June 24, 2021 • 28 mins
Tom Colicchio and Bowery Farming's Irving Fain discuss the future of the food supply chain. Tom spotlights how the visionary's food company uses indoor farming technologies to grow nutritious food in a water-saving, pesticide-free environment. And they're not just growing food at Bowery Farming, they're also fostering avenues for people across the Northeast region and beyond to access and enjoy an array of tasty biodiversity. Learn more about Bowery at boweryfarming.com/vision.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. Do
you consider yourself a tech company? At this point? We
are very much a technology company, but we are also
very much a food company as well. Incredible robotics, incredible
artificial intelligence are all impressive and amazing to see. But
if the food that we grow isn't equally amazing and incredible,
it doesn't matter. And that's always been important to us
(00:21):
a Bowery from the earliest day. Hello and welcome to
Citizen Chefs. I'm your host, Tom Clichio. So today's guest
is Irving Faint from Bowery Farming. Uh, Irving, welcome to
the Citizen Chef podcast. Thanks so much for having me.
We've been we've been talking about this for a little while,
(00:42):
so it's great to be on with you and finally
making it happen. Yeah, it's just full disclosure for everybody
out there listening, because it is public knowledge of I
was a very early UM adapter and investor in in
in Bowery Farming. So we're gonna we're gonna dig through
this material and uh, like the puns are flying already,
We're gonna dig through the farming. When you work, when
(01:04):
you work in agriculture. You very quickly realize that an
incredible amount of puns somehow go back to growing food
and food in general. Yeah, let's just just jump right
in here. Um, you didn't you didn't grow up farming. Um,
I don't even know gardening. Yeah, and I did grow
I did grow up sort of gardening, not not in
the way that you garden. Right, but you're the gardening right.
(01:25):
But you're not You're you're not a foodie. I would say,
you're You're not someone who came to this because you
had a desire to produce food or anything like that.
I mean, but so, how how did you get your
because I know, prior prior to starting Bowery Farming, you
were kind of a serial entrepreneur. You had done a
few other things. Um, and so so how did you
get into farming? Yeah? So I think if there's one
(01:50):
precursor that's relevant. Yeah, and you and I have talked
about this before, but I think my mother was well
ahead of her time because I remember as a kid,
you know, she was she was she is a fantastic
chaff that she would go search out the farmer's markets
and you know, find the fresh veggies that had higher
antioxidants and would make sure that she was, you know,
(02:10):
going out and searching out the best quality ingredients. And
and she loved to cook, and it was a big
part of her life and therefore our lives. It's we
were really fortunate that we had, you know, incredible access
to great food. So I did have sort of that
formative experience. But as you said, this isn't as if
somebody looked at me and said, oh, of course I
knew you were going to start a food company your
(02:31):
whole life. You grew up where I grew up in
Rhode Island and Providence. Rhode is Providence, So it's a city,
a small city, yeah, And which actually nice about Rhode
Island is it is not a very large state. In
fact that it's the smallest state. And and so in
a pretty short drive you're accessing farms and incredibly incredible
fresh produce. You have enormous access to seafood, you know,
(02:55):
because of all the coast that's in Rhode Island, and
so you short of it in a short distance and
access a lot of really high quality fresh food. So
that that was something I did grow up with surrounded
by that, and I was something my mother prioritized more
than anything from a health and wellness perspective. And you know,
I think she really realized how valuable it was to
cook your own food and and find great ingredients. And
(03:15):
I was fortunate to be able to to grow up
surrounded by that um. But as I said, no one
looked at me and said, we knew you would be
in the agriculture space your whole your whole life. But
what people would say is we we knew you were
going to be building companies, Like being an entrepreneur was
something I always had wanted to do before I even
knew the word existed. If you always knew you wanted
to be an entrepeur, why why did you get an
(03:37):
inclusive to great? How does that fit in here? Well,
it's it's a it's a great question, and I it's
advice I try to give to people who are going
to college. If you have listeners who are who are
younger and thinking about these kinds of decisions earlier in
their life, I think sometimes when you're young, there can
be this incredible weight and import placed on every single
decision you make, as if it will cast the die
(03:58):
for your rest of your life, and I stepped back
and said, you know what, if I'm gonna spend four
years of my life doing something, I want to really
be engaged in love what I'm actually doing. And I
loved reading since I was a really young kid. Being
an English major essentially is about consuming information, consuming material,
understanding what is being said, or drawing a thesis in
(04:19):
terms of what you think somebody is saying, and then
forming an argument about why you think what you think.
That type of analysis and then presentation is in essence
what you do in business. And it doesn't seem like
a straight line, but it's actually much more relevant to them.
Is that the similar talk to you give to whoever
was interviewing you for a job in finance, that is
(04:40):
actually exactly what I said to people have read job
in finance. In fact, that was the exactly So what
was the what was the vision? You're kind of a
visionary here, what what was the vision? Why did you
get into you know, hydroponic farming? You know, for you
weren't the first, there are others before you, um, and
this is kind of how we met from you know,
over the last twenty years as a show a fevery
(05:00):
hydroprodic farm. You know, they come knocking at my door
and I politely decline after I taste what I what
they offer. And you know, Bowery, when I met you,
uh and tasted the food, it was the first time
I really tasted hydroponic food grown indoors that had a
ton of flavor. And so how how did you end
up farming? Yeah? You know, if there is a consistent
(05:24):
through line for me from when I was a young kid,
it is I always believe that technology and innovation could
solve hard problems and important problems. And you know, if
there was something in my last business before Bowery that
that would always sort of stick with me, it was
the business was a great business. It was an interesting company,
(05:45):
and I was incredibly energized by building and creating the
company and the culture all the things you and I
were talking about. But at some point the actual idea
and the concept of what you're building become the most
important thing, you know, because the ultra growth and it's
it's carried forward by many people, like we were saying,
and you have to really be passionate and love the
(06:06):
thing you're actually creating itself. And and I was really
interested in what I did next to be focusing on
a problem that I not only had a personal passion for,
but I thought mattered more broadly to society. That was
solving an important problem. So what is that problem? So
you look at agriculture and the first thing you see
is it's the largest consumer of resources globally by a
(06:26):
wide margin. You know, seventy percent of the world's water
every year goes to agriculture. We put about a billion
pounds of pesticides down each year just in the US alone,
and when you pull that back and look at the globe,
we put six billion pounds of pestic sides down annually
across the world. And so the impact of that, you know,
first of all, it's it's it's destroying the nutrients in
(06:46):
the soil that we rely on to actually grow food,
and it's actually eroding the very top soil that we
also rely on it a rate faster than we can
possibly replenish it. It's in the water supply streams and
lakes and rivers and reservoirs and oceans. And lastly on
the food bating, which is incredibly important our children reating.
