020: Growers Talk 04/02/2021

In this episode Joe and Nick discuss vertical farming, hydroponics and much more.

More about Joe Swartz:
Website: https://amhydro.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HydroConsultant

More about Nick Greens:
Website: https://www.nickgreens.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/InfoGreens

Transcript

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the poly greens pod cast . This is actually our episode number 20 and , Nick and I are here today. We've had a lot of really great guests over the past several weeks and we've got a number of, of really high-level guests coming up in the future. So we're, we're definitely going to be.

Bringing to you some more exciting and interesting topics and people to talk to. But today we really it's just Nick and I, and we're talking about commercial production. So Nick, good morning. Thanks for thanks for being here and looking forward to just having a conversation with you. Hey, good morning.

Good morning. How's it going? It's going. All right. So a lot of, a lot of questions that have come in to, to Nick and I have been related to commercial production. So obviously in the industry, we're seeing a whole lot of hype about different systems, different levels of automation and kind of that, that whole question about what's the right application.

What's the right system. What's the right setup. It, it seems to be getting more and more. Confusing. We had hoped that by now you know, people would, would start to see which technologies were providing better results for commercial growers. But what we're seeing is a little, a little more muddying, the waters which is a good thing.

We've got a lot of really interesting technologies and a lot of great techniques that have been coming out of that. But, but we really wanted to focus today on commercial production. So this is, this is really geared for. The people who are looking at starting a business, and this can be a small backyard farming type business, all the way up to a large scale facility.

So Nick obviously, you know, we met at a, a large scale indoor facility a number of years ago, but why don't you tell us a little bit about some of the commercial projects that you've been working on and some of the more interesting applications that you're seeing. Yeah, I mean, I'm seeing a bunch of different applications right now.

I mean, I think right now is people trying to find a niche, right? Their niche in the market. I think that's the hardest part. And, and the big question, I guess everyone asks is what could I grow with my hydroponic system? And I mean, we know that answer, right, Joe, we can grow anything we want. Yeah. But, but there's, it makes sense.

I'm running a commercial facility. It's about money, right? It's about growing a product that you can have a margin on when you sell it. Yeah. Well about economics and, and when you're setting up, whether it's you know, a larger, a small-scale commercial facility, the keyword being commercial you're looking to use controlled environment agriculture to make a living or to providing a living for other people.

And so the economics are a big factor. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, right now I'm really focused on the microgreen business in Chicago. I just feel, you know, I, you know me about microgreens Joe, I've always been going down this road of, I felt microgreens were more than just. A slapping on a, on a, on a burger, right?

Just the lettuce on the burgers, just the lettuce. But more than nutrients, you know, you know what I mean? Imagine you being able to have that burger and you're like, now I got nutrients on it. You know, I got the iron that the doctor told me I should. Boost up more or whatever you're looking for. So certain things in in these microgreens can help people.

And I, and I always believe that. So I'm focused on that in Chicago, there's this program that I'm working with actually they're, they're targeting people that were incarcerated. They come out and they go to like a halfway house and they go through a program. So they're teamed up with neighborhood programs.

The farm is, and then they hire some of these these, these, these people in these ex-felons in, and then they train them in the hydroponic systems growing microgreens vertically which is awesome. I mean, the farm is running awesome. And so I've been focused on more of helping them with the distributing side and connecting with the distributors and getting, getting that going for them.

So the program can continue to help the neighborhood. That's very cool. Microgreens are interesting too, because you know, the, the actual production has been, you know, being when I was in the mid 1980s there were, there were growers producing micro grains and, and it really was something that the markets needed to be developed.

And that of course came through education. So, you know, people's understanding of the nutritional value of microgreens. And as you said, microgreens really have been looked at for a long time. It was kind of a garnish. Yeah, they look kind of cool. They're pretty colorful and interesting looking, but, but an ingredient that were the two things, for sure, I came into it thinking it was just a garnish show.

And then there was a high-end chef, a French restaurant in Chicago that told me it's awesome. An ingredient. Yeah, absolutely. And then now we're taking it a step further. Now it's also a nutrient. Yeah, the nutritional value of these is, is unquestionable also migraines at a really interesting texture.

Texture is something that, that, that's a very interesting concept. A lot of people When they we've, we've done a lot. And we work with researchers who have looked at flavorings, you know, started with culinary herbs, where people were looking at. What, what what makes a good herb, you know, is it the smell?

