S11E156 Rick Langille/Harvest Today - Harvest Wall 2.0: Engineering the Next Generation of Farming

Rick Langille 00:00:00:

But it's going to go both ways. We're actually going to set up a division over there. We're going to set up fabrication of the whole system, but that's going to be for the region, which means now I'm not going to fabricate full harvest wall systems here and then ship them over there. We're actually going to tool it there, assemble it there and distribute it there. So out of the facility in India, we'll service the Asian market, Australia and the Middle East. Right. Because, you know, I don't know if you know, but from Chennai, India to Dubai is a three hour flight. It's right there. Right. And we have a couple, you know, because I've been to Dubai quite a few times, we've got a couple pretty good projects over there. And that's going to be run out of our office. That'll be in Chennai.

Harry Duran 00:00:47:

Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast. Weekly conversations with fascinating CEOs, founders and ad tech visionaries. Join us every week as we dive deep into the world of vertical farming with your host, Harry Duran. Vertical Farming podcast, episode 154. Whoa. We're really making some progress here. Regular listeners to the show, welcome back. I appreciate all the help and support you provide for the show. Whether I meet you in person virtually on socials, I appreciate everything you do to get the word out about this show. And if this is your first time listening, I'm positive you're in the right place as this is the show where we interview fascinating CEOs and founders of the leading vertical farming companies from around the world. I'm your host, Harry Duran, podcasting since 2014 with my first show, Podcast Junkies and founder of Fullcast, our full service Done for you podcast agency. Also now CEO of the AgTech Media Group. So I've got a full plate here. Stay tuned for all the insights and innovations coming from Sepp and I@igrownews.com in case you missed the last episode, we spoke to Paralisa. He's the CTO and co founder of Elevate Farms and CEO of Intravision Group. His journey from architect to innovator in CEA is truly inspiring and his work with LED lighting systems and plant growth has led to groundbreaking developments in vertical farming and plant made pharmaceuticals. I was fascinated to learn about Per's experiences working with space research institutes and his contributions to understanding plant growth in low atmospheric pressure environments. I'm learning so much from these episodes. We delve into the evolution of LED technology and its impact on plant cultivation as well as the innovative gravity flow system used by Elevate Farms. Make sure you check that out if you have not done so already. This week I connect with Jessica Naomi Fong. She's the founder and CEO of Common Farms. We connected at Indoor Ag Tech in Chicago last year and she shares her inspiring story of launching a vertical farming business in Hong Kong just before the COVID pandemic hit. She's got a background in the restaurant industry and manufacturing and she leveraged her unique perspective to create a thriving microgreens and specialty greens business in one of the world's most densely populated cities. I was particularly struck by Jessica's customer centric approach to farming. She explains how she tailored her crop selection and growing methods to meet the specific needs of high end chefs and restaurants in Hong Kong. She also discusses the importance of education in the vertical farming industry, both for customers and for her own team, and her insights into the nutritional benefits of microgreens and her vision for making functional foods more accessible are really inspiring. This conversation offers valuable lessons for anyone interested in entrepreneurship, sustainable ag and the future of food production. There's five key takeaways that really resonated with me. Number one Adaptability and resilience in business. Her journey with Common Farms highlights the importance of being adaptable, especially when starting a business during challenging times like Covid. 2. Building strong customer relationships Jessica emphasized the significance of cultivating these relationships with customers, particularly chefs and high end restaurants. She understood their needs and she collaborated on product development which I found fascinating. 3. The approach of developing products based on direct feedback from the market and customers is crucial and her strategy of growing specific crops requested by chefs and continuously iterating based on their feedback demonstrated the value of being market driven and responsive to customers needs. 4. The focus on educational outreach and transparency, opening up the farm for visits and engaging with chefs and customers directly helps in educating them about the benefits of locally grown produce. The despite the challenges of operating in a space constrained and competitive market like Hong Kong, Jessica leveraged local advantages by focusing on microgreens and specialty greens that can be grown efficiently in small spaces. You're really going to love this episode. There's a ton of great takeaways. Remember, I just have one ask for you if you're listening. Getting Value from this Please share this episode with one friend who would get value from the content here. It's one of the best ways to grow the show. And remember, you can always visit verticalfarmingpodcast.com to read the full show notes for each episode which includes all guest Links as well. Okay, before we jump into this uninterrupted conversation with Jessica, a few words from the amazing partners that support this show. So, Rick Langeal, CEO of Harvest Today, thank you so much for round two on the Vertical Farming podcast.

Rick Langille 00:04:50:

It's good to see you again, man.

Harry Duran 00:04:51:

Likewise. Good to see you.

Rick Langille 00:04:53:

We're super excited about a lot of things. Like, I've talked to a couple people, Harry, and I'm sure you've run into it too, that everybody just seems like 20, 25 is the year you feel the same way.