We're eating it as well. And and because of the
way we've been farming. You've lost thirty percent of all
(07:07):
of our arable farmland across the world in the last
forty years, and you've got a challenge today with a
system that's already being stretched and strained with the realities
that we face right now. And then you look at
the world with exploding population a need for more food
to feed that population. And then what really drove me
(07:28):
what we're doing at Boweries. All that change is happening
while somewhere between of the world's population in the next
thirty years will be living in and around cities. So
there's a real move towards urbanization. And so I really
became obsessed with the question of how do you get
fresh food to urban environments, and how do you do
it in a way that's both more efficient as well
(07:48):
as more sustainable. Do you consider yourself a tech company
at this point? We are very much a technology company,
but we are also very much a food company as well.
And I actually think that, and you and I've chatted
about this. I think that's gonna become more and more
normal as time moves on and as our food system
is required to evolve, because technology has some really incredible
(08:12):
opportunities and powers to help enhance and evolve our food
system in many ways. And so at some point that
I mean, the technology is absolutely critical to what we
do with Bowery, But as you said, if the food
isn't incredibly delicious and flavorful, it doesn't matter. Then we
spent a lot of time perfecting what we were actually
(08:33):
growing and how it tasted. Because foods so personal, you know,
it is cultural. We feed it to our kids and
our families and our friends and ourselves, and it's an
important moment in all of our lives, ideally every single day,
and so incredible robotics, incredible artificial intelligence are all impressive
and amazing to see. But if the food that we
(08:55):
grow isn't equally amazing and incredible, it doesn't matter. And
that's always an important to us at bower from the
earliest day, right right. So I'll try to explain to
the listeners what I'm looking at. So your background is
the farm um and there is a great um piece
that Eater did a piece on on the and they're
actually in the farm, so you can get a there's
a nice video on this, but I'll try to explain it.
(09:17):
So there's a structure that's behind you, and it's the
how many stories high is this? It's gotta be forty right.
I mean our farms have the ability to vary in size,
but you know they're these are warehouse scale indoor friends.
So you can say you can attest to you it's
sort of towering when you walk. Yeah, it's it's it's
not it's not like anything that you that you you'd
(09:39):
expected to be. UM it is. UM it's number one.
It's it's absolutely spotless. You have to walk in, you
have to put a suit on and it was like
a has a bad suit and you have put booties on. UM,
so you're not bringing anything in from the outside. Um.
It's it's very very clean, and there's a it's like
a superstructure where these bins um that hold all the
(10:02):
produce UM can actually be pulled down off this structure robotically.
So if you have to work on being whatever number
it is, you can dial it up. If the robot
brings it right down in front of you, you can
harvest or you can do whatever you need to do, uh,
you know with that being and send it back up. UM. Also,
all of the nutrients are are fine. Tuned and the lighting,
(10:23):
the led lighting is is this is where I think
that the technology really changed in a big way. Um uh,
where price came down to make it affordable. Um. And
so you're you're creating a full spectrum of light. It's
it's not just yellow light. It's a full spectrum of
light which then you can use and manipulate to actually
create those different flavor profiles. So if you want to
(10:45):
punch up the spiciness of rugula, you can do that. Yep.
And it's interesting because it's we use lights and then
make the spectrum of the sun and so you have
that capacity and and the other part of this is
the taste and flavor of the produced we eat is
the expression of all of the variables that go into
that progress. Right. It's it's the nutrients, it's the water
(11:06):
or the lack of water. It's the light and the
intensity of that light, and the photo periods, how much
day and how much night, all of these components. I mean,
when people talk about taroir in some ways, that's really
what they're talking about. It's a it's a it's a
it's sort of a less romantic way of describing it.
But that is what taroir really is in many respects,
and the microbiome inside of the soil and what we
(11:27):
can do at battery and the technology we've built. Most importantly,
and this is where technology is really important to what
we're doing, is it allows us the capacity to control
all of those different variables, and through the battery operating system,
which is essentially the central nervous system and brains of
our whole operation, we can control those variables and monitor
and understand them at very large scale, but in very
(11:50):
small individual focused uh you know, kind of cropped by
crop levels and and that that that sort of micro
control at a macro scale lets us do some really
exciting and interesting things. We'll be back with more Citizen Chef.
(12:10):
We're back so on the farming side, and I guess
the tech side to um. The seeds that we have
now that are used to produce food outdoors, they typically
don't work. And so talk a bit little bit about
the breeding. Um. You know you're working with with breeders.
I believe you have, you know, a team on staff
that you're working with to come up with varieties that
(12:32):
will work indoor and produce. Uh So, for instance, you
can produce a tomato that actually produces less greenery and
more fruit um and just just by by you know,
finding right seeds to do that. In some ways, you
can almost trace this back. And this is, you know,
what I think is so exciting about what we're doing
here about it is if I go to craft you know,
(12:54):
or any of your restaurants, you know, you're you or
your chefs are maybe going to the Union Square farmers Market,
or or or you have relationships with chefs who are
growing very specific and specialized crops for you and a
small number of people, or in small batches that are
available in only a short period of time. And and
really the reason that you don't get many of these
(13:14):
types of crops and varieties on mass and you hear
these stories about how little biodiversity is out there, is
because what matters in outdoor agriculture is essentially three things.
You have to resist drought on the field. You've got
to resist pests in the field, and then you have
to be able to transport the crop long distances and
over long periods of time, and it needs to show
(13:34):
up and look good and quality, flavor, variety, all those
things go by the wayside, and service of those other
three attributes, and when you look at what we do
at Bowery, we're not impacted by any of those attributes.
