As the snow melts, spring buds bloom, and excitement for warmer days hangs in the air, it's a perfect time to cover some timely topics.

Pondering Plenty:  State of Vertical Farming in 2025

Let’s talk about the state of the vertical farming industry in 2025 and cover:

• What happened with the latest vertical farming company to file bankruptcy
• Is venture capital hurting or helping the growth of vertical farming?
• An autopsy on recent bankruptcies
• The sobering truth about what is next and hope for the future

Below is a snippet from the full blog ⬇️

Billion with a B 🗞️
Spring started with U.S. vertical farming company Plenty filing for bankruptcy. The company isn’t shutting its doors completely and will still operate its strawberry farm in Richmond, Virginia, and its plant science R&D facility in Laramie, Wyoming. This bankruptcy could be a transformation for the better. 

Why raise money? 🌎
If you had a giant pot of money, wouldn’t you want to make the world a better place? The problem was not selling the dream for a better future, but expecting a giant return. 

Only 1/10th of investment in climate tech goes toward adaptation. No one wants to invest to prevent the house from burning, until the heat from a burning roof is too much to bear. 

So while investors may be wary about investing in vertical farming after a string of collapses, it should not (and cannot) deter investors from the bigger picture of investing in a more resilient world. 

“Why Billionaires Can’t Make Vertical Farming Work” 🤔
This succinct piece by Henry Gordon-Smith sums up the key causes behind the slew of recent bankruptcies: the tech hype, the worker gap, the fantastical crop promises (square watermelons anyone?) and the trough of disillusionment. 

“They weren’t just growing lettuce—they were pitching indoor watermelon and fruit trees in the early days. Could you technically do it? Sure. Should you? Economically, no way. Not unless you’re farming for headlines instead of harvests.” - Henry Gordon-Smith

This quote pulls back the curtain on what it takes to secure attention and capital from investors. At the end of the day, these autopsies of Plenty reveal that vertical farming is, well, farming. 

What’s next? 🚀

Read the full musings below.

TLDR; Making a better world is filled with contradictions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t get to try to build one. 

Growing wasabi is more perilous now, but indoor farming could preserve this spicy topping for all sushi lovers. 

🍅 In Ontario alone, between March 4 and 7 when initial tariffs were implemented between Canada and the U.S., greenhouse growers reported losses of $2.2 million a day in sales. 

Crises like these call for action that could benefit the entire controlled environment agriculture (CEA) industry. We could see a revision of business risk management programs to include greenhouse growers, emergency funds, or a renewed discussion on preferred energy rates for CEA.

📊 A discussion is brewing on why Canada must treat its food system as a matter of national defence. 

It's about more than "buying local," its about investing in domestic production, processing, and distribution infrastructure. The article also talks about moving away from monoculture and centralized approaches in favour of agroecological approaches and regional networks.

🍣 With the Japanese food boom globally, the demand for wasabi is heating up. This indoor vertical farm raises the Mazuma wasabi species.

The premium for wasabi is not the only reason this idea is taking off. Typhoons damaging agricultural areas for the crop and a lack of farmers with the knowhow to grow it in the fields saw wasabi output "nosedive" by 40 per cent over the last decade. Indoor farming could preserve this spicy topping for all sushi lovers. 

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Stacked will be back again next month. Don't miss us too much or stay busy with our friends at Growcer.

Until next time! 👋