I think of climate change
solutions as living known spectrum. And on 1
spectrum is the mitigation side of things. So
just purely how can we reduce,
you know, carbon emissions, methane emissions.
On the other side of the climate spectrum,
I think of it is the adaptation side,
which is
solutions that... Okay. Like, we accept that this
is gonna happen to some degree, but we
also know,
optimistic. The humans will adapt and live in
the world as it changes.
That is Jake Fe of free farms. We
you visited us on farm to table talk
in 2022.
Since, we have been covering a spectrum of
options facing our food system.
This a good time to
where controlled environment agriculture may fit in that
spectrum of farming futures.
It's time for
conversations about our food and how it's grown
on arm to table talk with your host,
Roger Was.
Well there's a lot of people you can
go out and ask what do we need
in the world? What do we need in
the country and They'll say we need farms.
And there seems to be a shortage, maybe
shortage of farmers. There's a lot of people
that want a farm.
A lot of people that feel like they
need more farms. So people that are concerned
about
local food production that could they get more
just produced locally?
Well, there's a lot of obstacles to that.
And my guest today as,
involved with a project that it's... I think,
pretty unique in that regard,
And I wanna welcome Jake Fe with freight
farms. Hey, Jake, Welcome to Farmer Table talk.
Thanks for having me.
Hey, Jake. I wonder if you've ever been
someplace where they're saying, gee, I wish we
could farm,
and you're tempted to jump in and say,
well,
we might be able to help you out
with that.
I mean, I think all the time,
you know, you see this all around you
really, and
1 of the things that was very interesting
about the pandemic, I think, and especially the
early stages of the pandemic was that a
lot of people in our communities and and
my community
went to the grocery store and discovered empty
shelves,
because shipping and
forming was so impacted by that, and
that was
an event that really raised awareness and I
got to have that conversation a lot. I
feel like,
and and about what we're doing.
So did... Now we're gonna talk about what
you're doing and how that is so tempting
for you to jump into those conversations and
saying, well, we've got an idea here. We've
got something it Well, let's... In fact, let's
do go back and start at the idea.
Someone must have
scratched their head after a while and said,
I think I think this might work.
And so now what we're gonna talk about,
Jake is what is this.
You might get a hint when we say
freight farms, which, by the way, the first
time I saw it I thought that's said
fright farms. I thought it was just, like
for Halloween or something. But then I realized
I had
not written down the e in the in
in in the freight.
So it in freight farms. It's actually actually
freight farms,
So let's talk about the... Let's talk about
the concept.
What was the idea? What was an inspiration
that there might be something here that you
should your company should pursue.
Absolutely. Yeah. So freight forms actually started about
10 or 11 years ago.
When we a comparative newcomer in the
in the Ce space at the time, like,
it was a very small industry. There weren't
really anybody else doing this,
back in 20 11:20 12 when freight firms
got started,
And the idea originally came from,
our founders,
John and Brad, They were... Working on trying
to find ways to make agriculture accessible to
everyone. And where they originally started was looking
deeply at rooftop gardens and cities,
and trying to make rooftop gardens into vegetable
producing
areas,
And now that that... You know, it seems
like a good idea and it would be
a great thing, but it's actually really, really
hard to make
rooftop.
Economics work, basically.
There's a lot of barriers to getting
plants on roofs. There's zoning, there's
labor, every roof is different.
It's just a very hard challenge.
And so they ended up settling on the
shipping container as a really good method
standardization. Shipping containers are already
used all over the world. That's sort the
most common
way of transcript porting goods around, So it
seemed very logical to put the farm inside
the shipping container and move the farm not
the food.
And so the idea was really born out
of porting that and they desire to make
farming accessible to everyone. And we figured that
if we could make the farm
easy to move around
and it's a a sort of fixed products
that we can scale and make cheaply,
then it's something that many more people can
can use. And over the last 10 years,
we've gone through many, many generations of farm,
and
really honed our technology into what it is
today,
which is premier container farming solution on the
market.
So a fully turnkey system, and we've got
500 plus systems worldwide operating today.
Let's
let's remind everybody what a shipping container is,
because if
if people are out driving on the highway
now. They see shipping container put on the
back of semi trucks because they picked them
up with ports and they are delivering them
somewhere else or if you see trains go
through cargo trains. I'll have shipping containers sitting
on those cars.
And so for anybody that might be listening
to the podcast and saying, we... I'm having
a hard time picturing this. Shipping they're they're
what? Like, are they 40 feet or so
longer little longer than that? The... So it
does depend there's a variety of shipping containers,
but the most common 1.
