Local Roots Farms is growing.
The indoor farming company in Vernon is set to close a $10.5 million funding round from investors next month, expand its operations and grow its payroll by six-fold, to 180 or so over the course of next year, said Eric Ellestad, cofounder and chief executive.
Local Roots designs, builds, and operates indoor growing centers, called “TerraFarms,” made from 40-foot-long shipping containers. They’re intended to grow crops year-round, according to Ellestad, who said that one TerraFarm unit can produce the same amount of produce as five acres of agricultural land.
The shipping containers-turned-urban farms are insulated, climate controlled, and have recirculating hydroponic watering systems that use far less water than outdoor farming, according to the company’s website. Local Roots develops its own LED lighting system for use atop the vertical farming beds.
The company was founded in 2013 and calls itself an agriculture business that offers its produce – not its technology or containers – for sale.
It recently raised $10.5 million to date from Jerome Metivier, managing director, PepsiCo Venturing Group, and Chicago, Ill.-based Sequel Capital Management, an investment firm, among others, the company said.
The round is expected to close early 2018, and help fund the manufacturing expansion, adding an additional 165,000-square-foot of space near its existing 10,000-square-foot facility on Hampton Street.
“We plan on bringing on board a significant number of people, plant scientists, horticulturalist, engineers, and a whole host of other software and hardware-related jobs,” said Matt Vail, cofounder and chief operations officer. “We’re in the midst of an aggressive hiring push.”
The company has built five TerraFarms so far, and plans to increase that number to 100 in 2018, with planned production for the expansion to start next month. “We’ve been designing and working on our Terrafarm technology which allows us to grow food 365-days a year, anywhere in the world,” Ellestad said.
A single TerraFarm container harvests about 4,000 heads of lettuce every 10 to 12 days, Ellestad said. Conventional outdoor farming typically takes 60 to 70 days and can be delayed by weather conditions.
Another advantage claimed by Ellestad is a matter of logistics.
“The average produce travels 2,000 miles and takes two weeks to reach supermarket shelves,” Ellestad said.
TerraFarm’s containers can be set up close to its target markets, he says. Current crops travel less than 50 miles to a number of Los Angeles-area locations of chain restaurants, including TYP Restaurant Group Inc.’s Tender Green and Mendocino Farms Inc. Other customers include wholesale produce distributor LA & SF Specialty., and corporate clients such as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or Space X.
The company has an eye on some East Coast markets for its expansion, and also has been selected by the UN World Food Programme to field test its TerraFarms as part of emergency operations, the company announced this month.