Is it the flavor? Is it the combination of both? And, and what we, what we found out, which was really interesting was, is that texture quality is a very big part of the eating experience, regardless whether you're talking about tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers or leafy greens or culinary herbs or micro greens.

And so the, the, the texture has a very big impact. I mean, it's not quite fully understood, but the texture. Has a very significant impact on the eating experience and it can actually influence the flavor and it can, in some cases actually influence how you perceive the aroma. So one of the big things that we've seen with leafy green production, when you start looking at say indoor vertical farming versus greenhouse farming or growing outside, is that the physical environment in all those different scenarios.

Has an impact on the cellular structure. So you can get lettuce, for example a lot of people who specifically buy CEA, grown lettuce, buy it because they said the texture is very, very fine. And velvety some of the words crunchy certain varieties have a real distinct crunch. And, and all of that really comes from part of it as a course, you know, the variety of the cultivar, but a lot of that actually has to do with the physical and nutritional environment that the plants are growing.

So when you're looking at commercial production, we're not just looking at producing a head of big lettuce, for example, we're a tomato or micro greens, but we're actually looking at creating an eating experience and a nutritional value as well. And and consumers, even in the past few years have become much more sophisticated and much more discerning about what they're, what they're buying.

So commercial growers really have some great opportunities. With CA in selecting all the different types of, of flavor and nutritional experiences that we can offer. So we're not just growing a simple crop, but we're actually using CA to again, to get a specific result. That's actually one of my big when I, when I instruct people and when I talked to two people, you know, coming from a farming background, I'm always kind of looking a little bit more of that kind of pragmatic, practical.

Application, you know, my father used to always ask me, well, what are you doing well, what are you trying to accomplish? And it really forced me to think back and. I don't grow using hydroponic techniques because I just want to grow using the hydroponic techniques, but rather I'm trying to grow very, very specific products.

In my own experience in Massachusetts, I have a limited growing season. I want it to grow high-end leafy greens. I wanted to grow them year round, and I had to look at kind of what the markets were looking for. What the consumers valued, what they were looking for and kind of build my, my grow in their own that, and I think most of the successful growers today do that.

They're, they're kind of fulfilling consumer demands and they're using CA techniques. You know, I know that when, when you and I met, you were growing very, very high end plant material for various specific. I mean, you were always in there tasting things and smelling things and making sure that. How you grew them, you know, observing the impacts, you know, that's something, it was all due to my Rolodex.

Right. Right. My Rolodex was Michelin star restaurants. So when you're dealing with a Michelin star restaurants, they that's the first thing they did. I mean, They would take it and, you know, they would take a leave and they would clap the leaf and then they would smell it in their nose for like 10 seconds.

And I'm just saying, what are these guys doing? He's like, not enough oils. You know, I was like, he knew like how much oil was in there just by spy. You know, they worked with these, they've worked with these little leaves. They know, you know, they've seen these things. Some of my most interesting Bazell customers did exactly that.

I mean, they'd be rolling the plants up, stretching the leaves, rubbing them up against their face, doing all kinds of things. And, and, but that, that is, you know, how they evaluate it. So good percentage level and oil, right. Content. Exactly. And if there was sad enough water content in this one, Not not right.

So again, we're, we're really looking service industry, basically. Yeah. We're producing a product, but we have to produce a product. I really encourage everybody out there. Who's looking at growing commercial or maybe who even is going commercially is that you're not just growing lettuce to sell or growing tomatoes to sell, but you're looking to satisfy a very specific market demand or market desire.

And, and you really would do very well to, to to examine that, to evaluate that, talking to people. So rather than just saying, well, I want to produce 2000 heads of lettuce a week. You want to really fulfill something that, that maybe there's not in the market. And CEA obviously is that one of the best ways to do that, because you can impact so many different things early on in, in, in the greenhouse, you know, understanding How, how running, you know, warmer, nighttime temperatures impacted the overall heading and textural quality of the lettuce.

For example we, you and I have talked about this and I know Glen Bearman was talking about it. And one of the previous podcasts is that with fruiting crops, tomatoes, and cucumbers, if you have a very specific gourmet quality market, if you carefully moisture stress, the plants, for example, you actually get higher sugar content and a better flavor.

So, so. Plants have very specific requirements. And obviously as a grower, you've got to meet those, but there are certain things that you can do that elicit different responses. And and from a commercial growers perspective it would serve you well, because it would give you a specific advantage. So understanding that You know, is, is important.

We have a lot of questions. I get questions on a daily basis. How I, how can I make my tomatoes tastes better? And obviously there are a number of techniques both from nutritional and water management, to your environmental manipulation, to choosing different varieties, even in your timing of your harvest tomato producers can especially if you're a smaller scale grower and you have that ability when you're not shipping.

Great distances, but you can actually go back and you can look at how you time your harvest timing to, to the degree of ripeness. So commercial producers tend to, to harvest tomatoes, for example, of that are a little less right. But they still will ripen up in in storage and shipment, but they don't ripe in a case.

I don't know if you want to ripe them when they're a little bit pinkish, right. When the pink is starting to come in, right. Yeah, depending on how long they're gonna stay in in storage. But if you, if you have the ability, that's one of the reasons that you know, people to this day still will insist that no tomato tastes as good as the one you picked in your garden.

And a big part of, I mean, there's a number of factors, but the, the big reason behind that is because when you go out to your garden, you generally don't pick that tomato until it is red, red, dead ripe. And then you got to use it, rate that data. Yeah, for sure. Your, your flavor profile is maximized. And so as a CA grower, if you're selling at a farmer's market, or if you're shipping short distances or even have people like with a CSA program, we have people coming to your apartment.

You're able to harvest a much more mature. Fruit. And again, that will go a long way into the flavor profile. So, so utilizing kind of your knowledge of what the markets are looking for. And it could, it could be as something as simple as they want a better flavor, tomato, they want a bigger head of lettuce or more crunchy, had a lettuce, but then kind of going deeper than that.

And, and really looking at you know, culinary herbs is something that I have always grown commercially and really focused on, you know, what I'm providing for nutrition as well as the environment to impact that and come up with a higher quality to meet those market demands. One of the things that, that people tend to forget.

A lot of times when, you know, we're at industry events or, or companies are trying to promote their product is one of the things that they, they tend to promote is this notion that if you're growing. Using a hydroponic system and you're growing your lettuce or your tomatoes. If you have local product, there's an always an overwhelming demand and the world is going to be the path to your door.

And that's really been one of the biggest challenges that I've seen advising growers, and he's been as a grower myself is that's not true. You could grow the best tomatoes in the world and you could end up not selling any of them. So the market might be saturated. Yeah. Sales and marketing. It's just a very big part of your business and has to be looked at as such, but also too in the fresh produce industry.

And I've spent my entire life in the fresh produce industry. And one of the things that, that I've seen consistently is that in almost all areas of the world, the fresh produce industry is very competitive. And so as a grower, you need to grow products, one crops that are market competitive. That's one of the big challenges in the indoor vertical industry particularly is in general, they're growing crops that are not necessarily market competitive with what else is available and this kind of notion of, well, I grew it and someone should buy it really just doesn't, you know, Carry water.

You have to be growing products that are very competitive, if not superior to everything in the marketplace. And, and fortunately as a CA grower, you have the ability to, to grow very, very high quality product. But if you're new to the industry, or if you're looking at becoming a great, having a really good understanding of what it is, is currently available in the marketplace is really important.

For example, we have a number of lettuce growers, right? Obviously leafy greens is one of the fastest growing segments of the CA industry. And in most areas of the country there's a good demand for pesticide free high quality greens, but you do have to look at what's available because there are a farming companies that are fulfilling those niches.

And as you said, if the market is saturated, particularly at certain times of the year having that product doesn't necessarily mean you're going to sell it. So then it's two different jobs. There should be somebody doing the market research on what users are going to sell, what product these want to sell.

See if the market's there, see how big the market is first off. If the market's small and is saturated, then you're probably not going to get any sales in that market. We want a market where it's huge and they can't keep up with that demand. That's the market you want. Yeah. And that's one of the beauties of the CEA is that you can pivot.

Quickly. So let's say for example, you're a leafy greens grower and you've got an NFT system and you're growing bib lettuce. And I've seen this, I've had, this actually happened to me is that we, you know, you may have a larger grower move in or a grower that that's in there competing and you can continue to compete and go head to head.

And there may be compelling reasons to do that, but it's also valuable and very important to look at other crops that you can grow. And we've had crops that can be consistent, right? Cause we go to that, right. That's the number two, maybe second important part on a consistent is if you're not consistent, then they, nobody want to work with you and industry on a commercial level.

Yeah, I'm going to pass on a couple dirty little secrets of the fresh produce industry. There's a lot of people don't and don't know it. When you talk with a buyer, I always encourage people. If you're going to, let's say you're going to a local whole foods and you want to get a better idea about what they're selling or what you could grow for them.

Obviously making an appointment with the corporate buyer is certainly valuable. But it's also a mistake in, in many cases because they, they won't give you really specific information. Protos Myers in general are by their training. They are Specifically competing or encouraging competition between growers and they're looking for as many sources as possible.

So they, they don't always necessarily tell you what the most valuable information for you would be. I always recommend going in and talking to the men and women that work on the sales floor, going in and talking to that person, that's stocking the shelves and finding out what customers are buying, what what crops.

Do you normally have trouble getting are you getting lettuce? That's a and most of the time the person stocking is the buyer. Yeah. And they understand that. And consistency is one of the big key factors. And if you want to lose a produce contract or relationship. The quickest way to do that is be inconsistent.

Especially with your quality, your product should look the same and be the same size. And the second one, one good way of just shortly do exactly what you said, show up, but then show up the next week at the same time, the same day and do that three to four times in a row until you get that guy to say yes, or even to him to take a sample.

Yeah. Building a building a market. For your product is part of the process and that's built on relationships. Yes. It's, it's very important to have a high quality product well packaged you know, to the, to their standards. Yes. But it's the relationship that makes that. Sale possible. And then that relationship is never ending.

And that's one of the things I think that people also tend to overlook is that I worked very long time to get our sweet basil into the whole foods chain here in the Northeast and then the North Atlantic corridor. And what we found was is that once the sale was made in my mind, That's it. Okay.

We're going to now sell 300 cases of Bazell a week. And what we found unfortunately was there were a lot of challenges because there always are. There'll be questions about your product. There'll be issues with shipments. There'll be issues with. Deliveries how the PA the crops are packaged. And so you have to maintain a constant relationship with all of your buyers, with all of your merchandisers, the people that work the floor, as you said, having a marketing person on your staff.

If you, if you can, if you're of size to do that is really important. And the marketing and sales doesn't. Ever end. And so the, the relationship is, is ongoing. So your, your quality is very important, but that consistency of your quality is equally important. And as your company grows, your marketing department and sales department should grow as well.

Yeah. If you look at all the really successful CA companies let's just take a, in the tomato industry right now, sunset produce mass minority farms, one of the largest in the world. And for good reason, they very early on became high-level expert growers. They understood, and they developed the farming system so they could produce high quality all the time and they could do it at a reasonable price point.

So they were very market competitive. And that's how they built their business. They were market competitive in terms of quality, as well as service, as well as pricing. And then from there, they, they expanded based on that, but they expanded into developing markets for additional products while still maintaining that consistency while still maintaining that quality standard.

So now we see not just the beef steak, tomatoes, then they, they moved to tomatoes on the vine and cherry tomatoes. And now we've got. All kinds of different snacking tomatoes and plum tomatoes and grape tomatoes and you name it. And it's all built on my favorite, the gold. Yeah, for sure. It's on little girl among the best, but, but that's, that's a critical part and a never ending part of your operation.

So is CA grower producing that consistent product and servicing your your customer, not only your in end user, but whoever's handling your product. Is really important. So these are all ongoing relationships. And and, and when you are consistent in terms of your sales, your quality that will serve you very well.

That's something that I know you focused on for a very long time. Yeah, yeah. Say Sam and the presentation, right? The presentation goes a long way as well. You know, don't hand your price list on a napkin. You probably can get away doing that to an investor, but not, not a client. Yeah. And food safety of course is one of the big kind of elephants in the room right now.

Obviously most growers have very good food safety plan in place, simply because they, they don't want to have a problem with the product they're conscientious. Most growers are, are, are very, very focused on producing high quality, safe food. But the food safety then goes beyond when you're looking at as a commercial producer, your retail sale obviously your buyers are going to require a certain levels of food, safety certification.

One of the more innovative tools that I have seen is for growers to now work their food safety into their marketing. So for example, this grower has Barcoded crops within the system. So they can basically track the crop from the day it was seeded who seeded it when it was transplanted by, and they can even track the temperature that it was in the whole time before it got sold.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And the cold chain is very important. So basically their food safety software tracks, the crop. From seed, not only to harvest, but beyond harvest. So w w w what the temperatures, as you said, what the temperatures were in storage, how long they were on transportation, have little gauges inside there.

They have little wireless temperature and humidity gauges to, to keep track of that wonder and transportation. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's very, very closely monitored. And as a grower, you're spending a lot of money to be able to do that, to be able to track it. So you, you have a very clear understanding of what this grower then did.

Was they actually put an a barcode or a QR code. Excuse me. On their products in the stores. So now when a customer is looking ahead of lettuce, they can actually scan the QR code and up pops, not only the end of that information, but a little picture of who had transplanted it and a little information about them and a little information about the growing.

Now, obviously a lot of consumers are not, aren't necessarily interested in every product. They buy doing something like that, but people are interested in their food and it's a great. Tool to then enhance the value of their product to the consumer. So they, they took their, their the technology tool that they were using for their food safety.

And they added to that. They turned it into a marketing tool and it actually turned out to be very, very successful. And I see a lot of other growers, you seen these new Lake leaf spectrometers that are out, that you just, you stick the leaf in there and it'll give you a readout of the nutrient structure in the leaf.

Scan everything. Yeah. People are, are becoming much more educated as to what what's going into their food. Yeah. This scan right away of it's food poisoning right away. Like you can scan, check your lettuce when you get it at home with these gauges. Yeah. But absolutely. If you were the attentive grower who has been listening to all of our podcasts, you would have food safe products to begin with uncertain, but which is everybody listening right now also understands our number one rule is clean the systems regularly, clean your girl rooms regularly.

If you're doing all of these things regularly, then you are you're on your way to have that high quality for sure. Yeah. If I had to give one piece of advice to anyone looking to go into commercial growing, actually to follow my friend, Nick greens, who always likes to ask our guests, if you could go back in time and talk to your 18 year old self, what would you tell yourself?

As a grower, what I would have. Advise myself very strongly to do would be to start smaller and try to implement a lot more of these protocols. So in other words, I would have, instead of trying to build the largest greenhouse I could and maybe cutting corners in, in certain areas, I would have built a smaller system, use a more effective system, maybe spend a little extra money on, on a higher producing system.

One that allowed me to better monitor and control. The environmental and nutritional parameters, I certainly would have gone through a much higher level of insect screening and insect exclusion and, and proper environmental control equipment. In other words rather than just having a couple of fans and a few heaters, but being having equipment to better adjust and monitor temperature relative humidity, turning the heater on at three in the morning.

Oh, absolutely. But, but certainly you know, at the time, no one really. In the commercial industry really talked much about things like vapor pressure deficit. So obviously we understand now more of that, but, but I would have really focused on that and food safety and the process as it relates to.

So food safety is really kind of a very big umbrella because you're looking at one, you're looking at your process. So, so when you develop your process for growing food, safety is a big part of that. So you want to be able to integrate that. We don't want to just have our process for growing, you know, understanding our seating and our transplanting and our harvest schedules and how we allocate our labor.

And then kind of separately looking at our food safety, you know, how we're handling the product, who's handling it. What, what equipment you have in place to, to keep your food clean and safe, but rather all of these things integrate together. It's a humongous commercial facility, then they should have a food safety officer.

Absolutely. Oh yeah. That's, that's almost a a mandatory you know, for a larger, that's a whole job of itself. And in that person that's doing it should have a crew as well. Yeah. And I know that's a lot of your consulting work. Now that's a lot of the consulting work I do, and actually helping grow or put together a plan that pulls together all of those pieces.

So the food safety. Component or the, the multiple components to the food safety are woven into the production practices and they're woven into the harvest and crop management procedures. And then as well as we look at at processing and packaging and storage and shipment, they're all blended together.

So you, you really are developing a plan that allows you Highest levels of production, highest levels of quality, greatest efficiencies. So this is in terms of your costs, the management, as well as your ability to handle large volume of product, your ability to produce a very high quality food safe products that not only meet the standard.

So you'll have food safety standards imposed by your buyers, but you want to obviously meet and exceed that. And then produce a better value for your customer. So obviously kind of understanding what consumers are looking for, what your buyers are looking for and building your entire process around that.

I know that's a lot to kind of take in, but really your physical technology, your systems, your greenhouses, your environmental management systems, all of those things. And then your methods all are woven together to kind of get that, that commercial end result. There's never one way, you know, that, that all like Joe was saying that all changes just depending on your end goal, you know what your end goal is going to change all of that.

So if you have processes for tomatoes, doesn't mean you can grow. Lettuce with those processes. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the specifically the controlled environment systems are all, there's some consistency there in terms of how you manage nutrients and how you manage your environment. But, but they're all very, very individual components to that.

And so when you're growing one thing, obviously new technologies may come that impact that, but then you also may be ship shifting what you're growing or how you're packaging it, or what size. You're harvesting your crops. All of those things really kind of roll into your procedures. So obviously constantly evolving, constantly educating, constantly research and experiments.

That's something we haven't talked about a lot yet. But yeah, well they should always have an R and D lab, right? So there's all the research. Always, even up here, a small backyard grower you know, with a small NFT channel, having one or two channels where you're trialing new varieties. A lot of the seed companies, paramount seeds, Johnny seeds, you know, they're all.

Yeah, exactly. They're coming out with new varieties, new new offerings consumers that's one of the things that people forget is that. People the consumer, they're always looking for new things. I can't tell you how many times we've been trialing a new product just for that. Oh, and new green frilled red Oak leaf combination a new mini romaine variegated Bazell that we're trying for a number of reasons.

And people are like, Oh, my gosh. That's really cool. If I see that on the store, I would buy that in a minute. And part of it, it is yes, they liked the quality of the product, or they liked some of the qualities of the product, but certainly consumers are always looking for something new. They want variety.

They want that, that newest thing. It's it's wide trends in the produce industry are constantly evolving. So R and D is a critical part of that. You may find a new varieties of basil. For example, there are newer varieties that are resistant to Downy, mildew, and Downy mildew is a big problem for greenhouse Bazell growers.

And so there's even designer brain. Varieties, right. Your Cuca, melons and stuff like that. Right. Yeah. Sure. And so finding out what works for you works in your system, works in your process. That's important, but then coming up with new products for market, one of the most interesting plants that I encountered was the ice plant.

It's a small green, very popular in Asia. It's a very salty plant. So people add that people on low sodium diets Add that to their salads or to their sandwiches. And it adds a nice salty flavor without sodium chloride. And, and so the, the, the process actually a lot of the more popular crops that I grew sweet and probably most notably in the early 1980s, no one was producing greenhouse basil in my area and I was a lettuce grower and we were growing some leafy greens and just tried some different culinary herbs and on a whim.

Produce some sweet basally. It grew phenomenally well in our system. And within about three weeks, we were converting most of our production over to Bazell because the market demand was stunning. So you never know what's coming and you never know what will grow well for you or sell well in your markets.

One of the big advantages of the CA systems is again, You have the ability to shift quickly. And part of that may be you just found a new market niche. It may be an unfortunate circumstances. One of the things that we found with a lot of the food safety the illnesses related to foodborne pathogens in romaine lettuce.

One of the things that we had expected was most growers were going to get a big bump in In demand and they did in romaine. So we had lettuce growers romaine lettuce grows, excuse me, who were, were suddenly getting calls all over the place that they, they had a huge demand for their product and they expanded their production of the romaine lettuce.

And it was great now. A few years earlier when there was a, a problem. Similar problem with spinach, what we found was that the, the market just went away for spinach. So CA growers in, in theory should have had a a, a boom in sales because they were growing safe, spinach in their greenhouses. However, what happened was nobody wanted spinach.

And even if it was greenhouse grown, people were afraid of it. So. You don't always, and those are, so those are very two very similar situations that caused a very different market scenario. And so you have to always be flexible and be willing to shift because if you are that spinach grower and there's all these food borne illnesses related to spinach, and no one suddenly is buying spinach and you can't even sell your spinach, which is safe, but you still can't sell it.

You have to be able to switch, you know, the fact that it's not fair, doesn't really matter. The fact that how's the flower business with greenhouses right now in, in the States. I know how it is doing overseas. Yeah. Unfortunately you know, the, the production in South America, the climate in a lot of areas of particularly Columbia is so.

Favorable for cut flower production and they can do it. So inexpensively it's been very difficult. I mean, it destroyed the cut flower industry on the West coast of the U S there are growers growing specialty flowers using hydroponic techniques, obviously that, that. For certain markets are doing very well.

And, and obviously edible flowers is, is, you know, one of them Nietzsche markets than, than trying to go after a commercial market. So if somebody came up with a whole business plan of like, yo, I want to grow roses and you know, Kentucky good luck on that. Yeah, I, I didn't see app harvest building out 60 acres of Rose production.