Which is the 1 that we use is
a 40 foot shipping container. It's called.
And it's 40 feet by 8 feet,
essentially in in area.
And then it's very standardized, so it has
sort of these steel blocks at the corners
that they used tie it down to the
boat or the truck or the train or
whatever it might go on. But the real
power of shipping containers and why they took
go over the world is is what's called
inter transport. Right? So
meaning that you can use the exact same
container and you can put it on a
train or vote or whatever, and it just
gets moved between them, but it's the same
exact container.
Now, I suppose there are refrigerated cars and
you know, livestock cars and some of that
don't work. So it's some sort of just
a standard solid walled
container, nothing special, like, you know,
refrigeration or so forth in it So our
containers are actually a bit special, but they
still conform to this the 40 foot standard,
which means
that they're certified for sea worthiness and can
be stacked on vessels and things like that.
We actually build our containers
to a specific design that we've developed in
China.
We then ship them to the Us, and
that design has
all of the insulation that you would need
for the farm, it has airflow channels, it
has electrical,
pass throughs, and all the things in the
right place, so that we can build the
farm really efficiently when it gets to the
states for our final assembly facility.
And it is not refrigerated in the same
sense that a normal refer refrigerated to refers
what they call. It's the industry sign for
a refrigerated container. Yeah. But we do add
air conditioning and will environmental control is a
huge part of making a Ce farm work
well.
So.
Isn't this isn't a retired.
Shipping container that had spent, you know, hundred
years on the ocean or something like this.
This is this is a shipping container that...
That's coming straight into becoming a farm, and
it didn't have a life on the rails
or something first.
Correct. Our...
So in freight farms history, we used to
build farms out of reclaimed containers.
But the issue with that is that they're
inconsistent, and you don't quite know what you're
getting. It's very hard to tell if there's
a little bit of water damage in the
container or... The insulation is degraded or any
number of things. And so,
in order to get a better product for
our customers a few years ago,
have you 3, 4 years ago, Moved to
a standardized container?
So you have them...
And did you say that... Are they made
in China and then imported and
So the the container itself is made in
China.
We have a a very global supply chain.
So some components are are made in China,
others in the Us.
We do all our final integration and testing
in New England. Pretty close to our headquarters.
And the the farm itself is is considered
made in America well more than 50 percent
of the content is Us. Josh Give you
Pause every once a while. You think you've
got an empty container coming over from somewhere
that to put something in it for the
ride, I think.
We do. Yeah. You absolutely what we do.
We, you know, obviously, in an emergency, we
will ship a container empty, but it's pretty
rare.
We will sometimes ship our own cargo because
we have things that come over, but, we
will often ship other people's cargo.
And,
you know, 1 of the interesting things that
come we're able to do is is
actually leverage
the high freight rates that are happening right
now to use our container space,
to offset the cost of shipping the containers.
So you might read that because of the
pandemic, freight rates are at an all time
high.
But we... For the most part, don't feel
that impacts too much because we
ship other people's goods.
So you would... It's... It comes in, so
you... It's put on the back foot truck.
You need to have, like, a crane, take
them off then or,
I'm I'm I'm just thinking of, you know,
big everything And and, how you sit get
it foot get it port to sip. Yeah.
So there's basically 3 methods that people use.
You can use what's called the container handler,
which is what they would use in the
port. A special machine that basically it meant
for iso container handling only.
Most people would not have that in their
neighborhood, but when it comes off the boat,
they might use that.
Mh. Often the farm deliveries,
we use a crane,
to just lift it up and put farm
down. And then the third way is what's
called the land doll.
Which is LAND0LL,
but it's a type of,
basically
trailer for... It's a type of flatbed trailer
that that tilt up and allows you to
set a container down without any other
handling essentially. Mh. So depending on the context
of where the farmer is going, we will
use 1 those methods,
but it's really situational.
Where
well, let's talk out word where you do
put these? I mean,
described to me the places that that they
we said Is it it typically in a
city or is it typically in, like, a
a abandoned factories or or we're typically do
the... Do you have these farms
situated?
Yeah. It's a great question. And I think
to understand this question.
You really need to look at Ce
broadly and and our product specifically and follow
the economics of it.
Because at the end of the day, our
customers are running businesses, and
they,
you know, they are more successful and they
buy more farms when those businesses are are
profitable.
And so what you see is that our
farms tend to follow the economics, and the
economics of Ce are such that.
You'll be more profitable in places where some
resource is limited.
The farm is extremely water efficient. It's about
99 percent more water efficient than traditional ag
extremely land efficient, and it can operate in
any outside conditions.
