How BrightFarms quadrupled capacity in six months

BrightFarms opened its first greenhouse in 2013 in Yardley, Pennsylvania, with an idea to serve hyper-local markets with fresh, indoor-grown salad. The dream was big, but the scale was small. There were only a few companies developing an indoor-grown salad program in the United States, and sales in that category were low compared to outdoor-grown lettuce. The greenhouse growers’ share of that category was almost nil.

“At that point, it was much more of an idea than it was a proven opportunity for growth in the industry,” explains Abby Prior, chief commercial officer at BrightFarms.

The growth since then has been slow but steady. The proof is in the, well, clamshell.

“Indoor salads now have one-sixth share of the total salad category,” Prior says. “But the indoor segment is really driving growth in the salad category. Over 95% of the growth in the category is coming from indoor. And it’s estimated that this segment will surpass $1 billion in sales by 2028.”

The appeal of indoor-grown salads

Some of the aspects of indoor-grown salads driving sales toward the billion-dollar mark include providing cleaner, fresher and tastier products, she adds.

“That’s the strength of the indoor business. When you get consumers a fresher product that was harvested as little as 24 hours before it was stocked on a store shelf, the appearance is beautiful. The number one thing we can do to drive consumption of indoor produce is to make it really appealing, fresh and tasty. That delivers a better eating experience for the consumer.”

Indoor growers can expand that experience by making the consumer feel good about the purchase.

“We’re able to grow salads in a way that is extremely clean with no pesticides, and that is really important to consumers as they think about eating healthy. The way we grow enables that in a way outdoor growers just aren’t able to accomplish,” she says.

Consumer education

The consumer’s knowledge and grasp of greenhouse-grown produce has evolved since Prior joined BrightFarms in 2015.

“Early on, there was very little awareness or understanding of what it really meant to be greenhouse grown. But that has really changed. Some of our retail partners have very clearly communicated greenhouse-grown sections,” Prior says. “As an industry, we can really select products for flavor and for a better eating experience because we have the ability to protect the product and build the environment around them to make them thrive. That’s been a slow build over many years of communicating and building awareness with consumers around what being greenhouse-grown means and what’s in it for them.”

Regional focus

That consumer education and engagement coincided with BrightFarms’ growth into a regional distribution model. The company opened three high-tech facilities during the past six months in Georgia, Illinois and Texas.

“Those three new farms enabled us to quadruple our capacity through the acreage available and the efficient growing systems of those farms,” she says.

Now that the new facilities are online, the company is closing some of its early-stage farms in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania; Rochelle, Illinois; and Hendersonville, North Carolina. The New Hampshire and Virginia facilities will remain open.

With an ability to expand to nearly 100 acres at the new greenhouses, BrightFarms will be able to reach more than two-thirds of the U.S. population. Each regional greenhouse hub can produce 6 million pounds of lettuce per year, according to BrightFarms.

“Our Illinois farm is just outside of Chicago in Yorkville. It’s our Midwest hub. The Lorena, Texas, farm will support the south-central United States. The new farm in Macon, Georgia, will serve the Southeast. When we started BrightFarms, we focused on much tighter, hyper-local markets. The demand outpaced those markets,” Prior explains. “Our goal is to be able to deliver product to a retailer and return that truck to the greenhouse the same day. For us to compete at higher commercial scales and at accessible pricing for consumers, we need farms that are large enough and efficient enough to support a region. We’ve always wanted to be a brand that was within a price point where most consumers would have access to our produce. We never sought it to be a super-premium niche of the category.”

It’s no surprise that price is important to consumers when they buy produce, but for indoor-grown salads, it’s typically not the top concern, Prior says.

“Price always falls near the top of consumer needs. But it often falls below appearance, and this is unique in produce. Take Cheerios for instance. If you can find them in one store, they’re the same Cheerios in another store,” she says. “But if you think about produce, the value comes from the ability to consume every last leaf or every last berry in that container. So, even at a cheap price, if a consumer picks up the package and sees moisture or wilted lettuce, price alone is not going to push the sale — especially in the lettuce category.”

Appearance is the number one driver of value, she explains.

“There’s price, and then there’s value. Value means maybe the consumer paid a little bit more for the product, but they ate every single leaf in that container. And 10 days past the date that was on the front of that package, it still looked beautiful in their refrigerator, and they didn’t throw any of it away,” she says. “We are seeking to deliver fantastic value. We might not be the cheapest thing on the shelf, although we want to be accessible with a fair price. But our greatest ambition is that the consumer eats every single leaf in that package, and they love the last leaf just as much as they love the first leaf.”

BrightFarms’ ambition of providing value to the consumer may start at the greenhouse, but retail partnerships play a significant role. BrightFarms sells to major retailers such as Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons and Ahold Delhaize USA.

CEA then and now

The roster of CEA salad growers has drastically changed during the last decade, and Prior has been part of the wins and losses of this industry.

“It became a booming industry early on. People discovered it’s also really challenging. This is an agricultural business. Produce isn’t easy,” she says. “It is capital intensive and asset heavy. Raising money while you’re trying to grow a business and service customers, that’s tough. What we saw 10 years ago were just a few companies in this space. Five or six years ago, there were many companies trying to do this. And after a particularly challenging couple of years for raising capital, we’re back to just a handful of companies that are well-capitalized and successful in the market with both retailers and consumers.

“Now we have a model that is scaling with a few players that are healthy, driving good competition and sharpening each other,” she adds. “I think we are in a phase of bringing more of this product to markets outside the Northeast or the East Coast.”

Prior acknowledges that much of BrightFarms’ growth is due in part to Cox Enterprises, which fully acquired the grower in 2021. Before that, Cox was BrightFarms’ lead investor.

“That has enabled us to scale more rapidly and be even more responsive to our retail partners’ requests,” she says. “Cox is deeply committed to providing healthy food to people and to delivering sustainable businesses that make the planet better over time. They were the dream partner for us when they came on in 2018. We also have the ability to work with other partners within the Cox Farms portfolio, notably Mucci Farms, which is a large grower of vine crops. The ability to strategically work together and align our businesses for the benefit of retailers is something that’s really unique to BrightFarms as an indoor salad company.”

The company’s growth model has been vigorous, but Prior says it’s sensible.

“The demand for this product is there, that all of the signals for our growth are extremely positive. I feel really confident in the future of our sector. I think there are other competitors that are also doing great work, and we’re going to continue to build out a strong sector of greenhouse-grown salads in the U.S.”

This article appeared in the March/April 2025 issue of Produce Grower magazine under the headline "Mission critical."

Kelli Rodda is editorial director of Produce Grower magazine. Contact her at krodda@gie.net.