BrightFarms plans four regional hubs

Added on 09 June 2023

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COO John Schaefer says the hubs are how the company is scaling up to meet demand from retail partners.

Earlier this year, BrightFarms announced four new regional hubs to that they say will allow them to reach two-thirds of the U.S. population.

The first hub in Yorkville, Illinois (about an hour’s drive from Chicago) is currently under construction. Other hubs in Macon, Georgia and Lorena, Texas will break ground in the summer while the fourth hub will be built at a to-be-determined location in the Northeast.

BrightFarms says the four hubs will combine to add up to 200-acres of growing space and the capacity to grow roughly 150 million pounds of greens per year.

Greens from the new locations will begin shipping in 2024.

In an exclusive interview with Produce Grower, BrightFarms COO John Schaefer discusses the expansion, why the company is focused on leafy greens and more.

Produce Grower: Why build four new hubs and these four hub locations?

John Schaefer: So, there's three reasons why these hubs and these four locations. First, it's really expanded our reach to our consumers. Each greenhouse is near a large population center, which is great. It also allows us to deliver on our vision, which is scale the business, unlock supply to meet the demand we see out there and increase revenue by 10 times. And lastly, we want to invest further in CEA and expand the industry. Our goal is to build a very efficient farm with advanced technology and automation. The four hubs are large and more efficient, which allows us to be sustainable not only in the environment, but also financially. Consumers can afford to buy our product and, at the same time, BrightFarms can still make money and reinvest into our business.

PG: When you say something like 10 times, how do you as a company decide that's a reasonable financial goal?

JS: A few things go into that. First, we look at the supply we can generate out of these larger hubs. So we can look at how many pounds we can actual produce out of these hubs and do so efficiently and what the cost is to produce that pound. And the strategic partnerships we have — Kroger, Walmart, etc. — is to really understand what their needs are in their regions. So we can start to pair up and say 'hey, this is what our customers want and what they need and what they are seeing as the CEA space is growing and what they want to change their produce departments into.' And then we look to facilitate that.