So our farms tend to live it's
yes in cities because cities are limited in
land,
and sometimes the high produce prices.
But more often they live in places, where
resources are more explicitly constrained, so places like
islands,
where Caribbean islands are actually very,
low and water as well. Right? They're surrounded
by water, but it's saltwater water. So you
can't use to irr gate, and they're low
and land,
they're also in the far north. So Alaska,
Canada, Sweden,
anywhere with a short growing season
or a lot of cold.
And you will also find them, you know,
in the Middle East, any place that's particularly
hot, also has water shortages, but you can't
grow for a lot of the year.
So those are the places where you're gonna
see a lot of farms, and then we
really have firms scattered throughout as well.
Essentially, any place where there's demand for local
produce, you'll see them. I'm wondering if you
could ever find people that are kind of
at,
a spot where there's a fork in the
road and they say, well, I might be
able to get 20 acres here out on
the the edge of Boston someplace place,
and and produce some foods or I might
be able to get a container.
It's probably not that simple, But is there
some... Some trade offs that people are saying
I'm going to try to to see how
far I have to move away from the
city and get space to be
conventional providing with Csa or farmers markets
versus
this is an option that I might be
able to have a a farm in a
container.
Yeah. I think you find
a lot of our customers,
you know, as they start their businesses
You come from all walks of life, which
I think is an amazing thing about our
tech and that it's successful enough that you
really don't have to have farming experience to
to do it.
And if you don't farming experience,
you
you don't necessarily wanna move out.
I can tell you having how shocked around
Boston that finding 20 acres on the outskirts
of Boston means you have to move really
far.
Right.
That is a that is a punishing commute.
And so I don't think that people are
mostly evaluating us that trade off. I think
they're looking at it more in terms of...
Not how far do I have to change
my community to provide, but what could I
do in the context that I have to
provide for my community? And then
you think out of that way, the scope
tends to be more limited. Mh.
I I think it's more
it's more... How can I?
Help where I am, then
how do I become a farmer or no
holds barred, I think. Sure. Sure.
How many
are restaurants?
The do restaurants set up their own farm?
Yes.
It's often
a, like, operation that's sort of adjacent to
the restaurant. In many cases, what we actually
see is that our our customers, customers are
restaurants.
So, you know, if you're operating... Let's say
you're operating 2 farms,
you might have a handful of different crops
that you're growing, and
you're growing a substantial amount of them. So
2 farms are growing, somewhere in the equivalent
of you know, 300 to 400 pounds of
produce per week if you're going lettuce.
So restaurants are
prime candidate for selling that produce. They care
a lot about quality. They often have specific
requirements that are easier to achieve in a
Ce context.
Like,
coloring of plants, for instance, or particular flavor
profiles or things that you can achieve when
it's more repeatable.
And then
we often see is that people
prefer to sell most of their produce, like,
maybe 50 to 80 percent to restaurants.
Because they're predictable,
but then sell the rest via Csa or
farmers markets
or the other channels that are sort of
higher margin, but less predictable. If you will.
Right?
These don't know how many people are gonna
show up with the farmer's market on a
given weekend. So if I could drive far
enough that I was act they're gonna get
land and try to do some farming for,
you know, specialty crops of of some sort.
What I... The first thing I think I
would do would drive out there stand around
and looked and Cg. What am I gonna
do with this? And so now I'm trying
to picture what that's like? You walk into
a shipping container and you've got you've got
this great empty shipping container, and and you...
You kinda size it up and say,
how are we gonna set this up. You
guys get involved with that? You come in
and say, okay. Here's what here's what you
need to do.
Yeah. So we've got a lot of best
practices and education that we give our farmers.
We operate what's called Farm camp. For instance,
which is sort of a... It's a farmer
boot camp, if you will.
Then helps teach. We also through the software.
We have crop planning tool that helps for
understand how I'm actually gonna lay out my
farm?
How what is my demand? Like,
how should I be planting? What is the
spacing of these plants in the farm?
When do I need to harvest? So we
provide a lot of queues for the users.
But we...
You know, overriding,
what this does come down to, when you're
operating in farmer or any business, you've got
them you've gotta produce what your customers want.
So
I in most cases, when someone gets there
farm what we encourage them to do is
essentially a few harvest of sampling.
So you get your customers lined up, whoever
that might be, whether it's your neighbors or
some restaurants downtown or a grocery store,
and you ask them what they want, and
then you try to grow it. And you
get it so you're happy with it, and
then you show it to them, and they
say, yeah. I would order this much of
this.
And then you build your your farm plan
around what your customers want. Because if you're
if you're making some awesome produce, but no
one's gonna buy it, then it doesn't work.
