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Plenty: Company & Member Engagement
Plenty is an agricultural technology company that develops plant sciences for plants to develop in a natural environment. The Company also produces food crops and products. All requested information can be found in the appropriate sections of the project document.

OVERVIEW

• Plenty is based in San Francisco, California 
•  Mike Gupta is the Chief Financial Officer of Plenty Inc.
• His email address mike.gupta@plenty.ag was derived from using the exact format as Christina Ra email, who is an employee of Plenty.

Plenty: Technology

Successfully identified Plenty's technology and where it stands with regard to technology, manufacturing, and commercialization. The technology is known as Plenty for All, and it helps grow non-GMO produce in indoor farms without using pesticides. It relies on hydroponics, LEDs, sensors, and robots to grow the produce. A detailed report of the findings can be found here.

TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION

• Plenty unlimited Inc. has developed an emerging technology known as Plenty for All.
• Plenty has developed vertical indoor farms that grow food via hydroponics and uses LEDs as a source of light. It is fully automated with AI and robots doing most of the work from planting to harvesting the produce. Infrared cameras and sensors continuously monitor the environment and optimize according to plants' requirements.
• The key takeaway is this technology grows pesticide-free produce using fewer resources compared to normal farming techniques. Plenty’s aim is to establish a connection between flavor and nutritious food and make the produce readily available to people. With the diminishing availability of arable land, Plenty for All can solve food security issues.
• Plenty is working towards growing strawberries and tomatoes to complement the herbs and leafy greens they are currently offering.
• Looking forward, this company intends to grow outstanding produce, increase accessibility, and offer happy, healthy lives through a sustainable method.
• Plenty Unlimited Inc. filed for the intellectual property in 2017 and it's the sole owner. The terms and conditions on Plenty's website states that suppliers will be granted a license to use the intellectual property only to the extent of fulfilling the orders. However, they are prohibited from claiming ownership or rights to the intellectual property. 

TECHNOLOGY, MANUFACTURING AND COMMERCIALIZATION ASSESMENT

• On technology readiness level, Plenty has a complete system demonstration in an operation environment. They have unveiled a farm named Tigris with advanced technology and largest of all their farms. Tigris demonstrates their ability to grow fresh produce using 1% of the land and 5% of the water used in open field agriculture.
• On manufacturing readiness level, Plenty has demonstrated low rate initial production capability and they are ready to begin full rate production. Currently, the company offers its products in Bay area through a few restaurants, online, and neighborhood markets. Since the bigger farm Tigris is functional, Plenty will be available across the Bay market later this year.
• According to plenty, produce from Tigris will soon be undergoing food-safety certification and they hope to start serving more customers later this year. 

Bowery: Company & Member Engagement
Bowery is a modern food company responsible from seed to store in providing farm produce through controlled indoor growing systems. The requested details have been entered into the attached document.

BOWERY AND PARTNERSHIPS

•  Bowery Farming combines the benefits provided by the best local farms with technological advancements to grow produce which customers can enjoy eating.
• The company only has partnerships with other food companies such as Whole Foods, Sweetgreen, and Dig Inn.
• Bowery Farming has started work on their next farm outside of the Tristate area.
• Bowery Farming has raised $117.5 million from 21 investors including First Round Capital, General Catalyst, and GGV Capital.

Bowery: Technology

• Bowery's technology is named the BoweryOS. It leverages automation, vision systems, sensors, and machine learning to collect data and monitor plants autonomously. More information is provided in the attached document.
• Bowery's Technology
•  BoweryOS technology is a proprietary technology that employs automation, vision systems, sensors, and machine learning to autonomously monitor plants and collect data. The technology creates controlled environments that enable plants to grow consistently all year round and without pesticides, soil, and with up to 95% less water.
• BoweryOS significantly reduces the dependency on natural resources by reducing water usage by 95% and eliminating the reliance on the soil. The tech also cuts down on the growth/production time frame and increases productivity over 100 times.
• Bowery plans to use the additional $90 million raised from its 2018 round of funding to take its BoweryOS-powered indoor farms beyond New Jersey and New York to multiple cities both in the United States and internationally. Also, the company is looking to expand its labor force and make more investments in new tech.
• According to Bowery's CEO, Irving Fain, the company's biggest challenge is getting people to believe in what the company and the entire industry is trying to achieve.
• Bowery’s CEO says that it does not intend to commercialize the technology since it is focused on designing and building in order to make improvements. Currently, its only product is food.