Harry Duran 00:05:05:

I think so. I think it depends how many things people have got in motion and things that people have been working on. And a lot of times, you know, things take a while, you know, and it's the perfect metaphor for this industry. But things take time to take root. And I think what we're seeing is people that have put in the work and understand that maybe 2324 was a resetting and reevaluating priorities phase. And I think we've seen a lot of that. Obviously, more consolidation, more shutdowns, more people worried about the industry. But I think the people who have the long term vision will likely see it and be the ones that are going to succeed.

Rick Langille 00:05:42:

You already hit on one point that I wanted to make sure that we kind of dive into a little bit, and that is some of the failures that we've seen in the industry. I think they've finally come to a conclusion where we can't eat nothing but lettuce, right? And now no names because we don't need it, but now we don't eat nothing but strawberries. It's just like, why do we have to go from this, like one potential disaster, which was a disaster, to another disaster? And, well, as we've been so carefully trying to listen to the demands of the farms that we're working with, Harry, we need to be much more broad spectrum. We need to be able to address diets that are more than lettuce.

Harry Duran 00:06:27:

And so it's been probably about six months since we had our initial chat, so. And it seems like a lot has happened since then. And also, like, maybe I'm curious if you could take us back to where you were from a mindset perspective in terms of things that you were working on, you were hoping were going to take root, and then maybe any challenges you faced along the way to kind of paint the full picture.

Rick Langille 00:06:47:

Six months ago, we were just in the process of launching our Shopify site. Right. So you can actually go and go to shop harvest.today and buy Harvest Wall. Right. That's when we launched that really incredible video piece that we did with tripwire people up in Canada. Gosh, that was just. It's impactful because in fact, I even watched it again today and I still look at that and I go, that was probably one of the most inclusive, complete pieces I've ever seen that captured our industry. It's not just about harvest today, of course, it lands with the Harvest Wall, does what it will, you know, what a family could, as a family of four could do in order to grow food for the family. Right. So we're talking about. What's morphed out of that, Harry, is this term that we're starting to really hold onto and that is attainable hack. Because if we're going to go and do awful bunch of other systems that are really designed to be commercial, well, it's really not scalable down to a residential application. The Harvest Wall was designed specifically to be scalable. Even with, you know, before you started recording, we were talking about a project that I'll be very generic about. We have landed a significant project in a major US city that will be. Each tranche will be roughly 216,000 plants. And this project will do that every eight weeks. So it's a repurposing an abandoned corporate campus and they're going to turn it into a farm. The reason why they're going to. They are choosing the Harvest Wall is because a, we're the microbiome, we really do grow a better plant. We think we grow a better plant. Right. And I'm allowed to say that because that's how the Harvest Wall was designed to do and then the diversity of crops that they can grow with that same system. So if he wants to change the positioning of some of the farms or some of the way the panels are working, you literally, because you've got a basic frame that's irrigated with whichever one you want to feed it with. And then you take the harvest panel and you can take it off and you can put, you know, you could take another frame or another section of the farm and you could turn it into strawberries, turn it into peppers, turn it into tomatoes, turn it into leafy greens, turn it into bas. Basil. What do you want? Doesn't matter. You're not locked into growing a monocrop. And I think it's that diversity that's really going to make an impact on how do we actually bring this whole, you know, the conversation that's obviously ongoing on LinkedIn right now. Tremendously is community based ag. That's what it is.

Harry Duran 00:09:24:

And so for the folks that might just be hearing a harvest today for the first time, we'll obviously redirect them back to our original conversation so they can get the full origin story. But how would you describe what sets the harvest wall apart from other systems? You know, obviously, what led to you securing the steel you have coming up?

Rick Langille 00:09:43:

Well, the harvest wall was really based around the plant biology of rooted plants. Because as we vertically irrigate or we use hydroponic technology in order to feed plants, hydroponics never allows a true microbiome to get going. So it's that root exchange, the root exits, ins and outs, vitamins, trace minerals, all, of course, npk. Everything that we talk about to make a plant grow. And we're not talking about environment yet, we're not talking about lights, we're just talking about how do we actually root a plant and then grow in one small rooted pot? That microbiome that allows the flavonoids to be expressed in the plant the way it would normally be. Okay, so we've got lots of. We have two tents in the shop here right now, and one of them has arugula growing in. And I've had people spit the arugula out, right? And I'm like, whoa, what are you eating? That's awesome. He said, no, it's too spicy. I said, that's what it's supposed to taste like, right? So I appreciate the effort that, you know, I don't know, the whole foods of the world or Kroger's of the world does to get food as fresh as possible. The problem is it's just coming for too far away. It's just, you know, it doesn't take but a few days for stuff to start losing flavor. Water, because it's all, you know, it's mostly water. So as soon as it starts dehydrating, which is immediate, as soon as you harvest it right, then you start to lose everything that's meant to be in there. Hence the name of our company, Harvest.