Are crops are harvested and delivered within a day or two,
so travel is essentially negligible, and we don't have issues
with pests or withdrought. And so what it this means
(13:57):
first and foremost, even before breeding, is we can work
with global seed companies, which is what we're doing, and
we can look at their seed banks, you know, decades
back for seeds that don't make any sense for outdoor agriculture,
which is really about just scale and cheap food fast,
and we can find exciting varieties, amazing flavors, crops that
you just don't see and taste very frequently. And we
(14:19):
can do and grow those crops reliably consistently all year
round and give access to many more people, uh two
crops that they otherwise we have never experienced. The second
piece of this now is the breeding side. And and
you know this is a chef but people have been
breeding crops for I mean really thousands of years, you know,
(14:41):
I mean it is why agriculture is where it is,
and certainly pretty focused, you know, over decades and decades
of time. And what's pretty powerful about what we can
do here about is that the challenge and breeding is
you're always susceptible to external variables outside. You know, it's
it's extra rainy one year, and so it sort of
throws off your results, or it's much colder and it
throws off results. Are it's too hot, I mean, any
(15:02):
number of problems. There's no there's no such thing in
some ways is perfection. And so you're breeding a seed
for a certain condition which you're probably never going to
replicate against. You do sort of doing the best you
can for the for the mean, if you would. And
in our case, because we have such finite control of
the environment at Bowery every single day, you can breed
crops specifically for what we're doing, for flavor, for taste,
(15:24):
for variables like you were talking about in tomatoes, you know,
less greenery, more fruit, and you can do it much
more quickly and much more effectively because of that control,
as well as through the Bowery Operating System, which is
our proprietary software, hardware, computer vision and AI system, which
is taking in data, analyzing, understanding it, and optimizing it.
(15:44):
So those two components allow us to introduce new crop types,
introduce new seeds, new varieties to people that otherwise you
just don't really get to experience as an average consumer
unless you do go to craft or one of your restaurants.
So currently you're operating two farms that that's correct, and
a thirds about to open. Yes, we have four farms total.
(16:05):
Two of those farms are now R and D. We
just opened a farm called Farm Max, which which you're
sort of alluding to, uh, increases our and D capacity
pre substantially a big focus on breeding new crops. We're
doing a lot in the new outside of Leafy Green
area there um. And then we have two commercial farms
today and our third commercial farm is underway in Bethlehem,
(16:26):
Pennsylvania as we speak. Why did you choose Bethlhane Well,
first and foremost is its ability to help continue to
serve not only the mid Atlantic region where we already
are a bowery, but also the New York tri state
area where we started and where you know, there's just
so much demand and opportunity within New York itself, it's
a huge market. Of course, I think there's also a
(16:48):
really great story around essentially taking non arable land. I mean,
you think about steel manufacturing, you know, it is synonymous
with with beth Land and that industry at this point,
and it is essentially gone from that area. And so
we're going in and we're taking that arable land and
we're making it arable again, and we're creating farmland. But
we're also creating these long term green jobs in this
(17:11):
community to help replace jobs that you know, over the
last decades have gone away and gone overseas and moved
to other places. And so you know, it is there's
a huge density of population surrounding that area that we
can serve and you know, it's a it's a great
community for us to bring the jobs and and access
to food that that pairs well with our farm in
(17:32):
Maryland and our farmer New Jersey. Now, so for the
average person who wants to try a Bowery farmers where
where number? Where where can I find it? Yeah? You know, so,
first of all, we're we're really proud we're not the
largest indoor vertical farming company in the US. We we've
grown over seven hundred and fifty percent since January, and
(17:53):
so we we started January under a hundred retail stores
and we're now in over eight hundred and fifties. You
can find us and Whole Foods or Giant or White
Market or Amazon Fresh. You can find us in Walmart.
I mean, we are in a wide variety of retailers,
and that's important to us because one of the things
(18:15):
we're focused on a Bowery is democratizing access to high
quality fresh food. I mean, we talked earlier about you know,
the experience of finding these incredible crops shouldn't just exist
for the person who has access to the farmer's market
or who can go to one of your restaurants or
other incredible chef's restaurants. You know, the average consumers ability
to to to get access to great produce all year
round is something that's important, and so we're really focused
(18:37):
on how do you expand that access. We are really
at Bowery rebuilding an entire supply chain. It's not we're
not just a farming company. Of course, we are a
farming company, but what we're doing is reinventing the farm
in a manner that allows us to reinvent the supply
chain and reinvented in a way that's much simpler. It's
much safer, it's much more sustainable, and it provides much
(18:59):
more surety of so apply, I mean, do you ever
see yourself at a farmer's market. Farmers markets are great
places for us at Bowery because you know, we are
part of that local and regional food system. And that's
really in many ways where you know, it's the farmer's
arket is a manifestation of the regional food system each area.
You know that you have purveyors of all different types
(19:19):
of products coming together. You know, however many days a
week it would be in in case of New York,
it's it's much more frequent. And we are also a
part of that regional food system, and we really believe
in the importance of local food and the value of
local food, and so I think we'd be proud to
stand alongside all these other local farms in the communities
where we are and sell our product there. So that
(19:41):
that's the one exception I guess to to to the
direct to consumer argument, And it's just you know, if
you're if you're a farm, um, you know, and it
would be very interesting to see, um, you know, when
the reaction from the other local farmers um, and then
the consumer. Well, I think on the consumer side, and
this is important, is there's a there's sometimes a sentiment
(20:04):
that that only a certain demographic or type of person
cares about quality food and what they're eating, and in fact,
that's not true. And and people and I think you
know that very well. You know, people of all you know,
socioeconomic stations in life and in different places around this country,
and all different types of communities and states and cities
care about what they're eating and what they're feeding their kids.
(20:27):
They they many times are not fortunate enough to have
access to quality food. You know, not everybody lives. Just
don't throw away from the Union Square farmers market, green market,
you know, and and can walk there and shop there
every single day. And so the ability and that's why
the retail distribution model for us A Bowery is powerful
because people rely on going to the grocery store and
(20:47):
all types of grocery stores to pick up their food
and many can't go find, you know, the local farmers market.
