COMPTON – In less than two years after its opening Plenty Farm has announced it is closing its Compton location.
The company said that it is undergoing a “strategic shift” to strawberries.
“This is a bittersweet moment in Plenty’s journey,” the company said in the post. “Compton was our first commercial farm and marked our transition from a startup to a scaling business. But the rising cost of doing business in California, including climbing energy prices, made operating here challenging. Closing this chapter was not a decision we made lightly, but it was a necessary step as we shift our focus to strawberries.”
Plenty specializes in vertical farming, which produces pesticide-free fruits and vegetables.
“Plenty is an indoor growing company so we grow plants inside without the sun in controlled environments,” said Plenty CEO Arama Kukutai. “We are producing leafy greens and we also produce tomatoes, and in the future, we’ll be producing strawberries and other fruit and produce.”
According to the San Francisco-based company, they are shifting its focus to berries.
“Plenty’s future is in growing strawberries because they fill a supply gap, provide a locally grown product with peak-season flavor year-round, and command a premium price,” the company said. “While most vertical farms are limited to lettuces, Plenty spent the past decade designing a modular growing system flexible enough to support a wide variety of crops.”
The company thanked the City’s leadership for their continued support.
“We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have strong advocates for Plenty and vertical farming in Compton Mayor Emma Sharif, the City Council and countless community members. We were welcomed into the community from day one and have been proud to hire many members of our team from the City of Compton. We hope that our team’s engagement with local schools has helped spark a greater interest in STEM and shown students the wide variety of future paths in STEM that are possible.”
“Our Compton team has worked tirelessly to overcome the inevitable challenges of a first instance farm. They solved new problems in agriculture and engineering, pioneering running an automated, technology-based farm. And they brought agriculture back to Compton, proving the positive impact vertical farming can have on communities. We’re incredibly proud of what our Compton team achieved and the delicious greens we put into local markets.”
The company launched in Compton in May 2023 and was lauded by Compton Mayor Emma Sharif and District 2 Councilman Andre Spicer where the company was housed.
“The Plenty Compton Farm is bringing field-scale farming back to Compton and introducing a new generation of our community to careers in agriculture more than 30% of the farm’s hires come from Compton,” said Mayor Emma Sharif. “Plenty’s Farm is a model for how we can increase access to fresh, locally grown food for urban populations while supporting the cities economic development.”
“This is amazing for the community in a place where we have a food desert,” said Spicer. “To have a company here that is producing the produce, that is non-GMO, and no pesticides means our community is going to get fresh produce.”
The company has not provided an official date of the closure of its Compton location.