Bowery recently opened Farm X, an R&D facility for plant science and research development. Located adjacent to Bowery’s first commercial farm in New Jersey, Farm X will continue to advance its R&D on new product offerings like strawberries, root vegetables, tomatoes, cucumbers, and more.
Through Farm X, Bowery will establish the industry’s first on-site breeding program, developing seeds specifically designed for indoor vertical farming. Based in New York City, Bowery has raised more than $172.5 million from Temasek, GV, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, First Round Capital, former Amazon executive Jeff Wilke, and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Aside from Colicchio, other well-known restaurateurs like José Andres and David Barber of Blue Hill are also investors.
“So the question of how can you get fresh food more efficiently and more sustainably was something that I became obsessed with,” said Irving Fain, CEO of Bowery Farming.
“The pandemic and climate change have laid bare the challenges we have in our agriculture supply chains, making it difficult to access food at times,” Tensie Whelan, a professor at NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business, tells Insider. “In California, as climate change creates more extreme weather and as we see ongoing drought, vertical farming enables continued production of vegetables without significant water use.”
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