And and so that's why we really believe in that
distribution model because the type of consumer who's looking for
better quality food grown more sustainably is a lot wider
ranging than I think sometimes people listen you no, I
(21:08):
I agree with that, you know, off topic. There was
a years ago, but my wife was mentoring a young girl,
and um, she was actually part of the reason why
my wife did the film. A place at the table,
and when she would come into our home, she wanted
salot because where she was shopping she couldn't get a
lot of fresh produce and and so but that's what
she every time she came in, that's what she wanted.
(21:29):
She wanted to out, she wanted fresh vegetables. And so
you're absolutely right. And when when it's available to to everyone,
people wanted. You know, I'm sitting here thinking, um, it
would be great to see a Bowery salad bar in
public at schools, in the school cafeteria because a lot
of school cafetiers now have salad bars, and it would
be cool to have a Bowery sponsored salad bar in
a public school. I think I'm gonna push, We're gonna
(21:49):
do that. Listen, We're we're so. One of the programs
that we're closely involved with is with DC Central Kitchen,
you know, tied into Chef Andre's uh d on in
the d C in Maryland, area, and what they have
a program called Healthy Corners, and what they actually do
is they put refrigerators in these bodegas and corner stores
in you you probably know about this in communities that
(22:11):
aren't close to grocery stores right now. And and we
sell our products in through the that network and in
all those different bodegos and stores so that people can
have access to great produce and don't have to get
on a bus or get in a car or travel
very long distances, which is oftentimes prohibitive for them to
actually find good food. The other thing that's important here,
(22:33):
and it ties right back to where where this all
started with you and I, is taste. And there there's
this aspect of eating vegetables which historically has felt like
a responsibility or at chore right. It's like, I've got
to eat vegetables because they're better for you, but I
don't want to. They don't partically taste good and particularly
like them. That The great example I always give is
(22:55):
actually our kale at ballery, where you find telling people
and then like, yeah, I eat kale, but it's kind
of chalk gay. I don't really like it. It's bitter,
it's not it's not very delicious, but I'm kind of
supposed to eat it. And people try our kale and
their their their eyes like like wow, like this is sweet.
This is different than anything I've ever had. And so
there's a part of this as well. When you bring
out flavor and taste that really is poignant and vibrant.
(23:19):
Whether it's young kids in school or even adults, people
will change their relationship with fresh produce, change their relationship
with salads. I mean, you think about those incredible tomatoes
that you have very very small amounts of time per year,
and you imagine being able to have access to tomatoes
that tasted like that all the time. I mean, it
would change your desire to eat fresh food, eat better
(23:42):
food for you. And that's a big thrust of what
we're doing here as well. About going back to the bodegos.
I believe in the last Farm Bill there was a
program that bodegas could actually get grants for refrigeration so
they can get first fresh fruits and vegetables into what's
(24:05):
called food deserts now really called food apartheid areas. So yeah,
are speaking of the Farm Bill, are there other legislatively, um,
do you see anything in the Farm Bill for a
battery farming. You know, I think, what's There's a lot
happening obviously right now, you know, just legislation in DC
in general. Uh. You know, I would first of all
(24:25):
say there is focus increasingly on urban agriculture in general
from the U. S d A, which is which is
a real positive. And even since we started bowering, we've
seen an evolution to this sort of being a local
issue that that some local politicians cared about and many
just didn't really pay much attention to, to now an
(24:46):
issue that's starting to take more important at the center,
you know, at the national level. And so I think
what I would expect to see as we move into
the next Farm Bill is increasing consideration for end or
agriculture and cont old environmental agriculture overall, because we are
becoming as an industry a much more important part of
(25:07):
the agricultural system overall. But secondly, I mean we look
at what is happening on the in the West room.
I mean some people are saying this is the worst
drought we've seen in a thousand years. Yeah, and we're
seeing this right now. And now we're seeing with the
droughts right now I actually think that, um, this uh,
if this is is you know, continue on a long
term basis, this could really put a lot of our
(25:28):
food supplied jeopardy, especially everything that's grown in California. And
so this, this is a real solution to that. And
you have farmers in California who are living with no
water in some cases or ten percent of what they
usually use. And you know, I saw a recent staff
that says something like half a million acres this year
may have to just lay follow completely planted because you
(25:49):
just don't have the resources. And farmers are selling off cattle.
They can't they can't feed them anymore, they can't wear
them anymore. So that's to sell them off. And that's
what people sometimes forget as well about the agricultural system,
which is it's not just about what you grow. It's
for human consumption. It's when you have cattle and dairy cattle,
you need to grow a lot to feed the cows
(26:10):
to feed, need cattle to feed there and so it
really is intertwined system. And so when people I think when,
when when the legislators and when in d C they're
looking at what resiliency in our agricultural system is going
to look like in this next decade, it's impossible to
ignore that the indoor agriculture component of this system is
(26:31):
going to become increasingly right, and you're not looking, you're
not looking to replace outdoor farming. But no, this is
not a zero sum game. It never is, right, there's
there's never only one answer and nothing else. And and
this becomes a part of the system and not the
only system. There are some crops that are grown really
well outside and they'll continue to be grown really well
outside for a long time coming. There are many crops
(26:51):
that ultimately we will just be more efficient and more
sustainable at producing. Yeah. I don't see any corn stalks
in that in that farming yours anytime soon. That's not
where focus is right now. Let's say that. Yeah, yeah,
all right, we'll leave it at that. Thanks a lot, um,
this is It's been a great conversation. Hey, I really
appreciate having me and uh, you know, I think I
would also say congratulations. I mean, I knew you were
(27:13):
heavily involved in a lot of work that happened in
the Restaurant Act and and a lot of the the
innovation that happened there over the course of the last
six to twelve months. And I think people may not
know how how intimately you involved you were in pushing
all that forward, but you have been a fierce advocate
for the food system overall for a long time. Oh thanks,
thank you. Citizen Chef was executive produced by Christopher Hasciotas
(27:40):
and produced by Gabriel Collins. Our researcher and writer is
Lillian Holman, and it is always a very special thank
you to a place at the table. Citizen Chef is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app. Apple
podcasts are anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Eight
Citizen Chef is a production of I Heart Radio. Do
you consider yourself a tech company? At this point? We
are very much a technology company, but we are also
very much a food company as well. Incredible robotics, incredible
artificial intelligence are all impressive and amazing to see. But
if the food that we grow isn't equally amazing and incredible,
it doesn't matter. And that's always been important to us
(00:21):
a Bowery from the earliest day. Hello and welcome to
Citizen Chefs. I'm your host, Tom Clichio. So today's guest
is Irving Faint from Bowery Farming. Uh, Irving, welcome to
the Citizen Chef podcast. Thanks so much for having me.
We've been we've been talking about this for a little while,
(00:42):
so it's great to be on with you and finally
making it happen. Yeah, it's just full disclosure for everybody
out there listening, because it is public knowledge of I
was a very early UM adapter and investor in in
in Bowery Farming. So we're gonna we're gonna dig through
this material and uh, like the puns are flying already,
We're gonna dig through the farming. When you work, when
(01:04):
you work in agriculture. You very quickly realize that an
incredible amount of puns somehow go back to growing food
and food in general. Yeah, let's just just jump right
in here. Um, you didn't you didn't grow up farming. Um,
I don't even know gardening. Yeah, and I did grow
I did grow up sort of gardening, not not in
the way that you garden. Right, but you're the gardening right.
(01:25):
But you're not You're you're not a foodie. I would say,
you're You're not someone who came to this because you
had a desire to produce food or anything like that.
I mean, but so, how how did you get your
because I know, prior prior to starting Bowery Farming, you
were kind of a serial entrepreneur. You had done a
few other things. Um, and so so how did you
get into farming? Yeah? So I think if there's one
(01:50):
precursor that's relevant. Yeah, and you and I have talked
about this before, but I think my mother was well
ahead of her time because I remember as a kid,
you know, she was she was she is a fantastic
chaff that she would go search out the farmer's markets
and you know, find the fresh veggies that had higher
antioxidants and would make sure that she was, you know,
(02:10):
going out and searching out the best quality ingredients. And
and she loved to cook, and it was a big
part of her life and therefore our lives. It's we
were really fortunate that we had, you know, incredible access
to great food. So I did have sort of that
formative experience. But as you said, this isn't as if
somebody looked at me and said, oh, of course I
knew you were going to start a food company your
(02:31):
whole life. You grew up where I grew up in
Rhode Island and Providence. Rhode is Providence, So it's a city,
a small city, yeah, And which actually nice about Rhode
Island is it is not a very large state. In
fact that it's the smallest state. And and so in
a pretty short drive you're accessing farms and incredibly incredible
fresh produce. You have enormous access to seafood, you know,
(02:55):
because of all the coast that's in Rhode Island, and
so you short of it in a short distance and
access a lot of really high quality fresh food. So
that that was something I did grow up with surrounded
by that, and I was something my mother prioritized more
than anything from a health and wellness perspective. And you know,
I think she really realized how valuable it was to
cook your own food and and find great ingredients. And
(03:15):
I was fortunate to be able to to grow up
surrounded by that um. But as I said, no one
looked at me and said, we knew you would be
in the agriculture space your whole your whole life. But
what people would say is we we knew you were
going to be building companies, Like being an entrepreneur was
something I always had wanted to do before I even
knew the word existed. If you always knew you wanted
to be an entrepeur, why why did you get an
(03:37):
inclusive to great? How does that fit in here? Well,
it's it's a it's a great question, and I it's
advice I try to give to people who are going
to college. If you have listeners who are who are
younger and thinking about these kinds of decisions earlier in
their life, I think sometimes when you're young, there can
be this incredible weight and import placed on every single
decision you make, as if it will cast the die
(03:58):
for your rest of your life, and I stepped back
and said, you know what, if I'm gonna spend four
years of my life doing something, I want to really
be engaged in love what I'm actually doing. And I
loved reading since I was a really young kid. Being
an English major essentially is about consuming information, consuming material,
understanding what is being said, or drawing a thesis in
(04:19):
terms of what you think somebody is saying, and then
forming an argument about why you think what you think.
That type of analysis and then presentation is in essence
what you do in business. And it doesn't seem like
a straight line, but it's actually much more relevant to them.
Is that the similar talk to you give to whoever
was interviewing you for a job in finance, that is
(04:40):
actually exactly what I said to people have read job
in finance. In fact, that was the exactly So what
was the what was the vision? You're kind of a
visionary here, what what was the vision? Why did you
get into you know, hydroponic farming? You know, for you
weren't the first, there are others before you, um, and
this is kind of how we met from you know,
over the last twenty years as a show a fevery
(05:00):
hydroprodic farm. You know, they come knocking at my door
and I politely decline after I taste what I what
they offer. And you know, Bowery, when I met you,
uh and tasted the food, it was the first time
I really tasted hydroponic food grown indoors that had a
ton of flavor. And so how how did you end
up farming? Yeah? You know, if there is a consistent
(05:24):
through line for me from when I was a young kid,
it is I always believe that technology and innovation could
solve hard problems and important problems. And you know, if
there was something in my last business before Bowery that
that would always sort of stick with me, it was
the business was a great business. It was an interesting company,
(05:45):
and I was incredibly energized by building and creating the
company and the culture all the things you and I
were talking about. But at some point the actual idea
and the concept of what you're building become the most
important thing, you know, because the ultra growth and it's
it's carried forward by many people, like we were saying,
and you have to really be passionate and love the
(06:06):
thing you're actually creating itself. And and I was really
interested in what I did next to be focusing on
a problem that I not only had a personal passion for,
but I thought mattered more broadly to society. That was
solving an important problem. So what is that problem? So
you look at agriculture and the first thing you see
is it's the largest consumer of resources globally by a
(06:26):
wide margin. You know, seventy percent of the world's water
every year goes to agriculture. We put about a billion
pounds of pesticides down each year just in the US alone,
and when you pull that back and look at the globe,
we put six billion pounds of pestic sides down annually
across the world. And so the impact of that, you know,
first of all, it's it's it's destroying the nutrients in
(06:46):
the soil that we rely on to actually grow food,
and it's actually eroding the very top soil that we
also rely on it a rate faster than we can
possibly replenish it. It's in the water supply streams and
lakes and rivers and reservoirs and oceans. And lastly on
the food bating, which is incredibly important our children reating.
