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[True Dough]

This message was self-deleted by its author (True Dough) on Sat Mar 7, 2026, 03:52 PM. When the original post in a discussion thread is self-deleted, the entire discussion thread is automatically locked so new replies cannot be posted.

[niyad]

1. THANK YOU!!!

[multigraincracker]

2. Strawberries can be very high in pesticides. This helps.

[PatSeg]

3. Incredible!

[leftstreet]

4. DURec

[summer_in_TX]

5. Very encouraging!

Wow, it reduces both the need for water and for pesticides!

[FakeNoose]

6. It looks like harvesting these berries will be easier and more efficient than the old-fashioned way

[Ol Janx Spirit]

7. Unfortunately they declared bankruptcy, and this technology seems to be really in question.

The company on Sunday sought court protection in Texas listing more than $100 million in assets and liabilities on its Chapter 11 petition. The business comes to bankruptcy with a deal that will explore a sale of Plenty’s assets or an alternative restructuring that would raise additional cash.

Plenty joins other vertical farming companies that have gone bankrupt in recent years as well as a string of agriculture firms that have filed Chapter 11 so-far this year. TreeSap Farms LLC, a tree and plant supplier, sought protection last month followed by soybean seed developer Benson Hill Inc. which filed Chapter 11 last week.

https://www.andnowuknow.com/shop-talk/reports-plenty-unlimited-files-chapter-11-bankruptcy-protection-texas/ryann-howard/96813

From their site:

Through the chapter 11 process, Plenty successfully negotiated the resolution of outstanding claims with its creditors, clearing a path forward for many of them to return to Chester, Virginia, to complete the buildout of growing spaces in Plenty’s strawberry farm.

https://www.plenty.ag/plenty-completes-restructuring-emerges-from-chapter-11/

And, while I am pulling for it, I have to admit that their propaganda reads a little like the description of Jurassic Park:

Every element of the Plenty Richmond Farm–including temperature, light and humidity–is precisely controlled through proprietary software to create the perfect environment for the strawberry plants to thrive. The farm uses AI to analyze more than 10 million data points each day across its 12 grow rooms, adapting each grow room’s environment to the evolving needs of the plants – creating the perfect environment for Driscoll’s proprietary plants to thrive and optimizing the strawberries’ flavor, texture and size. Even pollination has been engineered by Plenty, using a patent-pending method that evenly distributes controlled airflow across the strawberry flowers for more efficient and effective pollination than using bees, supporting more uniform strawberry size and shape.

https://www.plenty.ag/plenty-opens-worlds-first-farm-to-grow-indoor-vertically-farmed-berries-at-scale/

This is also not exactly music to the ears of those who are already concerned about the influence of AI on both our planet and our culture.

I guess we will just have to see where the technology actually goes. I do wonder if they will label the ones grown in these factories so we will know where they came from? I would love to try them.

I also wonder who picks them now....

[True Dough]

9. Oh, darn!

Yes, maybe hope for someone else to pick up the ball and run with it.

[Ol Janx Spirit]

12. It looks like a hard business to be in--not just for them:

Operational Losses and Market Headwinds
Despite raising nearly $1 billion in capital, the Company consistently burned through cash, notably at its unprofitable leafy greens farm in Compton, CA.
The high-profile collapses of industry peers like AeroFarms Inc. and AppHarvest Inc. further chilled investor sentiment, making additional fundraising difficult amid rising interest rates and market volatility.
Liquidity Challenges and Strategic Pivot
Facing declining cash reserves in late 2024, Plenty executed a strategic pivot, exiting the leafy greens market via the closure of its Compton facility and shifting focus to higher-margin strawberries produced at its newly launched Virginia farm.
Funding constraints also forced the Company to halt construction on an expansion phase at the Virginia facility in November 2024, leaving contractors unpaid and leading to mechanic's liens against the property. Key claimants include general contractor Whiting-Turner (asserting ~$20 million) and Electrical Controls & Maintenance (~$7.7 million), among others.

https://bondoro.com/plenty/

I have no idea what the price of strawberries would need to be for this kind of business model to be profitable at scale, but by the time climate change forces traditional farming into that range we may not be able to afford luxuries like strawberries anyway.

I really do hope that isn't the case though. We really need innovation in farming to help us out.

[twodogsbarking]

8. We need more of this for lettuce.

[highplainsdem]

11. That company went bankrupt trying it with lettuce. See reply 10.

[highplainsdem]

10. That company went bankrupt in California trying to grow lettuce that way. Too early to tell if it

will work with strawberries in Virginia.

https://www.comptonchamberofcommerce.org/post/vertical-farming-company-plenty-closing-up-its-compton-farm

A postmortem on what went wrong earlier:

https://professorbalthazar.substack.com/p/plentys-ai-post-mortem-what-went

Jeff Bezos is one of the investors:

https://virginiabusiness.com/company-behind-chesterfield-indoor-farm-files-for-bankruptcy/

Plenty Unlimited, a San Francisco-based agricultural technology company that counts tech billionaires Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt among its investors, has filed for bankruptcy but plans to continue operating its vertical strawberry farm in Chesterfield County throughout the restructuring, according to a company announcement.

“This is a challenging time for the vertical farming industry and Plenty is not immune from those challenges or market dynamics,” Plenty said in a statement to Virginia Business. “After evaluating all of our strategic alternatives, we have determined that pursuing a restructuring process is in the best interests of Plenty and all of our stakeholders. Through this process, Plenty will be better positioned to continue working toward our mission to make fresh food accessible to everyone, starting with the year-round production of premium strawberries in our innovative vertical farm in Virginia.”

[Ol Janx Spirit]

15. It's hard to imagine it will. They burned through almost a billion dollars already and...

...appear to have only secured a tiny fraction of that to move forward out of Chapter 11.

Strawberries may have some pricing and profit advantage over lettuce, but you would imagine they would need a similar amount of investment--maybe more--to really get off the ground with it.

[S/V Loner]

13. I thought that Vance was an investor. It turns out that...

Jeff Bezos is.

[artemisia1]

14. Wow! Just wow. Cynical me is worried that "regulations" pushed by big corporate ag lobbies may kill this incredible

innovation.

[GoneOffShore]

16. I wonder what they taste like. Most likely more straw than berry.