• Bowery Farming, which sells greens and herbs to local restaurants and grocery stores as well as via online channels, announced that it will be launching its vertically produced strawberries at select retailers and restaurants in New York. Plenty, a US hydroponic-based vertical farming company that sells greens and herbs to nearby restaurants and grocery stores as well as online, has also announced plans to open a vertical farm dedicated to strawberries in partnership with Driscoll’s, a leading supplier of berries.

• Bowery Farming will launch its strawberries to consumers at Eataly, an Italian restaurant chain, and Mercado Little Spain, a Spanish food court owned by celebrity chef Jose Andres and the Adria brothers. The company will launch an 8-ounce “duo-pack” that will contain the wild and garden varieties and will be priced at USD 14.99. The company reported that the launch is the first phase of its commercial rollout of strawberries and it plans to scale its production in the future.

• On the other hand, Plenty will reportedly build its first commercial-scale vertical farm outside of California and plans to use it to serve the customers in the northeast US. The new facility is expected to begin operations by early 2023 with plans to sell its strawberries by early 2024. Plenty has already grown strawberries in its R&D center at its Wyoming facility but has not brought them to the market yet.

<ul><li> Analyst QuickTake : With these announcements, the vertical farming space appears to be expanding from leafy greens and herbs to fruits like strawberries. New Jersey-based Oishii has been the standout vertical farming player to focus on producing Japanese strawberries thus far. Bowery Farming appears to have caught up, having launched vertically grown strawberries to the market ahead of the other peers. The company initially announced its intentions to produce fruiting crops when it announced its Series C funding round in May 2021 . The company also acquired Traptic in February 2022 to support its plans to commercialize strawberries. Plenty initially announced its partnership with Driscoll’s in 2020 to grow strawberries using the latter’s technology and expertise but is yet to launch the product commercially.<ul>