We're eating it as well. And and because of the
way we've been farming. You've lost thirty percent of all
(07:07):
of our arable farmland across the world in the last
forty years, and you've got a challenge today with a
system that's already being stretched and strained with the realities
that we face right now. And then you look at
the world with exploding population a need for more food
to feed that population. And then what really drove me
(07:28):
what we're doing at Boweries. All that change is happening
while somewhere between of the world's population in the next
thirty years will be living in and around cities. So
there's a real move towards urbanization. And so I really
became obsessed with the question of how do you get
fresh food to urban environments, and how do you do
it in a way that's both more efficient as well
(07:48):
as more sustainable. Do you consider yourself a tech company
at this point? We are very much a technology company,
but we are also very much a food company as well.
And I actually think that, and you and I've chatted
about this. I think that's gonna become more and more
normal as time moves on and as our food system
is required to evolve, because technology has some really incredible
(08:12):
opportunities and powers to help enhance and evolve our food
system in many ways. And so at some point that
I mean, the technology is absolutely critical to what we
do with Bowery, But as you said, if the food
isn't incredibly delicious and flavorful, it doesn't matter. Then we
spent a lot of time perfecting what we were actually
(08:33):
growing and how it tasted. Because foods so personal, you know,
it is cultural. We feed it to our kids and
our families and our friends and ourselves, and it's an
important moment in all of our lives, ideally every single day,
and so incredible robotics, incredible artificial intelligence are all impressive
and amazing to see. But if the food that we
(08:55):
grow isn't equally amazing and incredible, it doesn't matter. And
that's always an important to us at bower from the
earliest day, right right. So I'll try to explain to
the listeners what I'm looking at. So your background is
the farm um and there is a great um piece
that Eater did a piece on on the and they're
actually in the farm, so you can get a there's
a nice video on this, but I'll try to explain it.
(09:17):
So there's a structure that's behind you, and it's the
how many stories high is this? It's gotta be forty right.
I mean our farms have the ability to vary in size,
but you know they're these are warehouse scale indoor friends.
So you can say you can attest to you it's
sort of towering when you walk. Yeah, it's it's it's
not it's not like anything that you that you you'd
(09:39):
expected to be. UM it is. UM it's number one.
It's it's absolutely spotless. You have to walk in, you
have to put a suit on and it was like
a has a bad suit and you have put booties on. UM,
so you're not bringing anything in from the outside. Um.
It's it's very very clean, and there's a it's like
a superstructure where these bins um that hold all the
(10:02):
produce UM can actually be pulled down off this structure robotically.
So if you have to work on being whatever number
it is, you can dial it up. If the robot
brings it right down in front of you, you can
harvest or you can do whatever you need to do, uh,
you know with that being and send it back up. UM. Also,
all of the nutrients are are fine. Tuned and the lighting,
(10:23):
the led lighting is is this is where I think
that the technology really changed in a big way. Um uh,
where price came down to make it affordable. Um. And
so you're you're creating a full spectrum of light. It's
it's not just yellow light. It's a full spectrum of
light which then you can use and manipulate to actually
create those different flavor profiles. So if you want to
(10:45):
punch up the spiciness of rugula, you can do that. Yep.
And it's interesting because it's we use lights and then
make the spectrum of the sun and so you have
that capacity and and the other part of this is
the taste and flavor of the produced we eat is
the expression of all of the variables that go into
that progress. Right. It's it's the nutrients, it's the water
(11:06):
or the lack of water. It's the light and the
intensity of that light, and the photo periods, how much
day and how much night, all of these components. I mean,
when people talk about taroir in some ways, that's really
what they're talking about. It's a it's a it's a
it's sort of a less romantic way of describing it.
But that is what taroir really is in many respects,
and the microbiome inside of the soil and what we
(11:27):
can do at battery and the technology we've built. Most importantly,
and this is where technology is really important to what
we're doing, is it allows us the capacity to control
all of those different variables, and through the battery operating system,
which is essentially the central nervous system and brains of
our whole operation, we can control those variables and monitor
and understand them at very large scale, but in very
(11:50):
small individual focused uh you know, kind of cropped by
crop levels and and that that that sort of micro
control at a macro scale lets us do some really
exciting and interesting things. We'll be back with more Citizen Chef.
(12:10):
We're back so on the farming side, and I guess
the tech side to um. The seeds that we have
now that are used to produce food outdoors, they typically
don't work. And so talk a bit little bit about
the breeding. Um. You know you're working with with breeders.
I believe you have, you know, a team on staff
that you're working with to come up with varieties that
(12:32):
will work indoor and produce. Uh So, for instance, you
can produce a tomato that actually produces less greenery and
more fruit um and just just by by you know,
finding right seeds to do that. In some ways, you
can almost trace this back. And this is, you know,
what I think is so exciting about what we're doing
here about it is if I go to craft you know,
(12:54):
or any of your restaurants, you know, you're you or
your chefs are maybe going to the Union Square farmers Market,
or or or you have relationships with chefs who are
growing very specific and specialized crops for you and a
small number of people, or in small batches that are
available in only a short period of time. And and
really the reason that you don't get many of these
(13:14):
types of crops and varieties on mass and you hear
these stories about how little biodiversity is out there, is
because what matters in outdoor agriculture is essentially three things.
You have to resist drought on the field. You've got
to resist pests in the field, and then you have
to be able to transport the crop long distances and
over long periods of time, and it needs to show
(13:34):
up and look good and quality, flavor, variety, all those
things go by the wayside, and service of those other
three attributes, and when you look at what we do
at Bowery, we're not impacted by any of those attributes.
