Indoor farming operations might be sprouting, but it isn’t all growth all the time. In its first financial report since becoming a publicly traded company, vertical farming outfit Kalera released its Q2 earnings this month with total revenue of $1.3 million and a net loss of $78.7 million, which the company attributed in part to “a one-time non-cash expense for goodwill impairment of $64.3 million, the change in fair value for the contingent value rights earnout of $17.3 million and a one-time expense of $7.5 million related to the closing of the Agrico business combination and Nasdaq listing.”
The Florida-based company went public in June via SPAC Agrico Acquisitions Corp in a deal valuing the combined business at around $375 million and is one of the few publicly traded vertical farming companies, along with companies like AppHarvest.
Jim Leighton, president and CEO of Kalera said on the call that the company was putting its expansion plans on hold, suspending the opening of new facilities in Hawaii, Minnesota, Ohio, and Washington State.
Leighton said the company’s new focus will be on achieving profitability for its existing farms, which Leighton hopes to do by the end of 2023. The shift is due to “pragmatism,” which Leighton said that he believes is important in sustaining vertical farming as companies raise hundreds of millions of dollars in funding but only have one or two facilities to show for it.
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