, said OnePointOne is the "next wave" of advanced manufacturing sustainability and high-tech jobs that the city, and the region, wants to attract.
"Their investment in Avondale and their partnership has been completely invaluable to us," he said.
In the 107th Avenue industrial area of the city, Chappa said more manufacturing companies have been moving to the area. Photocentric, a developer of photopolymers and additive manufacturing, recently moved its headquarters to Avondale.
The Universal Technical Institute also recently unveiled plans to relocate its Phoenix-based Motorcycle Mechanics Institute to Avondale to consolidate UTI's Arizona training programs in one location.