Are crops are harvested and delivered within a day or two,
so travel is essentially negligible, and we don't have issues
with pests or withdrought. And so what it this means
(13:57):
first and foremost, even before breeding, is we can work
with global seed companies, which is what we're doing, and
we can look at their seed banks, you know, decades
back for seeds that don't make any sense for outdoor agriculture,
which is really about just scale and cheap food fast,
and we can find exciting varieties, amazing flavors, crops that
you just don't see and taste very frequently. And we
(14:19):
can do and grow those crops reliably consistently all year
round and give access to many more people, uh two
crops that they otherwise we have never experienced. The second
piece of this now is the breeding side. And and
you know this is a chef but people have been
breeding crops for I mean really thousands of years, you know,
(14:41):
I mean it is why agriculture is where it is,
and certainly pretty focused, you know, over decades and decades
of time. And what's pretty powerful about what we can
do here about is that the challenge and breeding is
you're always susceptible to external variables outside. You know, it's
it's extra rainy one year, and so it sort of
throws off your results, or it's much colder and it
throws off results. Are it's too hot, I mean, any
(15:02):
number of problems. There's no there's no such thing in
some ways is perfection. And so you're breeding a seed
for a certain condition which you're probably never going to
replicate against. You do sort of doing the best you
can for the for the mean, if you would. And
in our case, because we have such finite control of
the environment at Bowery every single day, you can breed
crops specifically for what we're doing, for flavor, for taste,
(15:24):
for variables like you were talking about in tomatoes, you know,
less greenery, more fruit, and you can do it much
more quickly and much more effectively because of that control,
as well as through the Bowery Operating System, which is
our proprietary software, hardware, computer vision and AI system, which
is taking in data, analyzing, understanding it, and optimizing it.
(15:44):
So those two components allow us to introduce new crop types,
introduce new seeds, new varieties to people that otherwise you
just don't really get to experience as an average consumer
unless you do go to craft or one of your restaurants.
So currently you're operating two farms that that's correct, and
a thirds about to open. Yes, we have four farms total.
(16:05):
Two of those farms are now R and D. We
just opened a farm called Farm Max, which which you're
sort of alluding to, uh, increases our and D capacity
pre substantially a big focus on breeding new crops. We're
doing a lot in the new outside of Leafy Green
area there um. And then we have two commercial farms
today and our third commercial farm is underway in Bethlehem,
(16:26):
Pennsylvania as we speak. Why did you choose Bethlhane Well,
first and foremost is its ability to help continue to
serve not only the mid Atlantic region where we already
are a bowery, but also the New York tri state
area where we started and where you know, there's just
so much demand and opportunity within New York itself, it's
a huge market. Of course, I think there's also a
(16:48):
really great story around essentially taking non arable land. I mean,
you think about steel manufacturing, you know, it is synonymous
with with beth Land and that industry at this point,
and it is essentially gone from that area. And so
we're going in and we're taking that arable land and
we're making it arable again, and we're creating farmland. But
we're also creating these long term green jobs in this
(17:11):
community to help replace jobs that you know, over the
last decades have gone away and gone overseas and moved
to other places. And so you know, it is there's
a huge density of population surrounding that area that we
can serve and you know, it's a it's a great
community for us to bring the jobs and and access
to food that that pairs well with our farm in
(17:32):
Maryland and our farmer New Jersey. Now, so for the
average person who wants to try a Bowery farmers where
where number? Where where can I find it? Yeah? You know, so,
first of all, we're we're really proud we're not the
largest indoor vertical farming company in the US. We we've
grown over seven hundred and fifty percent since January, and
(17:53):
so we we started January under a hundred retail stores
and we're now in over eight hundred and fifties. You
can find us and Whole Foods or Giant or White
Market or Amazon Fresh. You can find us in Walmart.
I mean, we are in a wide variety of retailers,
and that's important to us because one of the things
(18:15):
we're focused on a Bowery is democratizing access to high
quality fresh food. I mean, we talked earlier about you know,
the experience of finding these incredible crops shouldn't just exist
for the person who has access to the farmer's market
or who can go to one of your restaurants or
other incredible chef's restaurants. You know, the average consumers ability
to to to get access to great produce all year
round is something that's important, and so we're really focused
(18:37):
on how do you expand that access. We are really
at Bowery rebuilding an entire supply chain. It's not we're
not just a farming company. Of course, we are a
farming company, but what we're doing is reinventing the farm
in a manner that allows us to reinvent the supply
chain and reinvented in a way that's much simpler. It's
much safer, it's much more sustainable, and it provides much
(18:59):
more surety of so apply, I mean, do you ever
see yourself at a farmer's market. Farmers markets are great
places for us at Bowery because you know, we are
part of that local and regional food system. And that's
really in many ways where you know, it's the farmer's
arket is a manifestation of the regional food system each area.
You know that you have purveyors of all different types
(19:19):
of products coming together. You know, however many days a
week it would be in in case of New York,
it's it's much more frequent. And we are also a
part of that regional food system, and we really believe
in the importance of local food and the value of
local food, and so I think we'd be proud to
stand alongside all these other local farms in the communities
where we are and sell our product there. So that
(19:41):
that's the one exception I guess to to to the
direct to consumer argument, And it's just you know, if
you're if you're a farm, um, you know, and it
would be very interesting to see, um, you know, when
the reaction from the other local farmers um, and then
the consumer. Well, I think on the consumer side, and
this is important, is there's a there's sometimes a sentiment
(20:04):
that that only a certain demographic or type of person
cares about quality food and what they're eating, and in fact,
that's not true. And and people and I think you
know that very well. You know, people of all you know,
socioeconomic stations in life and in different places around this country,
and all different types of communities and states and cities
care about what they're eating and what they're feeding their kids.
(20:27):
They they many times are not fortunate enough to have
access to quality food. You know, not everybody lives. Just
don't throw away from the Union Square farmers market, green market,
you know, and and can walk there and shop there
every single day. And so the ability and that's why
the retail distribution model for us A Bowery is powerful
because people rely on going to the grocery store and
(20:47):
all types of grocery stores to pick up their food
and many can't go find, you know, the local farmers market.
