Sowing the Seeds for the Future of Vertical Farming with Harvest Today

Harvest Today is a company that inspires people to grow food locally. Food grown as close to our plate leads to many benefits, like healthier diets, better mental health, people focused on serving their communities, reducing food miles, and many more things that lead to a better life. We build scalable farming operations, allowing everyone to find their comfort zone in the landscape of food production. We are sensitive to the ESG matrix. 

I grew up on a farm in western Canada. As the years passed, I realized I was blessed by how my life started. I wanted to show my family what that life led to. However, the financial reality of farming is tough, so I started my investigation into hydroponics and indoor commercial food production. My business experience led to the harsh reality that food production and profitability were not mutually exclusive. How will we bring financial success and urban food production together to inspire people to want to become farmers and scale this into production levels that can impact our global community? Secondly, I wanted to create a better method for indoor plant growth. Roots thrive in a solid medium rather than just water, the Harvest Wall resulted from this disruptive thinking. We grow better crops, scale to any size and allow people to thrive with homegrown meals.

Business is people. Over the years, I have gained a significant group of talented people contributing to Harvest Today’s story. Each and every person on our team came to the company from previous successes. 

• Joe Kapusion and I worked on numerous projects developing consumer electronics. His dedication to engineering precision makes the Harvest Wall’s meticulous design so practical. 
• Everett Hendrixon has been in the Ag industry for many years. His passion to serve his community brought us together, and his drive to build a solid sales organization keeps us pressing forward. 
•  Jill Claperton and I met while I was investigating how plants could be grown a better way. Jill’s vision of plant varieties and better nutritional density has been tremendous. She is committed to growing better plants that do not lead to water downed nutrition. 
• Nikola Milivojevic came to a previous team I put together to solve technical challenges while developing an electronics product; he made a difference. His wisdom and integrity have served him well, and his creative thinking has led to our industry-leading innovations. 
• William Aitken is indeed family. His youthful leadership is breaking ground in areas in which you would not expect to build a business. The best example of his impact is that he was the first to get a vertical growing wall into a Canadian Federal Penitentiary. It turns out that growing food does reduce repeat offenders within correctional facilities. 
• Milenko Stambuk was a past associate, and our strong relationship and mutual respect led to us working together again. He now leads our operations in Latin America.

Harvest Today is my 3rd entrepreneurial startup company. From that 28 years of experience, I have learned that sales lead to success. Directing our engineering teams toward products with both market demand and manufacturability has become second nature for me. I sincerely hope that past challenges result in better decision-making and faster results. Cash flow is king. We entered the market when indoor farming and Controlled Environment Ag were the hot topics, resulting in our marketing focused on scalability and not building giant farms or that next deal. Knowing your niche and staying focused is a learned skill and that only comes from years in the saddle. 

I have also learned that knowing your impact on a market is key. The trend to working on a lower-cost solution or an over-engineered one is common. We have worked hard to unique and address the market’s issues head-on.

The competitive landscape in vertical farming has four methods of growing indoors:

1. NFT
2. Deep Water Culture
3. Aeroponic
4. Drip Irrigation

 These different growth methods have a common thread – they are all “Hydroponic” in nature, meaning that roots are suspended in only nutrient solution.  These manufacturers produce these different grow equipment for the different grow methods.  The equipment is then incorporated into a building such as a greenhouse or outfitted warehouse turned into a Controlled Environment Agriculture Facility.  Typically, the companies will sell the grow method incorporated with a proprietary technology they have created to enhance the growing experience for plant and farmers.  These growing methods involve a constant water flow over an exposed root system.  This produces a plant constantly searching for nutrients, hence the long root masses that develop.

 The primary differentiating feature that Harvest Today’s Harvest Wall offers is the use of organic grow mediums that produce a better, healthier, longer-lasting plant.  The mechanical differentiating feature is the stacking of plants via vertical positioning within the wall.  This surface stacking of the plants on a vertical plain allows for easier plant access, better plant inspection, and more plant density in a cubic foot ratio.

We have two primary avenues to build revenue.

• The revenues will grow for Harvest Today due to the sheer scalability of the industry we serve.  Global climate change, the need for food security, and society’s changing views on where they get food are all driving factors for Harvest Today’s growth.  The industry has already become a multi-billion dollar with a global trajectory of 22% annual industry increase year over year until 2040.  Harvest Today has positioned itself as a global Controlled Environment Agriculture industry leader.  In the period of time Harvest Today has been operational, Harvest Today has already sold walls into every continent except Antarctica. 
• Adding support products to our building list of customers will aid in deeper relationships with our existing customers and allow us to support their farms with products that are certified to work within the Harvest Wall ecosystem. These products include Grow Mediums, 2” Plant pots, 3 ¼” Plant pots, Nutrient Solutions focused on Organics only, LED Lighting solutions with ALL their supporting software and scheduling systems, and Seed.