Bowery’s vertical farming strawberries go on sale in New York

KEARNY, New Jersey — Inside of a warehouse in this factory town neighboring Newark, thousands of strawberries grow in rows beneath bright lights.

This is one of Bowery Farming’s research and development centers, and these berries are destined for a second life in the big city.

Starting Tuesday, customers will be able to buy the fruit less than a dozen miles away at a few gourmet grocers in New York City. They will star in dishes at some of the city’s top restaurants crafted by celebrity chefs.

Bowery will sell the strawberries for the first time as part of a limited release. But the berries, which taste the same during the peak of summer and depths of winter, are part of an ambitious effort to change how fruits and vegetables are grown and how Americans eat. Crops grown in vertical farms are typically stacked in rows from floor to ceiling in buildings near urban centers. That results in larger yields of fresher, higher-quality produce delivered to city grocery stores a few days after it is picked.

Vertical farming companies have used the tech-based approach to produce lettuce and herbs. Now, they are looking to strawberries and other crops to win a larger share of grocers’ shelves and consumers’ stomachs. At first, the berries will be pricier than the average supermarket offering. But indoor-farming companies hope to expand their output and use automation to harvest the berries, which could bring prices down.

One of Bowery’s competitors, Plenty, said Tuesday that it plans to build an indoor strawberry farm to serve customers and retailers in the Northeast with major berry grower Driscoll’s. Their rivals include venture-backed start-ups AeroFarms, PlantLab and BrightFarms.

Christine Zimmermann-Loessl, chair of the Association for Vertical Farming, said companies must prove they can grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables to become a more meaningful part of the food supply.

“With salad, you cannot feed the world,” said Zimmermann, who runs the Munich, Germany-based nonprofit and advocacy group. “Nobody can eat that much salad.”

Bowery wants to make food more delicious, too.

“Imagine having a beautiful, fresh-tasting flavorful strawberry in February,” said Susan MacIsaac, Bowery’s senior vice president of agscience. “It really opens up a whole new way, a whole new world of eating. I think we all know we need to eat more fruits and vegetables, but often they’re less than palatable.”

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