Whole Foods Market locations in Pittsburgh are now selling salad products made by local AI- and robotics-equipped indoor vertical farming startup Fifth Season. While it's the latest deal with a grocer, the startup also teased it has plans to begin offering its products at an additional 270 locations later this month with other partners.
Meanwhile, the rollout of its products at local Whole Foods for Fifth Season comes a few months after the South Side-based company made a deal to sell its products in about 200 Kroger stores across Ohio and Michigan.
Fifth Season said its salad products, of which it grows the various lettuce varieties for out of its Braddock indoor farming facility, can now be found in about 750 grocery and retail locations throughout the Northeast, Midwest, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country. The selling partners it counts among this group include the aforementioned The Kroger Co. and Whole Foods Market, which is owned by Amazon.com Inc., as well as Lidl, Fresh Direct, Giant Eagle, and ShopRite. It also counts universities and corporate campuses as being among this figure.
"We couldn't be more excited to add Whole Foods to our growing list of retail customers," CEO and Co-Founder Austin Webb said in an email statement. "Whole Foods has always valued local farmers and homegrown produce, so forging this partnership with them in Pittsburgh feels like a natural step for us. It also reaffirms that our clean label products are of the highest quality and that they're positively impacting our mission to make eating nutritious, healthy food easier and more convenient, even on the go."
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