Plenty Unlimited Inc., a Bay Area indoor agriculture company, said Tuesday it officially opened its massive berry farm in Chesterfield County’s Meadowville Technology Park.
The Plenty Richmond Farm, as it’s called, is billed as the world’s first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale. The facility is designed with 30-foot towers to produce more than 4 million pounds of Driscoll’s strawberries annually in less than 40,000 square feet.
The first strawberries from the farm are expected to be available early next year. Terms of Plenty's deal with Driscoll's have not been revealed.
Plenty, which was founded in 2014 and has about 200 patents to its name, says its 30-foot growth towers make it the only vertical farming company capable of growing multiple crops on one platform with “consistently superior flavor and yields.” It also says it can produce yields of up to 350-times more per acre, using a fraction of the water, compared to conventional farms.
Plenty said Tuesday that every element of the Richmond facility is controlled through proprietary software to create an optimal environment for the strawberries. It uses AI to analyze millions of data points across the facility’s 12 grow rooms with an eye on the plants producing berries with optimal flavor, texture and size.
"The Plenty Richmond Farm is the culmination of 200 research trials over the past six years to perfect growing strawberries with consistent peak-season flavor indoors year-round,” Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai said in a statement.
The company said the new farm will bring in more than 60 new jobs. It is the first of several indoor farms slated for the 120-acre Chesterfield campus. Plenty has indicated it plans to grow leafy greens and tomatoes there as well.
At full buildout, the Chesterfield site is projected to be a $300 million investment that will bring more than 300 jobs.
The Plenty Richmond Farm is slated to bring more than 60 jobs to Virginia and is the first farm to open on Plenty's 120-acre farm campus. The Plenty Richmond Farm Campus is the largest indoor vertical farm campus in the world and a projected $300 million investment that is planned to bring more than 300 total jobs to Virginia.
Plenty’s Chesterfield campus was first announced two years ago. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin approved a $2.4 million grant from the state’s Opportunity Fund as well as a $500,000 grant from his office’s agriculture and forestry industries fund for the project. Plenty is also eligible for state incentives for full-time jobs it creates in Virginia. Plenty said last year it had partnered with San Diego's Realty Income Corp. to acquire the land for the facility and that Realty would provide development funding.
Meadowville Technology Park, a publicly owned industrial park located 9401 Courthouse Road near Chesterfield County Airport, is also the future home of Lego Group's $1 billion block factory.
