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Former AppHarvest employee - similar company, similar outcome. The absolute naivety / arrogance of some of these green tech companies is astounding. The basic

Former AppHarvest employee - similar company, similar outcome. The absolute naivety / arrogance of some of these green tech companies is astounding. The basic assumption of a lot of these types of companies are “We’re smart tech people who are good at fundraising. We are absolutely equipped to solve this problem of indoor horticulture.” Almost all of them think that they have nothing to learn from an existing industry with decades of experience in growing produce at scale in greenhouses. Warning signs: 1. Not hiring anyone with prior experience working in industrial scale greenhouse ag. (They’re the sort of people you would expect to know about basic operations, labor, pest control, etc.) 2. Not listening to those people once they did hire them. 3. Trying to position / advertise themselves as tech companies rather than agriculture companies for the express purpose of inflating their valuation. The experience really soured me on green tech and agtech. The problems they need to solve aren’t technological at all. They have to do with distribution of the produce. Jonathan Webb and the entire AppHarvest leadership team can absolutely go fuck themselves. They are at best disingenuous, at worst, cash-grabbing liars.

nitwit005 3y ago
These companies are often about scamming investors, which is what you get at with your third point. Maybe some of them still expect to succeed, but I suspect failure is often the plan.
davidhunter 3y ago
Would be interested to chat and hear your views on the viability of the greenhouse industry in the US if you're up for it? david [at] optimal.ag
- cushychicken 3y ago
  I’m not at all interested in chatting. I’ve already given enough of my limited lifetime to the ag tech space, and I never want to go back - even via a phone call. The main problem isn’t growing the fruit - it’s selling and distributing it. Mastronardi has a monopoly on North American distribution in all but name. (For tomatoes, at least. ) You can grow as much produce as you want, but they’re going to figure out a way to capture any consumer surplus produced by the growers as part of the distribution chain. That didn’t really matter so much for AppHarvest because they couldn’t profitably produce fruit at Mastronardi’s market rate. But if they did, Mastronardi would figure out a way to shift the market pricing they negotiated with them. Since they control most of the foodservice and retail grocery supply, and have those contracts pretty sewn up, Mastronardi is basically the only way to get fruit into store shelves. That gives them a ton of power negotiating with greenhouses that are otherwise commodities - water and sun go in, tomatoes come on.

nitwit005 3y ago

These companies are often about scamming investors, which is what you get at with your third point. Maybe some of them still expect to succeed, but I suspect failure is often the plan.

davidhunter 3y ago

Would be interested to chat and hear your views on the viability of the greenhouse industry in the US if you're up for it? david [at] optimal.ag

cushychicken 3y ago
I’m not at all interested in chatting. I’ve already given enough of my limited lifetime to the ag tech space, and I never want to go back - even via a phone call. The main problem isn’t growing the fruit - it’s selling and distributing it. Mastronardi has a monopoly on North American distribution in all but name. (For tomatoes, at least. ) You can grow as much produce as you want, but they’re going to figure out a way to capture any consumer surplus produced by the growers as part of the distribution chain. That didn’t really matter so much for AppHarvest because they couldn’t profitably produce fruit at Mastronardi’s market rate. But if they did, Mastronardi would figure out a way to shift the market pricing they negotiated with them. Since they control most of the foodservice and retail grocery supply, and have those contracts pretty sewn up, Mastronardi is basically the only way to get fruit into store shelves. That gives them a ton of power negotiating with greenhouses that are otherwise commodities - water and sun go in, tomatoes come on.