So all, the next place is somewhere along
the lines it has to stop start next
is going to be seeds. As those seeds,
are they gonna go into
soil, or will it be go into a
substrate
when you're...
Yeah. So in our farms,
the seats go into substrate?
We primarily
recommend
the Coco core substrates,
although we have farmers who operate successfully with
many different types.
And
yeah. I mean, the soy nature of it
can be controversial in some cases, but then
I think people
try the produce and
are tend to be convinced.
But now, does anyone put soil in them
or are they pretty much all substrates.
They're all substrates.
So you starting with a substrate then that
you're going to be
do you have several levels or is it
floor level and then a a medium or
what's...
Yeah, How many... Are there layers of substrates,
I guess, or levels of substrates within the
farm?
Sort. So I'll explain how it works. So...
Basically, there's a Germ determination area in the
farm,
and
you know, you start, like, in a 10
by 20 tray with a standard tray.
And the substrates we use, whether it's
you know, pete or
rockwell or whatever, those fit into the the
tray,
and you seed into the tray with the
substrate
into the hole in the center and the
substrate.
That goes into the nursery station, And that's
where Germ nation happens in the first few
weeks, usually 2 to 3 weeks and plant
life happened there.
The the farm can hold about
2500
seed at the time.
And then when the ceilings get too big,
and there... It should have been art to
knowing when the right time, the transplant is.
We we help farmers understand this and
and time it properly.
The plants get moved to to the the
main cultivation area we call it. And that's
a vertical panel that uses a different water
delivery mechanism
that's more
akin to a...
It's not exactly an N system, but basically,
there's a wick strip that helps deliver water
to each individual plant evenly.
Mh.
Now, the next couple things that are necessary.
Then, I guess is, we need to talk
about light and water. So if you've got
the spend nutrients. So I don't know what
I'm missing out, but the other thing big
categories once you got the space. And once
you've got the substrate, and once you've got
the genetics,
then,
what are you adding?
What are the what are the nutrients? How
how much water which I'm I'm sure there's
easy explanations on getting water depending on where
you're located and And then,
how do you make up for the lack
of sunlight? So how do you wanna tackle
those? Yeah. And the 1 I would add
also is air.
Air air.
I forget about error, and that actually ears
done an awful lot of things plants need.
It does. Yeah. So
we can start on the water and nutrient
side. So,
you know, 1 of the coolest things about
hydro hypersonic is the water efficiency. So our
farm uses,
but about 5 gallons of water a day,
it depends on your performance. So that I
would say that is sort of an average.
If you're in a humid climate, it can
easily be 0 or even water positive
because it captures some water from the environment.
We use a rec circulating system, which is
why the water usage can be so low.
And into that, we essentially manage nutrients, and
we use a
really any new train that our customers want.
We have our own line update trainings that
we understand really well that's for people use
because it's a lot easier to help them
with it.
And those nutrients
are both your your macron nutrients, your K
as well as micron nutrients. And their balance
such that you control both the nutrient content
of the water
as well as the ph of the water,
can you you leverage the ph to help
with
the uptake of the nutrients and manage that
properly.
We have a a dosing system that
essentially
monitors all of those and doses pieces of
nutrient as needed into the water, and it's
always monitoring
24 7.
So I think did that answer that the
water component.
Well, you mentioned p and k,
so the... So the the nutrients
But beyond those those kind of nutrients like
P, p and k. What about is there
our, are microbes zipper offered? Do you have
biological that that get get into the system
too?
We do. And that is something that...
We work with farmers on. We
we generally prefer to help people towards a
biological,
solution when possible.
So some farmers are more down that road
than others.
But it's something we really like to see,
and
we
we don't have biologic in our nutrient line,
but we definitely,
have many that we recommend when we use
farmers on a regular basis either for different
kinds of pest control or additives
for growth or different things.
Mh.
So
microbes,
So you can you can you can be
able to do something that's basically, like, giving
probiotics
to humans, but probiotics. To the plants that
are grown in the in these container farms
then.
Yeah. And I think you're...
It's partially for the clearance, but it's also
partially to prevent the growth of bad microbes.
Mh. As what can happen in a rec
circulating systems especially is that if you get
a bad microbe that starts multiplying,
essentially the absence of good microbes,
just like, you know, in your stomach, that
can be very problematic for the farming for
the growth.
So that's something we really try to help
people avoid.
And you'll sometimes see the growth of bad
microbes,
actually, when
when the farm is almost too clean.
You know, someone has really
aggressively cleaned the farm. It's much easier for
bad microbes to take hold. And in that
case, we would...
Recommend that you do in ina with a
with a good microbe.
What about,
how you accomplish photosynthesis
with
artificial light rather than sun. How do you
how do you balance... How do you match
up with what what the sun's is able
to do outside,
Yeah. So,
what, 1 of the ways we out match
the sun is in inconsistency. So it is
the same
everyday...
3 65 days a year. Right? Exactly the
same. Mh.
What we do is we actually balance the
light in our farm so that
essentially, we only give the plant the wavelength
that it needs.
So that's a, a red wavelength.
On the it's sort of long alongside of
red and then a blue wavelength blank.
And so,
counter intuitively,
the plants kind of look gray under that
light.
I don't know if you've ever seen it
up close, but the plates can actually look
kind of gross.
But what you're actually seeing is that plants
aren't reflecting any light back at you. They're
using all of the red and blue together
to photos,
and there's no
you know, when a leaf looks green what
you're actually seeing is photons that aren't being
used by the leaf bouncing back at you.
And so,
in in generating the spectrum, we do, the
goal is to keep the plant happy, but
not waste any photons that would otherwise get
bounced around the farm and and cost energy?
Yeah.
So
what about the nutrition of what's grown Any
of the people that have started the farms
have they tested? So that there's gonna be
some skeptics that are saying, gee, I'm not
sure whether you've got, you know, the nutrients
I'm looking for as a consumer you know,
and then what I might be able to
get in soil outdoors. Does... Has any of
them... Have any of them or your your
own company done nutritional testing?
Is. We do, and we do bricks testing
on on our test crops often, and we
find that it... We are consistently
generating more proteins and more sugars
in our crops than what we would get
off the shelf. And I think, you know,
it's a
perhaps a bit of a myth to attribute
all of that to have the hydro nature
of it.
You know, my take on it is that
you're actually seeing substantial improvement because
of what's happening to the plant after car.
And that's something that I think it's really
worth talking about because it's a key difference
from local food. If you go to the
store,
even if you go to Whole foods or
whatever, and you buy lettuce that lettuce has
been on a journey to get to you.
Know, that journey takes a while and
while that journey is happening, it's degrading.
Sure. So 1 of the big differences with
our farms is, Yes. They're hydro panic, but
also you're eating it right away, and it
doesn't have to go on that that long
journey to get to you. Yeah. Yes You
know? But, that... That's that's a really, really
good point. And then there are some produce
that actually has to be picked early too,
because it's gotta take into account that it's
gonna be 10 days or or or longer
before it's on shelves on the East Coast
so there's...
So the journey does have something that should
be considered, which brings us up. The other
point then.
And and that is your
carbon
footprint,
greenhouse gases.
This kind of system and somebody saying for,
you know, we're for what they're gonna be
able to produce. How how do you
compare,
when looking at your impact on the on
the climate.
For sure. This is an amazing question, and
I think it's 1 where
people do find it easy to
either
criticize or green
the Ce space and neither is quite bright.
This was absolutely a topic at in Nora
icon
last week.
And I think is 1 that's really important
for the industry to face because it's... In
some cases, the elephant in the room.
And,
you know, we've done
a full cycle analysis of our produce.
And
the conclusions are probably what you would expect.
But I think we're really good for us
to formally put out on on paper, and
you can...
Check out this,
infographic that we put together if you want,
I can send it along.
It's public.
But what we found was that
all of the
all of the technical components of our farm.
So some people reacts because they say, okay,
well, you've got a big metal container and
you've got Leds and all that. Those must
take a lot of carbon to make,
and they do take carbon to make.
But the actual impact of that is sort
of similar to those tractor and the barn
and everything that traditional farm would have. And
and actually, in both cases, it's a really
small slice
where both traditional farming and Indoor ag,
where the impacts really come into play in
the use side of the
cycle analysis.
And for traditional ag, what you see is
big impacts on transport,
So from farm to table and there's some
studies that have just come out implying that
this impact is actually worse than usually modeled.
And then also on the water use on
traditional ag. So
water use is indirectly in electricity use, something
like 20 to 30 percent of California's electricity
is spent pumping water around,
which I don't think that
everyone is sort of aware of the impact
of that.
Mh. And
for the Ce side, what see is you
see almost no water use,
and you see much less land use. There's
also this other piece of pesticides and and
herbicides and chemicals, which is you really hard
to quantify for traditional ag, and we didn't
actually even go there in our Lc c,
but other folks have.
We don't use any of that in indoor
ag. When in indirect, we use much more
energy. And so what it comes down to
is where you getting that energy from.
