CEA: The great outdoors gives way to the great indoors

Added on 28 April 2022

Tags

CEA: The great outdoors gives way to the great indoors

When you shop at Walmart, Whole Foods and Target, you probably assume the greens you buy are grown on sprawling farms stretching across the great outdoors, that they only reach the indoors when they hit trucks or trains and store shelves.

The reality, however, is that large volumes of greens also are being grown indoors.

CEA, or controlled environmental agriculture, is catching on and coming of age as growing indoors increases in popularity. A recent deal may be the latest sign that indoor farming could have a big future utilizing climate control rather than climate change.

Local Bounti, an indoor agriculture company with proprietary technology, recently reached a deal to acquire Hollandia Produce Group, another indoor agriculture business that operates under the name Pete's, for $122.5 million. It's a big deal for a lot of reasons beyond dollars: it blends tradition and tech, and distribution with research and development. In one fell swoop, the deal will create one of the biggest CEA companies in the nation, and it will put a new face on high-yield, high-tech farming.