Spread across four indoor farms in Minnesota, California, Georgia, and now Texas (the company’s largest facility) Revol Greens’ indoor farming footprint will be capable of producing 25 million lbs of fresh produce annually by the end of the year, reaching at least one-third of the US population in 24 states within 24 hours of harvest.
Its newest greenhouse facility in Texas will first operate on a 20-acre footprint then eventually expand to its full capacity of 80 acres.
“This is the first large-scale greenhouse that’s specifically designed based on all the learnings from our other facilities. We look at this as a template facility that we would be replicating in our facilities in the South, Southeast, and Pacific Northwest,” Revol Greens CEO Michael Wainscott told FoodNavigator-USA.
The company uses a hybrid hydroponic approach to growing its leafy greens using 90% less water than traditional field-grown lettuce by recapturing and recycling irrigation water and where possible capturing rain and snowmelt (like at its Minnesota facility).
For light, the greenhouses use natural sunlight supplemented with LED lighting when needed to create an optimal and consistent climate for its produce. The company also does not use any pesticides or herbicides to grow its products and has automated its entire operations to ensure the hands never touch the product, explained Wainscott.
“The first thing we focus in on is food safety and making sure we use all the technology out there whether it’s UV or other processes to make sure our products are as safe as they can be. One of the advantages of the size that we have, we’re able to deploy more food safety technologies than others can do just given the amount of volume we have,” said Wainscott.
After ensuring its products have gone through its multistep food safety process, the produce is harvested, packaged, and delivered to customers the same day providing between four and six days of added shelf life compared to lettuce that comes from out-of-state.
‘It’s confusing for consumers…’
When shopping the fresh produce section, Wainscott admitted that most consumers aren’t distinguishing between indoor and outdoor grown lettuce (yet).
“It’s confusing for consumers. At the end of the day, they just want the best product for their salad,” said Wainscott who believes that over time consumers will come to recognize Revol Greens' (and other indoor-grown lettuce brands') superior freshness and quality.
Unlike other players in the space that have a handful of baby greens and herb varieties, Revol Greens is providing consumers with baby greens, salad mixes, salad kits, and head lettuce (which is notoriously difficult to grow in an indoor environment but has become the company's fastest-growing SKU), said Wainscott.
The company also sells an USDA Certified Organic line of lettuce varieties grown using the company's patent-pending 'Plant-Fed Organic Nutrient Source' fertilizer.
This broad portfolio approach not only provides consumers with more options but in the end makes it easier for retailers to manage their produce section, said Wainscott, who has first-hand experience with the complexity of fresh produce inventory management as the CFO at New Acme Markets and Kings before joining Revol Greens.
“Adding one or two SKUs to an already complex area like leafy greens is more complex than it is helpful. Revol’s approach is we want to have a six-foot section and help grocers get more turns on our SKUs,” he said.
In addition to retail, Revol Greens is very focused on growing its presence in foodservice channels where it is seeing increased demand for its products from chefs and foodservice operators, added Wainscott.
"To have a real impact, we need to cover the entire group of leafy green consumers," he said.
Future of indoor farming: 'I think indoor-grown lettuce will overtake field-grown'
Wainscott predicted that indoor-grown produce will eventually become the norm for retailers and consumers.
“I think indoor-grown lettuce will overtake field-grown,” said Wainscott noting that consumers are becoming more aware of how their food is grown and the environmental impact it has, given ongoing climate issues around droughts and water scarcity.
“Water sustainability is going to become more and more critical,” he said, which is why next to the freshness and quality of its product, Revol Greens highlights the water conservation efforts the company uses to grow its greens.
As an industry, the unit economics and end price of indoor-grown lettuce is getting closer to that of organic and in some cases, conventional, field-grown lettuce.
"I think the economics are not too far off right now... The fact of being localized production is another area that’s really going to help the industry grow when you start looking at freight costs, product freshness, and product shrink that other grocers have been dealing with based on transporting so much of it from California (where 90% of lettuce production occurs)," said Wainscott.
"The industry is still really young and there’s going to be a lot of growth and development over the next five to ten years."