And in the cycle analysis,
the what you see is that if you
get the energy from coal, for instance, it
is much worse.
For the environment from a pure carbon standpoint
to grow your produce this way that in
traditional egg, it's about 10 x worse from
for on a carbon basis.
But if you get your energy from wind,
it's about 4 times better.
And so the swing is massive.
And 1 of the things we've put in
place to really help our farmers is the
ability for any Us farmer and to easily
sign up for renewable energy source for their
farm.
We a partnership with a company called Arcadia
that
provides electricity through community solar wind to,
residential and small businesses.
We also put a lot of energy into
making the farm efficient, both from climate management
and and air handling those elements,
as well as the actual Leds we use.
And so, you know, as we're putting energy
into
being more energy efficient we're also trying to
help And we're sign up for the right
energy and trying to raise awareness that this
is actually an issue.
And 1 of the really interesting things for
me it, at
conference last week was
everyone in the room was very aligned that
controlled environment agriculture is
unnecessary adaptation to climate change.
It can be a mitigation, but it is
more an adaptation in a lot of ways.
But to be successful, the the industry needs
to shift to running solely on renewables.
And so I think that's something we will
see as a focus.
Over the next few years.
Well, another focus we need to talk about
is the economics of it? So if you
are a farmer, you hope to produce food,
and you... Maybe you are a restaurant yourself,
and you're producing to be able to put
through your restaurant. But if you're trying to
produce food and sell it.
How do the economic shake out? And and
it the, you know, what can you what
do can you can look at to be
able to produce? What's the production that can
come from how much lettuce us or how
much whatever prominent of vegetables use it you're
producing?
Yeah. So we always target our farm to...
If you're you're operating well, a 2 year
payback is what you should expect.
So that is sort of our benchmark. It's
how we think about pricing and how we
think about success for the model.
And,
you know, the yields we've been able to
get have grown a lot over the years,
just as the technology improves and as the
knowledge of product grow improves in our spaces.
But,
you know, to put it concrete, like, in
1 farm,
you should be able to grow about a
thousand heads of lettuce per week.
Now you don't have to go lettuce, you
can grow lots of other things. And the
profitability of that is gonna depend on your
customer base and what exactly they want because
not all customers will want the same thing.
But in sort of the average case, we're
targeting a into year payback on investment.
What are the other things you can grow
besides lettuce?
So you can grow
lots of things.
And we have grown many, many. I think
our total tally is somewhere north of 500.
But I'll start with sort of what customers,
I would say normally grow and then
into more in a wild than wacky things
that we grow in our laps sometimes.
So a lot of customers grow leafy greens.
They're very easy to start with, and there's
many more than just lettuce us. So, you
know, Char, Bok choy,
spinach,
ar ar,
Or ar,
there's
a hundred different kinds of lettuce,
and various things there. There's also a lot
of crops that grow well with lettuce.
So often people will crop radish is with
lettuce. Because they canopy be of the lettuce
it doesn't block the out so much.
Those are also a faster harvest, so you
can cultivate them quicker
turnip,
people grow there's a variety of root vegetables,
and then herbs,
are pretty common. So
we're experimenting with some, you know, really cool
pineapple sage and stuff in our farm right
now, but people grow at Basal and all
the varieties of that and cilantro, parsley,
all the things you might expect.
But not so much fruit?
Not so much fruit. So you can grow
fruit, parsley
we're growing tomatoes in our test farm right
now. It's a little bit less common in
the field. We grow vertically,
So heavy fruits
need to be supported a little bit more.
Otherwise, they'll pull the plants down a little
bit, but we do grow pumpkins, for instance
in our test. Farm, and it works just
fine. You just kinda gotta watch the pumpkin
and make sure you hold it up
and
Yeah. Yeah. We also go flowers. We have
customers who go flowers, both for medicinal or
ornamental use.
I'm gonna sp on? Yeah. Beads of experiments
the pops right now?
No. What about... Sit back to to restaurants
or grocery stores Do...
Are are there any of them that are
using this as a as a marketing
story too or that that maybe they're putting
a farm right next to the restaurant and
saying that we're growing locally
or even give tours or have windows or
something so that their customers can see this
farm that's practically on the premises
Yeah. It definitely
it definitely happens.
We we definitely see a use for marketing
in both grocery and the restaurant.
We are generally opposed to windows.
So Windows
affects the night day cycle that we're able
to keep and you'll actually see growth impacts
in any place in the farmer you get
light on the window. We definitely you have
customers who do it.
You know, sometimes in a more educational context,
they'll put in a window to help hundred,
you know, help pass by understand what's going
on. But if you're growing for output, I
would not recommend a window.
