Plenty expands leadership team with Impossible Foods hire

15-Jan-2021 - Last updated on 15-Jan-2021 at 17:32 GMT

Photo Credit: Plenty

Hydroponic vertical farming company Plenty has hired Impossible Foods VP of sales, Dana Worth, as its SVP of sales to lead the company's next phase of commercial growth.

Worth is the second high-profile executive from Impossible Foods to move to an indoor farming company this year, with AppHarvest recently hiring Impossible Foods CFO David Lee as its new president.

Joining Plenty from Impossible Foods - where he led the market debut of the Impossible Burger helping to ink distribution deals with Starbucks and Burger King - Worth will help accelerate the retail availability and commercialization of Plenty's hydroponic leafy greens.

The indoor vertical farming company grew significantly in 2020, forming commercial partnerships with berry producer Driscoll's and a distribution deal with grocery retailer, Albertsons. In October 2020, Plenty announced that it had raised $140m in a Series A round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 1 to help grow its business even further.

"Dana's experience working with fast growing companies, such as Impossible Foods and PayPal, who are pioneers in their markets, will be instrumental as we accelerate both our corporate and commercial footprint and establish our platform as the standard for indoor vertical farming," said Nate Storey, co-founder at Plenty.

Plenty_products — Plenty retail lettuce products

Plenty also announced the promotions of Megan Gillespie - former process engineering manager at Tesla who joined Plenty in 2019 - to vice president of farm operations, and Daniel Malech to SVP of strategy and general counsel.

During her time at Plenty, Gillespie assisted in transitioning and scaling up Plenty's flagship indooor vertical farm in San Francisco from a research and development facility to a full-production farm, which is now capable of growing 1,500 acres of in a building equivalent in size to a big box retailer (using 99% less land than conventional field farming), said the company.

In her new role, Gillespie will oversee farm operations for Plenty's farms, including its latest facility, a high-output, indoor vertical farm in Compton, California.

Daniel Malech - who joined Plenty in 2018 as head of legal and has advised the company on business strategy and implementation - will become SVP of strategy and general counsel. In the new role, Malech will oversee a broad range of business functions, including legal, corporate strategy, program management, regulatory and compliance, and corporate transactions, as well as managing Plenty's growing IP portfolio.