AeroFarms: Company & Member Engagement
Areofarms is a company that uses aeroponic technology to grow plants indoor. Their brand is known as ‘Dream Greens’ and is farmed vertically indoors. They have partnerships with Prudential, Goldman Sachs, IKEA Middleland Capital, GSR Ventures, Mission Point Capital Partners, ADM Capital, Wheatsheaf, Bernstein, and Meraas. The details are contained in the attached document.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

•  AeroFarms, LLC is a company that uses aeroponic technology to grow plants indoor. Their brand is known as ‘Dream Greens’ and is farmed vertically indoors.
• They are based at 212 Rome Street, in Newark, New Jersey.
• One of their contact persons is Mark Oshima, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer.
• Aerofarms has no partnership or collaboration with electric and gas utility companies. However, they have partnered with financial companies such as Prudential, Goldman Sachs, IKEA, Middleland Capital, GSR Ventures, Mission Point Capital Partners, ADM Capital, Wheatsheaf, Bernstein, and Meraas.
• The company has a demo project based in Saudi Arabia. This demo farm opened in 2017.
• The company does it marketing through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

AeroFarms: Technology
Aerofarms develops award-winning environmentally focused technology for vertical farms that includes a circular watering system and environmentally informed methods. Their farms use less water and use 99% less land space than traditional farming. This is important as 25% of the world's land is damaged from overuse, in addition to issues such as pesticides and runoff. Their methods allow for year-round production of healthier foods. Their technology is described below and can be found in the attached document.

TECHNOLOGY NAME
AeroFarm's provides patented, award-winning aeroponic technology. Their retail brand is called Dream Greens.

DESCRIPTION
Their aeroponic technology allows for vertical and indoor agriculture and provides the conditions to grow healthy plants using a closed loop water circulation system. The technology uses 95% less water than field farming, only takes 1% of land space versus traditional farming and addresses the issue of pesticides and runoff. Their aeroponic system uses engineered lighting, constant plant nutrition, remote monitoring and predictive analytics, and patented cloth substrate.

KEY TAKEAWAY
AeroFarms is one of the World's Most Innovative Companies and has been in the news for their technology that allows for plants to grow inside, vertically, without soil or sun with "faster harvest cycles, predictable results and superior food safety". This technology has made the company the first and only to be honored for its circular economy and impact on eliminating waste, will have a huge impact on focusing agriculture towards preservation and conservation.

LIMITATION
The company does not give any limitations to their technology.

NEXT STEPS
The company intends to continue their journey in working for a more sustainable journey. In January 2019, Aerofarms hired Roger Post in order to build sustainable farms with key partners across the globe to feed the world. The company cites great demand that has led to the growing of their ninth farm and they have farms in development in multiple US states and on 4 continents. The company's mission to transform how the world eats is spreading as is evidenced by a new "farm-to-plane" partnership with Singapore Airlines. 

DESIRED GOALS
In January 2019, Aerofarms hired Roger Post in order to build sustainable farms with key partners across the globe to feed the world. The company is continuing to pursuit their goal to change the face of agriculture to one of conservation and preservation.

IP OWNERSHIP
The company develops and patents its own technology. The company does not license to partners, instead they just work with partners interested in financing large-scale commercial farms as project partners or financial partners.

TECHNOLOGY, MANUFACTURING AND COMMERCIALIZATION
TECHNOLOGY READINESS LEVEL
The company is at wide-scale commercial deployment and increasing globally so its TRL is 9.

MANUFACTURING READINESS LEVEL
The company is at full rate production with demonstrated and lean production practices in place and rate 10.

TIME TO COMMERCIALIZATION
N/A

Freight Farms: Company & Member Engagement
Freight Farm is an innovative farming business that creates sustainable foods. They have working relationships with Google, B. Good, Tesla and several other companies. The detailed findings are outlined on the attached document.

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

• Freight Farms, Inc. was founded in 2010 with a mission to develop a connected and sustainable food system that provides tools capable of enabling the production of fresh food. They are designed in a manner that they can be operated and implemented easily. The freight farms are equipped with climate control equipment and technology.
• Their website is accessible by clicking here.
•  Sam White, Chief Innovation Officer is one of their chief contact persons at the company. His email address is also included here.
• Freight Farms conduct their operations at 46 Plympton St in Boston.
• Freight Farms is not currently working with any electric or gas utilities, however, they are working with B. Good, Dassault Systemes and Google. The company acquired ‘Cabbige’ in 2018 and added Tesla and Nest to its advisory board. In 2017, the partnered with Everlane to purchase leafy green machines.

Freight Farms: Technology
Freight Farm's technology is named The Greenery. In terms of technology, manufacturing, and commercialization the company is advanced and The Greenery is already available for sale as it has successfully completed the testing phases. On the attached document an overview of Freight Farms' technology has been provided.


THE GREENERY

• Freight Farm's technology is named The Greenery. It is a "vertical hydroponic farm" that flourishes inside a tailor-made, insulated shipping container where plants can grow vertically without soil as they get their nutrition from water and their light from powerful LEDs.
• The Greenery's technological readiness level is at 9, ready for wide-scale deployment, as can be deduced from this quote: "The Greenery, available for pre-sale starting today [February 26, 2019], retails for $104,000, with general availability this Spring".
• Its manufacturing readiness level is at 10 as the full rate production can be demonstrated and it has lean production practices in place. In the words of Jon Friedman, COO and Co-Founder, "The Greenery is the most powerful standalone hydroponic farm available, with a fully-connected technology platform you can’t achieve from any combination of products elsewhere in the industry. By revolutionizing a farm that can be operated by anyone, in any climate, and can successfully support a diverse range of business goals, our team is helping support a higher standard for society’s food system than previously possible."

