Inside the BrightFarms-Element Farms partnership

Photo courtesy of BrightFarms

In 2023, BrightFarms announced a licensing deal with Element Farms to bring indoor-grown spinach to customers in the Northeast United States. Retailer The Giant Company is the first store to sell the product and will carry it in all 190 stores.

“I’ve always liked what they’ve been doing,” says BrightFarms CFO and EVP Steve Campione. “... We’ve always had a multi-pronged approach to spinach. As we think about our portfolio, spinach has an enormous demand and it’s really hard to grow.”

The spinach will be sold under the BrightFarms brand, joining BrightFarms’ overall line of products that includes Sunny Crunch (a green leaf lettuce), baby romaine, basil and four salad kits.

“We are thrilled to be partnering up with BrightFarms, a company we’ve admired for a long time, on this deal that will expand the reach of our indoor-grown spinach impressively,” said Serdar Mizrakci, CEO of Element Farms. “BrightFarms’ mission is similar to ours and they are just as passionate about sustainability and indoor-grown innovation, which is what is truly going to make this relationship successful long-term.”

Why spinach is important

Campione, says spinach makes up a “large chunk” of the overall greens market. Retailers, he says, are pushing for CEA solutions that will allow for year-round spinach on the shelves. Common issues with indoor spinach production include pythium, root disease and germination issues are among the problems growers say deter them from growing spinach.

A willingness to attack those challenges, Campione says, presents an opportunity.

“No one has proved they can scale [spinach],” he says. “Retailers desperately want a CEA solution. And we’ve always built our business on being a value partner to our distributors. We’re trying to solve their problem. If we solve their problem, we’re a good partner.”

“We are excited to bring more locally grown spinach to our consumers year-round” says Matt Novosel, category manager at The Giant Company, adds. “Spinach is an important part of our salad assortment and the freshness we can deliver with this program is exactly what our consumers want.”

Part of an overall strategy

According to Campione, the deal with Element Farms is one part of the company’s overall spinach play.

“We’re doing this. We’re continuing to invest millions of dollars in R&D around spinach,” he says. “And how we can perfect it. … It’s a multi-pronged approach. Element is in the lead right now in looking at the amount of spinach they plan to grow in the next year. And we like those guys, we believe in them. Their focus and determination in solving this stands out.”

Campione adds that Element Farms grows differently than the way BrightFarms does. It’s another way, he says, of attacking the spinach challenge.

“Element Farms has a proprietary growing system that is fundamentally different from our deep-water culture system,” he says. “... We’ve been testing multiple batches of product over the summer and early fall for consistent quality. Additionally, we have been working with both our own internal food safety team and an independent consultant that will inspect the facility prior to our commercial launch. So far, we are very pleased with the quality and shelf life of the product and the food safety protocols that Element Farms has employed.”