Well, it's really, really fascinating. I think that
what what you're doing at just
I could see where there's there's a lot
of interest in this. And
and, I guess, the the other thing I
think about though is that you could create
the, equivalent of of the inside of a
container without necessarily bringing in containers, couldn't you?
I mean, Couldn't you take like an abandoned
shopping center or something and be able to
build what would be the equivalent size and
set up?
As a shipping container
in in in an area and produce food
in it, for example. Because there's just so
much empty
parking lots and empty buildings
around the country anymore.
So is it is it an alternative that
you wouldn't necessarily need a shipping container to
make a shipping container like farm.
Of course. Yeah. And
you can absolutely do that. And we actually
sell our software and our controls
to people who wanna set up custom farms
and we'll help them with that.
But the
the reason we do the shipping container is
because it's much more scalable to build a
product.
So, you know, if you build 1, let's
say, you have a you find an abandoned
warehouse,
you're gonna have to do a lot of
engineering to get everything set up in there.
And by the time you're done with all
that work, it would have been cheaper to
just pay for the container to show up,
because we make the containers on an assembly
line and there. They're much more efficient to
and how they're built. And we know it's
gonna work because it's the same product that
everyone else has, and we know we can
support it because it's the same product everyone
else has.
And so,
totally fine. And many people do that.
We're not out there trying to compete with
the plenty of the world who we're doing.
Huge custom setups.
But if you're trying to get started,
getting the containers actually gonna be faster.
To put it inside the abandoned warehouse. But...
So Jacob, if I told you, I'm I'm
convinced. I wonder that'd become a farmer.
Ballpark park, how much am I gonna have
to spend
totally to be able to get set up
that if I want to be able to
buy the equipment and and, you know, get
a shipping container and get started farming.
How much money would I have to have
on hand to be able to
jump in.
So the the Msrp b for the farmers
is around a hundred and 50 k.
And then there is some level of startup
up cost that's gonna depend on
where you are and
how much it cost to ship there and
all that stuff, but, you know, you should
budget. It's gonna maybe 10 or 20 k
for that.
And
that's pretty much it. Right? A little bit
of supplies, a little bit of software to
get off the ground and
you'd be off and running. Now it's worth
noting that,
many of our farmers don't necessarily have a
hundred and 75 grand line around.
We finance the farms and we'll help you
find financing,
many of our farms are financed through well
known banks or Usda loans or things like
that. So just like any other,
far piece of farming equipment, you can, finance
it, you know, to pay for all upfront
in many cases.
But you certainly could
Well, you know, anymore, that's a couple of
electronic vehicles that are coming out some a
higher end, and they don't give you a
thousand pounds of lettuce us a week.
Exactly. Yeah. It's
So if people would like to know more
about this and find out how they could
how can they find information? And how do
they either, you know, reach you and learn
more about these... About these systems?
Yeah. So the number 1 thing is...
Just to check out freight forms dot com.
We've got lots of information there. We've got
our business planning tool. You can reach out
to our sales team,
they can you up with a lot of
information. We also have a Youtube channel that
has a lot of different videos, and you
can watch a bunch of, like, tours of
the farm and things like that, so you
can get involved that way. We also do
fairly regular,
what we call digital discovery days, where you
get to take over virtual tour inside the
farm, something we started doing in the pandemic
care,
that
was really successful because turns out not everyone
is around Boston.
And then you can come here and and
check it out. We've got farms at our
headquarters we have regional partners,
in Chicago and Elsewhere go have farms that
you can tour, if you're,
interested. Do So, Jake, before we go, I
have a couple more quick questions for you
And 1 might now be that quick And
that is how would you get here?
This isn't the kind of thing that, you
know, you were a little kid and instead
of going out in playing Baseball you said
I'm just dreaming of someday having a freight
farm. You know, it's...
So how how does 1 go about finding
themselves in in freight farms like, yours... What
was your journey? How do you get here?
That's a that's a... Yeah. I'm not necessarily
a quick answer. I mean, I think...
So I...
I've always known that I wanted to be
an engineer growing up.
I did play baseball of other things growing
up too. But,
you know, I always knew that I wanted
to build stuff, and I played with legos
and all the cliche things and I was
a kid.
I got a mechanical engineering degree.
And
you know, essentially,
in in that time, I was very,
I was a sponge about learning what makes
the world a better place when I was
in college and
around that time. And so, you know, I've
always tried to have jobs that in some
way made the world... Better place.
And immediately after college, I actually started a
company called Little On. This was back in
with, 20 11.
