Bay Area vertical farming startup Plenty Unlimited Inc. — which is building a massive indoor farming campus in Chesterfield — is further pruning its California presence as part of a larger strategic pivot.
New mass layoff notices made public this month reveal Plenty's plans to slash 50 employees in South San Francisco and another 100 in Compton, California, by the end of March. In late 2022 the startup said it had "outgrown" its 200,000-square-foot indoor facility in South San Francisco and would shift operations over to the then-upcoming farm site near Los Angeles in Compton — though it still hoped to keep some Bay Area presence.
Plenty will be ending its research and development operations in California as a result of the move. It's offered relocation support for team members willing to transfer to Plenty's other sites in Virginia and Wyoming, the company said.
"Plenty will maintain its office in South San Francisco and farm in Compton, but its future growth will be in states and regions of the world supporting and investing in vertical farming for its potential to transform their local food systems," a Plenty spokesperson told me on Monday via email.
Plenty's $300 million Virginia strawberry farm campus is "on time and under budget," per the spokesperson. The company is also "significantly expanding" its R&D operations at its plant science research center in Laramie, Wyoming, and engineering operations in Virginia.
More than half of the 50 employees affected at the South San Francisco headquarters have "senior" leadership titles including in mechanical design, software engineering and plant science. The layoffs in Compton are primarily for janitorial and "farm operations associate" staff, but also feature a half dozen supervisory or senior roles.
The layoffs are part of a described strategic shift over the last two years where "we've seen positive responses to in the marketplace," the company said. That includes the potential of selling vertical farms based on Plenty's proprietary technology, as well as "bringing crop diversity to vertical farming" for high-demand crops such as strawberries.
"Focusing on these core strategies is an important step forward in scaling Plenty to a commercial and profitable enterprise," the company said. "We’ve restructured our team to support this focus, eliminating roles across the company that do not directly support these objectives."
With strawberries, Plenty aims to fill a supply gap and provide a locally grown product with peak-season flavor on a year-round basis. The company says it will be the first vertical farming company to grow strawberries at scale when it opens its latest facility, in Virginia, in partnership with strawberry seller Driscoll's later this year.
Plenty has raised $941 million in outside funding to date — its last round a $400 million Series E led by One Madison Group and JS Capital Management — and has retail partnerships with major grocers including Whole Foods and Safeway. The company's PitchBook profile describes Plenty as a "likely" potential acquisition target, given a venture capital-backed deal at Series C or later and no new deal in more than 18 months.