Australia's Stacked Farm expands its vertical farming business to the US
Australian vertical farming company Stacked Farm plans a large farm in Southern California and has opened a research center in Las Vegas. It stresses step-by-step growth while many big US players in the sector have struggled.
Stacked Farm, an Australian company that grows crops indoors in vertical farms, is expanding into the United States. It plans a large vertical farm in Southern California and a research and customer experience center in Las Vegas, Nevada, which opened earlier this month. The move comes as the US vertical farming sector goes through a prolonged correction that has closed or sharply reduced many farms.
A slow-growth approach
Founder and CEO Daniel Tzvetkoff says Stacked Farm, founded in 2016, has grown slowly over the past ten years. In his view, many large US operators took substantial venture capital and tried to scale as fast as possible, leaving problems to be solved later. He stresses that growth must come in steps, with everything proven to work before large facilities are built.
Australia has some of the world's highest labor and energy costs, so the company first proved its model there before rolling it out globally. The California farm will replicate the Australian facility, including crop recipes, operating systems, production processes and automation. It is scheduled to open in 2028. California was chosen because it is the leading US state for lettuce and herb production.
Everything under one roof
Stacked Farm develops all its technology in-house, including lighting, automation and growing methods, and builds and operates its own farms rather than building them for others. Tzvetkoff says its self-developed lights emit less heat than off-the-shelf alternatives, so cooling and dehumidification systems can be smaller. Energy efficiency has long been a problem for vertical farming.
Customers before opening
The Las Vegas center is meant to reduce risk before the large farm opens by letting customers approve the product. The company has had a sales team in the US for nearly three years and has long-term supply agreements with Great West Produce in California, Lagudi Fresh Food Group in Nevada and retail distributor Mana Foods. It plans to open two US facilities a year and is already securing land in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Texas.
