AeroFarms’ Guy Blanchard discusses company’s outlook at CEA Summit East

In his keynote presentation at the CEA Summit East, AeroFarms President and CFO Guy Blanchard compared the controlled environment agriculture industry to electric cars. 

Blanchard began his presentation detailing the history of electric cars. He noted that, way back in the early 20th century, electric cars were tried out and made their play for their market. However, gas cars won out and electric cars wouldn’t come back until the 1990s, when General Motors led innovations with an electric car. Those innovations helped build the market that exists for consumers today, where Tesla is one of the leading car companies in the world. 

“Everything that exists today is the result of what came before it,” Blanchard said. 

What worked for electric cars, Blanchard said, could work for CEA. Today, with electric cars, the technology exists to give consumers products they want. Technology can also drive that for CEA, he said. 

Blanchard struck an optimistic tone about AeroFarms. He noted the company has exited Chapter 11 Bankruptcy as of Sept. 14 and called the bankruptcy a “reorganization.” 

“The business was sold to investors that were many of our previous investors, giving us an injection of capital that’s allowing us not only to continue, but grow and thrive and scale Danville and bring that to profitability,” Blanchard said. 

“We are out of Chapter 11 today because our partners and sales, our vendors, our employees were amazing,” he said. “No one ran from us. We had people stand by us, partner with us really across the industry. That support is what allowed us to regroup as a company very, very strong and be positioned for this profitable success in the future.” 

AeroFarms will now focus on the company’s Danville farm (which will hit full production capacity in 2024) and making their microgreens production profitable, he said. He talked about how the company is product-focused and that they have seven SKUs in more than 2,000 stores nationwide. He also touted the company’s IP and patents as part of the company’s optimistic outlook. 

“What we have done is focused on having a unique product that consumers want to buy,” he said. 

Blanchard also had high praise for Molly Montgomery, AeroFarms’ acting CEO. 

“Molly brings a wealth of experience,” Blanchard said. “She’s been a public company CEO and she has led and grown and been very successful in fresh produce. She’s very much market commercial focused to bring AeroFarms to being a profitable business with its amazing product.”