Square Roots: Company & Member Engagement
Square Roots is a privately held urban indoor farming company. Details about the company and its operations can be found in the findings below and in the attached document.

COMPANY / UNIVERSITY INFORMATION

•  Square Roots is a privately held seed-to-sales urban farm founded in 2016 which sells pesticide-free, non-GMO herbs grown in indoor, vertical farms in Brooklyn.
• The farms use a water-efficient hydroponic growing system housed in re-purposed shipping containers and are cloud connected to provide data, insights and tools to be used in producing high quality produce. This allows the company to grow its hand harvested, self packaged produce within the neighborhoods where it is sold.
• The company also operates the Square Roots Next-Gen Farmer Training Program, and its website is https://squarerootsgrow.com/.
• Mr. Rakan Ammouri is listed as the Head of Business Development and can be contacted via email at rakan@squarerootsgrow.com or via phone at 740 337 6687.
• Square Roots Farms are located in Brooklyn, New York, N.Y. The company has recently entered into a partnership with Gordon Food Service, which will see its farms expanding throughout North America.
• The research team was unable to source publicly available marketing collateral for Square Roots Farms. However, co-founder Kimbal Musk published an article in Medium introducing the company and Square Roots maintains a presence on Twitter, Medium, Meet-Up and Instagram where the SR Updates feature provides company updates.
• Relevant Hyperlinks: The Square Roots website did not provide any company white papers or videos, however the website blog provides information on the company, its presence in the community and profiles of its farmers. Articles are also published on Medium and further company information can be found on LinkedIn.

MEMBER ENGAGEMENT

ELECTRIC OR NATURAL GAS COMPANIES
There is no publicly available information regarding the electric or natural gas companies that Square Roots is working with.

SQUARE ROOT NEXT-GEN FARMER TRAINING PROGRAM

• Square Roots Next-Gen Farmer Training Program was created to share information about indoor farming and to improve access to fresh, locally grown food to city dwellers.
• Applicants are not required to have any previous farming experience and once accepted into the program become full-time employees of Square Roots receiving subsidized health-care coverage and entry-level wages. Trainees are exposed to hands-on indoor farming experience and curriculum training in plant science and business practices.
• The company also prioritizes community involvement for the trainees to learn about local agriculture and food systems as well as to provide a positive example to a younger generation through interactions with local youth-oriented organizations.
• This program is available at the Brooklyn and Michigan farms.

PARTNERSHIP WITH GORDON FOOD SERVICE

• Square Roots has entered into a partnership with Gordon Food Service to build indoor farms on or near distribution centers for Gordon Food Service across North America.
• The objective of the partnership is to meet customer demand for fresh, high quality, locally grown food. Customers can use Square Roots' Transparency Timeline to track who, how and where their food was grown.
• Included in this partnership is an expansion of the Next-Gen Farmer Training Program with the first farm is carded to be opened at the Gordon Food Service headquarters in Wyoming on September 30th 2019. 

Square Roots: Technology
Square Roots uses water-efficient hydroponic growing systems and proprietary cloud-connected refurbished shipping containers to vertically grow crops. They have a clear mission to provide healthy, locally-grown foods to neighborhoods across the world, and their partnership with Gordon Foods is going to see growth across the United States soon. Information about the company is detailed below and included here.

TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY NAME
The company uses water-efficient hydroponic growing systems and proprietary cloud-connected refurbished shipping containers.


TECHNOLOGY DESCRIPTION
Square Roots develops "human-centered farming technology" that provides farmers with data, insights, and tools to enable them to grow food year-round, using the fewest resources possible. They have a water-efficient hydroponic growing system for their farms that are housed inside of refurbished shipping containers. Unlike other hydroponic growers, Square Roots developed a system of vertical growing inside of their proprietary cloud-connected refurbished shipping containers.


KEY TAKEAWAY
This technology enables food to be grown in the neighborhoods where their customers live and provides deep connections between the consumer, the food and the growers.


LIMITATION
The company does not state any limitations.


NEXT STEPS
The company has recently developed a long-term partnership with Gordon Food Services that will open Square Root locations by Gordon's distribution centers and retail stores across the US, and then sell the food products through the distributor's channels.


FUTURE GOALS
Square Roots goals are to answer a growing demand for locally grown food, at scale, year-round across the country. They are trying to build a future where "every person on the planet has a direct relationship with their farmer". Their Next-Generation Farmer Training Program targeting young farmers will arm young people with the skills to further reach their mission.


IP OWNERSHIP
The company develops their own proprietary technology.
TECHNOLOGY, MANUFACTURING, AND COMMERCIALIZATION ASSESSMENT
TECHNOLOGY READINESS LEVEL
The company is in early commercial deployment and TRL is rated an 8.


MANUFACTURING READINESS LEVEL
The company has low-rate initial production demonstrated, and the capability in place to begin full-rate production as evidenced by the partnership with Gordon Food Distribution Services, and has a MRL of 9.


TIME TO COMMERCIALIZATION
The company is commercial and has plans to further grow, so this is not applicable.