And and so that's why we really believe in that
distribution model because the type of consumer who's looking for
better quality food grown more sustainably is a lot wider
ranging than I think sometimes people listen you no, I
(21:08):
I agree with that, you know, off topic. There was
a years ago, but my wife was mentoring a young girl,
and um, she was actually part of the reason why
my wife did the film. A place at the table,
and when she would come into our home, she wanted
salot because where she was shopping she couldn't get a
lot of fresh produce and and so but that's what
she every time she came in, that's what she wanted.
(21:29):
She wanted to out, she wanted fresh vegetables. And so
you're absolutely right. And when when it's available to to everyone,
people wanted. You know, I'm sitting here thinking, um, it
would be great to see a Bowery salad bar in
public at schools, in the school cafeteria because a lot
of school cafetiers now have salad bars, and it would
be cool to have a Bowery sponsored salad bar in
a public school. I think I'm gonna push, We're gonna
(21:49):
do that. Listen, We're we're so. One of the programs
that we're closely involved with is with DC Central Kitchen,
you know, tied into Chef Andre's uh d on in
the d C in Maryland, area, and what they have
a program called Healthy Corners, and what they actually do
is they put refrigerators in these bodegas and corner stores
in you you probably know about this in communities that
(22:11):
aren't close to grocery stores right now. And and we
sell our products in through the that network and in
all those different bodegos and stores so that people can
have access to great produce and don't have to get
on a bus or get in a car or travel
very long distances, which is oftentimes prohibitive for them to
actually find good food. The other thing that's important here,
(22:33):
and it ties right back to where where this all
started with you and I, is taste. And there there's
this aspect of eating vegetables which historically has felt like
a responsibility or at chore right. It's like, I've got
to eat vegetables because they're better for you, but I
don't want to. They don't partically taste good and particularly
like them. That The great example I always give is
(22:55):
actually our kale at ballery, where you find telling people
and then like, yeah, I eat kale, but it's kind
of chalk gay. I don't really like it. It's bitter,
it's not it's not very delicious, but I'm kind of
supposed to eat it. And people try our kale and
their their their eyes like like wow, like this is sweet.
This is different than anything I've ever had. And so
there's a part of this as well. When you bring
out flavor and taste that really is poignant and vibrant.
(23:19):
Whether it's young kids in school or even adults, people
will change their relationship with fresh produce, change their relationship
with salads. I mean, you think about those incredible tomatoes
that you have very very small amounts of time per year,
and you imagine being able to have access to tomatoes
that tasted like that all the time. I mean, it
would change your desire to eat fresh food, eat better
(23:42):
food for you. And that's a big thrust of what
we're doing here as well. About going back to the bodegos.
I believe in the last Farm Bill there was a
program that bodegas could actually get grants for refrigeration so
they can get first fresh fruits and vegetables into what's
(24:05):
called food deserts now really called food apartheid areas. So yeah,
are speaking of the Farm Bill, are there other legislatively, um,
do you see anything in the Farm Bill for a
battery farming. You know, I think, what's There's a lot
happening obviously right now, you know, just legislation in DC
in general. Uh. You know, I would first of all
(24:25):
say there is focus increasingly on urban agriculture in general
from the U. S d A, which is which is
a real positive. And even since we started bowering, we've
seen an evolution to this sort of being a local
issue that that some local politicians cared about and many
just didn't really pay much attention to, to now an
(24:46):
issue that's starting to take more important at the center,
you know, at the national level. And so I think
what I would expect to see as we move into
the next Farm Bill is increasing consideration for end or
agriculture and cont old environmental agriculture overall, because we are
becoming as an industry a much more important part of
(25:07):
the agricultural system overall. But secondly, I mean we look
at what is happening on the in the West room.
I mean some people are saying this is the worst
drought we've seen in a thousand years. Yeah, and we're
seeing this right now. And now we're seeing with the
droughts right now I actually think that, um, this uh,
if this is is you know, continue on a long
term basis, this could really put a lot of our
(25:28):
food supplied jeopardy, especially everything that's grown in California. And
so this, this is a real solution to that. And
you have farmers in California who are living with no
water in some cases or ten percent of what they
usually use. And you know, I saw a recent staff
that says something like half a million acres this year
may have to just lay follow completely planted because you
(25:49):
just don't have the resources. And farmers are selling off cattle.
They can't they can't feed them anymore, they can't wear
them anymore. So that's to sell them off. And that's
what people sometimes forget as well about the agricultural system,
which is it's not just about what you grow. It's
for human consumption. It's when you have cattle and dairy cattle,
you need to grow a lot to feed the cows
(26:10):
to feed, need cattle to feed there and so it
really is intertwined system. And so when people I think when,
when when the legislators and when in d C they're
looking at what resiliency in our agricultural system is going
to look like in this next decade, it's impossible to
ignore that the indoor agriculture component of this system is
(26:31):
going to become increasingly right, and you're not looking, you're
not looking to replace outdoor farming. But no, this is
not a zero sum game. It never is, right, there's
there's never only one answer and nothing else. And and
this becomes a part of the system and not the
only system. There are some crops that are grown really
well outside and they'll continue to be grown really well
outside for a long time coming. There are many crops
(26:51):
that ultimately we will just be more efficient and more
sustainable at producing. Yeah. I don't see any corn stalks
in that in that farming yours anytime soon. That's not
where focus is right now. Let's say that. Yeah, yeah,
all right, we'll leave it at that. Thanks a lot, um,
this is It's been a great conversation. Hey, I really
appreciate having me and uh, you know, I think I
would also say congratulations. I mean, I knew you were
(27:13):
heavily involved in a lot of work that happened in
the Restaurant Act and and a lot of the the
innovation that happened there over the course of the last
six to twelve months. And I think people may not
know how how intimately you involved you were in pushing
all that forward, but you have been a fierce advocate
for the food system overall for a long time. Oh thanks,
thank you. Citizen Chef was executive produced by Christopher Hasciotas
(27:40):
and produced by Gabriel Collins. Our researcher and writer is
Lillian Holman, and it is always a very special thank
you to a place at the table. Citizen Chef is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app. Apple
podcasts are anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Eight
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