80 Acres Farms

People love Fullsteam's Southern Basil, a refreshing (and award-winning) farmhouse ale brewed with bucketloads of its namesake herb.   Usually, the brewery can't release its most popular warm-weather beer til July, when outdoor-grown basil is peaking in North Carolina. This year, they got ahead of the season with basil from our new farm in Kentucky. For the first time, it's on shelves before Memorial Day, for those first hot days of the year (and your yardwork, cookout, and porch-sitting needs).   For the next few months, you can find cans with the 80 Acres Farms logo at Fullsteam's two locations in Durham and at retailers across the Carolinas. Then, we're turning this beer back over to the North Carolina open-field farmers who can supply it for the rest of the season. Cheers to community, and to a fresher, tastier future. For more info: https://lnkd.in/gJYR-Gkm

Thanks to USDA Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small and Rep. Greg Landsman for stopping by for a farm tour yesterday! From the Midwest to D.C. and beyond, more and more people are recognizing the potential in precision-controlled vertical farming. We were proud to share our vision for a more sustainable future—and how we're working with USDA Rural Development to ensure that Americans have access to healthy, locally grown food year-round.

Some fresh news to start the week: We've acquired the Mother Raw premium salad dressing business, which has helped us scale our salad kits into more than 1,000 retailers, and we're moving operations to our hometown of Hamilton.

We're proud to be #5 on the 2023 FoodTech 500 list—a Fortune 500 for high-tech, innovative food and agriculture companies. It's been a big year for the 80 Acres Farms team. We've opened our largest and most sophisticated farm yet, scaled up with Kroger, entered Harris Teeter (and other retailers), and launched our ready-to-eat salad kits. As we get ready to increase our output and impact even more in 2024, we appreciate the recognition from Forward Fooding, which chose us from a competitive field of more than 1,500 business in more than 50 countries. https://lnkd.in/eMP64QU

In Vegas for Indoor Ag-Con? Come find us! One good way to connect—at tomorrow’s sustainable scaling panel, where Noah Zelkind will be talking about our experience going from seed to scale.

Now that we're in Harris Teeter, we're slinging salad kits all over the Southeast. Come talk to us about it at the Southeast Produce Council's Southern Exposure show in Tampa, from March 7-9.

New retailer alert! Our salads and salad kits are now available at *every* Harris Teeter store. That means even more fresh produce for D.C., Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Tag your friends in the South to let them know that we're in the neighborhood, bringing flavor and freshness to their February shopping.

In 2015, two food industry executives—Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston—left their jobs to grow greens, fruits, and vegetables indoors.   Now, less than ten years later, 80 Acres Farms is a major player in the vertical farming industry, serving retailers all over the eastern U.S. and changing the way people eat by offering fresh, local produce year-round.   What gave them the confidence to try it? What's working in the industry? What's not? Learn more about their story, and get their predictions for the future of food, in the most recent episode of Jim Stengel's #TheCMOPodcast.

What makes a couple of food industry veterans leave the corporate world to try growing lettuce (and tomatoes, and a whole lot more) indoors? Why is produce “the last unbranded space” in retail? And what lessons can Playskool toys teach future entrepreneurs? Get the answers in this week’s episode of marketing guru Jim Stengel’s #TheCMOPodcast, featuring our founders, Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston.

What makes a couple of food industry veterans leave the corporate world to try growing lettuce (and tomatoes, and a whole lot more) indoors? Why is produce “the last unbranded space” in retail? And what lessons can Playskool toys teach future entrepreneurs? Get the answers in this week’s episode of marketing guru Jim Stengel’s #TheCMOPodcast, featuring our founders, Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston.