Kentucky based grower AppHarvest has opened the world’s largest touchless indoor farm for salad greens. The 15 acre indoor farm at Berea, Kentucky, features a touchless growing system with autonomous harvesting. The company expects a four-farm network to be operating by year-end, with the 30-acre berry farm at Somerset, Kentucky, with production of 1 million strawberries using 90% less water than conventional farms, expected to begin commercial shipments soon.

At 15-acres – or nearly 654,000 square feet – the AppHarvest Berea farm is expected to be the world’s largest high-tech indoor farm for autonomously harvested salad greens with a touchless growing system. The hands-off system is automated from pre-seeding to packaging including on-site washing to help improve both food safety and efficiency for washed-and-ready-to-eat salad packs. The farm is designed to grow about 35 million lettuce plants at a time, which go from seed to maturity in about three to four weeks depending on variety.

The AppHarvest Berea growing environment leverages sunshine and rainwater and is automated for lighting, humidity and temperature. The farm uses a closed-loop irrigation system, which enables expected water savings of up to 90 percent compared to open-field farming and allows for precision dosing of nutrients, resulting in far less use of fertiliser compared to open-field farming while avoiding pollution from agricultural run-off. The closed-loop system also aids in integrated pest management —using good bugs to take care of bad bugs and early detection and prevention—to avoid the use of harsh chemical pesticides. The adaptive spacing design of the troughs in the touchless growing system further minimises any potential pest exposure.

“Our top customers increasingly request CEA-grown produce for its reliable quantity and consistent quality—especially in terms of flavour, texture, colour and shelf-life—and its more sustainable growing methods. This deeper relationship with AppHarvest positions us to grow together efficiently to meet increasing demand by expanding our local footprint and delivering on our long-standing ‘fresh from the farm’ commitment to customers,” said Mastronardi Produce CEO Paul Mastronardi.

“AppHarvest is deepening its relationship with Mastronardi Produce under the ‘Queen of Greens’ packaged salad brand. Securing non-dilutive sources of capital to fund our growth has been the team’s priority, and we expect this financing through Mastronardi to improve cash flow as we continue to scale operations,” said AppHarvest Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb. “Working closely with Mastronardi, the AppHarvest team has set new precedents in the CEA sector by quadrupling our number of farms in such a short time. With the Berea opening, we now have two farms shipping produce to national customers, and our 30-acre Somerset berry facility also is expected to ship in the next few weeks. We expect Morehead to start its third harvest and to start planting our 60-acre Richmond tomato farm in November.”