Faribault, Minnesota-based Living Greens Farm is expanding its Midwest operations with the addition of a new innovative indoor facility in Muncie, Indiana, for growing and processing a variety of leafy green product offerings.
The all-new facility will open in early 2023 and will occupy a 200,000-square-foot industrial building built in 2015 but yet to be occupied. The building will be turned into a vertical, aeroponic farm ultimately employing approximately 120 people.
It will feature automation that helps growers realize the potential of the crops grown there, while seeding, transplanting, harvesting, processing and packaging these crops in an efficient, high-speed manner. It will produce the equivalent of two million acres of farmland.
Once the new indoor farm is fully constructed, it will have the capacity to grow and harvest five million pounds of leafy greens each year without the use of pesticides. Additionally, the advanced farming system can produce these greens using less water than traditional farming methods, saving our planet 103 million gallons per year (the equivalent of 156 Olympic-sized pools).
This will include a wide variety of great-tasting leafy greens packaged into ready-to-eat bagged greens and salad kits. The Muncie facility will provide fresh leafy greens, from harvest to shelf within 24 hours, to markets as far east as Pittsburgh, north as Detroit, Milwaukee, Kansas City and the Twin Cities, and south to Nashville and Charlotte.
“The Muncie facility is in an ideal location to take a significant step in our national geographical expansion,” said George Pastrana, CEO of Living Green Farms. “It will help us to better supply our current retail partners, such as Walmart, Whole Foods, HyVee, UNFI and others, as well as allow expansion into additional leading retail and wholesale customers across the Midwest and Midsouth.”
Vertical indoor farming is a growing industry with indoor production of leafy greens still only approximately 5 percent of total production in the U.S.
“I wish to thank the people of Muncie and Delaware County for the work they put into making this new farm a reality,” Pastrana said. “As we are from a rural town in Minnesota, we quickly came to a mutual realization that Muncie is an environment that will work very well for us.”
“Indiana is leaning into the future of agriculture technology, with company-partners like Living Greens Farm choosing to grow next-gen solutions here in the heart of America’s largest commodity crop production region,” said Indiana Secretary of Commerce Brad Chambers. “Living Greens Farm’s investment in Indiana builds momentum in the agtech sector for even more innovation and growth to follow.”
Living Greens Farm is one of the largest indoor vertical aeroponic farms in the U.S. Its produce requires 95 percent less water and 99 percent less land to grow year-round and all products are grown without pesticides or GMOs. Living Greens Farm has a full product line that includes salads, microgreens and herbs available throughout the Midwest.
For more information, visit livinggreensfarm.