And little Bonsai was a product studio that
developed some sustainable products,
really simple stuff, like, we did a toothbrush
and
a key chains, 1 stuff like that.
And
1 of the things we did in that
company was we were actually part of the
mass challenge accelerator.
And we happens to be in the mass
challenge accelerator, the same cohort
that John and Brad were in the mass
challenge accelerators starting freight farms.
And we sat near them. And so I
got to know those guys that summer
And then life goes on, and I went
and had a few other jobs and
you know, always looking for those jobs that
would make the world a better place but
picking up a lot of skills and learning
how to build things better,
over the intervening time. And then,
you know,
recently, I I moved back to Boston a
few years ago, and it coincided with freight
farms evolution
and maturation to sort of what it is
today, and it was a perfect time for
me to come on board and making them
back to all the stuff that I've learned.
So it's kind of the the nutshell, sort
Well, that's a great nutshell. And I suppose
there's some others like you that have a
a journey and it's interesting too that there's
a part of it that you've been thinking
about. You know, how you'd go the right
direction, What's the right steps, What's contributing to
the environment and and I can see how
you can find a lots of satisfaction
in the areas you're working in. So let
me ask you this. Yeah. We are hiring
shameless plug. Where, I've got several positions on
my team. If you're an engineer and you...
Want a job in Ce, come hit me
up.
Can they work from home or is this
1 of these things they gotta go to
a a space.
Gonna, like in Boston because if you're actually
making stuff, I I think there might be
a limit to how much you can do
from your home office.
It depends on the team. So, I mean,
I run both hardware and the software teams.
And if you're in the hardware team, you
pretty much gotta be here. If you're in
the software team, you can work from home.
Just level depends on what part of the
software you're working on. But generally, it's okay.
No, let me wrap up by asking you
You look down the road the next 5
years, say, 5 years from now.
What are you optimistic about? I mean, where
could this be? How do you see this
evolving. And if we're were gonna say let's
gonna have this conversation again about 5 years
from now.
What's the best picture that we could be
talking about at that time?
I think...
That's an interesting question. And I appreciate the
optimistic spin on it because I think that
climate change is a real problem, and I
think that
in the next 5 to 10 years,
we're really gonna see
pressure put on
Ce to step up in terms of its
place in the food system.
And I think we're gonna see, you know,
controlled environment ag, do that and step up
and and produce its scale
there's a lot of maturing of different technologies
that's going on now that will help with
that.
But 1 of the big things that is
gonna push it. That is not optimistic thing
is that the climate is changing and and
water it's becoming worse scarce,
especially in California.
If you look at the level and levels
in like meat and the levels in the
reservoirs in California. I, those are the water
sources that feed most the vegetables that we
eat in the Us.
And so as as those change,
that's gonna have real impact on the food
system.
Well,
unless they're going to be in
shipping containers, for example, and in areas that
have
still are getting 35, 40 inches of rain
a year
versus the areas that have all that sunshine
and are getting 12 or 20
inches of a rain a year and
running a week at a time of over
a hundred degrees too. So
there's that.
So I'm... I'm glad you appreciate the fact
that I was putting a positive spin on
it, But now you you've puzzled me. I'm
trying to get back to another 4 more
positive bill. There's a lot to be concerned
about, though. I think the positive Pain is
there. You know, I I do think that
the technology
that's been deployed these days in Ce is
good enough
to produce food at scale in a predictable
way and can displace that technique. And so,
like I mentioned before, or I alluded to,
I think of climate change
and solutions as living known a spectrum. And
on 1 spectrum is the mitigation side of
things. So just purely how can we reduce
you know, carbon emissions, methane emissions.
On the other side of the climate spectrum,
My think of it is the adaptation side,
which is,
solutions that, okay. Like, we accept that this
is gonna happen to some degree, but we
also know,
optimistic the humans will adapt and live in
the world as it changes.
And so I think
Ce
solutions can play in both of those. If
you're using the correct power profiles. They are
mitigation on traditional what traditional eye is doing.
And,
you know, in 10 years from now as
water usage evolves in the west.
We may see them coming into their own
as an adaptation technology
as well.
Jake, as we ramp up, I wanna remind
everybody again Ce.
You keep saying the acronym and for people
listening. They're not used to Ce.
So is controlled environment agriculture, which is
slightly different than greenhouse in that,
greenhouse
isn't fully artificial from a light and atmosphere
standpoint, but controlled environment agriculture generally is.
Well, we've learned a lot today. I wanna
thank you. Jake Fe with freight farms. Thanks
for being on farm to table talk.
You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
You've been listening to farm to table talk
your host, Roger Watson. If you like what
you.
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