So, so yeah, so, so the market demand and competition is going to be a big factor in what you grow and how you pivot. So please don't Discount the impact that competition has. I know a lot of companies and companies that sell equipment, you know, will tell you, Oh, you won't have competition. You know, you can own the market.

Don't worry about that. That's something that we want to talk about. And that's something that from a commercial standpoint is really important. This is a competitive market. So you have to be able to grow competitive quality. You have to do it at a competitive price point, but you also have to be ready for the.

You know, possibility and the potential eventuality that someone else is going to be competing with you and they can beat you on quality. They can beat you on volume. And sometimes it's just because another grower has a better relationship with a buyer. We've actually lost accounts because a new buyer would come on and the buyer had previous relationships with other growers.

And so you lose market share and you have to be ready. For that to happen. Cause it does happen in the industry. So being able to pivot and switch to a different crop or a different size or configuration is something that's always shouldn't be part of, of your operation. So, so don't ever fall into the trap that once you're growing this one product for this one market, then it's going to stay that way.

And it doesn't the, but in another market that they can go after is okay. Distributors the wholesale market. Right. But sometimes there's a company that sells to the distributors. So there's a distributor to sells to distributors. I never knew that that this exists, but there are companies like that around around the States.

So look after a company like that, look after a company that's already dealing with a bunch of distributors so they can send it to a bunch of people. Cause then you get that many more salespeople out there trying to sell your product. Yeah. Yeah, but you have to also be mindful of the margins. So, so yeah, on the margins, but, but the volume might be there too to meet you breaking even to, to, to start figuring out your margins down the line.

Right. For sure. And, and based on your facility and based on your business model, that can be an option. We've always heard people argue and say, You know, does it make more sense to sell larger volume at a lower margin or to specialize in a niche where you get much lower volume, but much higher margin?

And the fact is, is that there's room for both. And there's no one right answer. So understanding, you know, it depends on business model, right? Like I said, The microgreen company that I'm, that I'm helping. They're not about like, Hey, we're going to, we want to make a million dollars to the CEOs and stuff.

They're about like, how can we keep this program going to help the community to keep it going? So even if we break even, or make, make a few hundred bucks over every month I think the program is still successful. Yeah, for sure. So that obviously that's a lot of, that's a lot of information that, that Nick and I are throwing at you today.

You know, we really appreciate you being here. We really appreciate all the input we ask you to please continue to send in in your questions obviously on social media. And you can email us directly But the bottom line is that if you are in this industry, you are a farmer, you are farming and all of the same challenges and opportunities that are there for you are, are still the same.

And so when you approach it that way, when you approach a commercial operation or a potential commercial operation is that you want to look at, you know, very specifically what products the market is looking for. What unmet needs may be in the marketplace and how you can exploit that. So those are all really important things.

And then, then developing a plan for how to grow. For, you know, contacting people like Nick and myself for consulting, for grower training, for systems, for guidance, that's really important. And that's why we're here. One of the, you know, the things that I did, you know, I was already a farmer my whole life around farming in a farming community.

And so I had a great background, but even then, you know, I kind of had this kind of go at alone attitude. And, and, and that hurt me in a lot of ways. It helped me in some ways, but it also hurt me. So we have a lot of information that's available, obviously being careful who you select, who you work with. If you're going to be looking at a consultant, obviously a consultant with experience and who has a track record of success, both consulting for clients, but also a track record of success grow as a grower is really important.

And then going from there, building your business model around. Those market needs around those production methods and technologies that will allow you to be competitive. And then again, being flexible and understanding new farmer. I mean, if you're a new business and you're just starting to start up commercial business, make sure you have your grower first.

Then hire consultant to teach your grower. But if you don't hire the consultant before the grower, then it's going to be hard for you to transfer that information to the grower. It's just best that the grower hangs out with the expert. Yeah, we have we have some guests coming on in just the next few episodes, some large scale commercial growers who are very successful, as well as some some members of academia who have actually trained commercial borrowers.

And so we're going to get that perspective. But as Nick said the growing aspect is by far the most important part of this, obviously the sales, the marketing, the business aspect is also important, right? But you're a grower you're in horticulture, you're in farming and understanding that and building your models around that is really what will serve you well, so, so we appreciate everyone's time.

We thank you again, and we look forward to speaking to you another day. Thanks very much and have a great day, everyone. Thank you.