Harry Duran 00:11:06:

That makes a lot of sense today.

Rick Langille 00:11:08:

It's not harvest, you know, and to eat for a week from now. So it's not any. It's not fancy. It's just basic science. It's basic plant pathology. As we manipulate NPK or lights or environment, we can really express a plant to taste the way it's supposed to. We've had one company have to adjust their pesto recipe because the basil was too strong. Look, they're used to Getting, you know, kind of old, watered down, you know, basil.

Harry Duran 00:11:41:

Yeah.

Rick Langille 00:11:41:

Harvest. Well, is. They actually were taking. I didn't know this one. They're taking and combining kale in with pesto or with basil to make a pesto. And it is fantastic. It's great. Really good stuff.

Harry Duran 00:11:54:

How much have you learned along the way? Because, you know, there's been a lot we spoke about in that first conversation about the learning curve. Right. You're talking about plant science, you're talking about all the. Understand clearer profiles, the biome of the soil and what's that learning process been like for you? You know, the. And we could talk about the ups and downs as well. But it's interesting because I'd love to give that perspective, especially for new farmers who are thinking of getting involved in this space.

Rick Langille 00:12:20:

I think of X or what is it? I think of a rocket. That's really what it was like in 2000, 2001, 2002 was just going straight up. It's really been the last year, year and a half that things have kind of started to at least flatten out. We have a pretty good idea what it takes, you know, how to keep a system clean. How do you, you know, what's the impact of environment on yields and those sorts of things. What's really fun is our work with Ecoplume and Honza, the. The team over in Sweden. Have you talked to him yet?

Harry Duran 00:12:50:

I don't think so. I need to get you. Let's make that connection.

Rick Langille 00:12:54:

They're brilliant. They've been at it for six years. So the ability to track with photochromic cameras, the, you know, we're taking pictures every 15 minutes of plants and plant growth so we can see disease, we can see. We're taking all of these fantastic pictures and the AI analyzes what it's seeing. So we've got recipes. Those recipes have everything that we're putting in the water. Everything that we're put, you know, how we're irrigating, watching the growth of the plants and then taking the specific varieties of different types of lettuces or different types of herbs or whatever it is we're trying to grow. And that recipe is put into the dashboard. Now, Harry, we're going to say, hey, if everything's tracking along the way, this is going to be ready for harvest in 22 days. We know that today, what to be watching for. So instead of getting to 22 days going right, we're watching it. It's 100% predicted and the recipes are credibly accurate. So now I can go back to a farmer and then I can say, hey, look, we add just a little bit of tech here. You don't have to fill the farm up with this stuff. But, you know, the more we put in, the more data points we get. Right. The EcoBloom dashboard is allowing us to be incredibly predicting on how we're going to get yields and how much we're going to get. Right. I'm super excited. So that's the learning curve that we've been on. Okay. Yeah. To learn. It's not necessarily how to grow a plant. Right. It's been more about how do we manage a farm, really, because we know the equipment works. We've got some just super fun things coming. I don't want to spill the beans too much, but we're working on cost reduction. Okay. The harvest wall already is pretty competitive already. That doesn't mean it's not the cheapest kid on the street, but we're not the most expensive. But, you know, the farmer in me is going to say, you know, make it less expensive. Well, we are absolutely doing that. But we're also trying to say, remember, you guys, we're trying to make stuff in America and we're listening to what's going on in Washington these days. You're kind of thinking about that a lot, right? So, yeah.

Harry Duran 00:14:58:

How's it been for you personally, Rick, to figure out where you need to pivot or you need to change? Because obviously there's probably some expectations of what the market would bear and what the response would be to harvest today. And then in the light of what people see in the news, people, you know, start to get anxious, price conscious, wondering where the industry is headed. And I'm curious about your thought process and how you think through these challenges where as you keep hitting these speed bumps along the way, if you will.

Rick Langille 00:15:28:

Well, we could talk about what's happened through the election. Right. The drama in the conversation. So I'd like to think of myself as a leader of a company that China is just status quo. Right. Because we're going to hear these conversations. It's going to be a yo, yo. It's a roller coaster. Right. So I don't get on the roller coaster. I never have and probably never will. It's just not my thing. I don't let anything get me too excited. But I also, I know when there's opportunity. Right. So one of the things that you brought up just a little bit ago was, you know, what have we learned over the last few years related to the development of bigger projects, they take time, simple as that. There's a lot of moving parts. So it's rare that you find somebody that can bring all those parts and pieces together that allows us to really get something up and going. Right. We had one gentleman last year that we met was go, go, go, go, go. Like we even all the way down to. We had all the LED credits, the lighting credits for energy and all that. We had everything all lined up and then it just fell off the face of the earth. Well, a couple weeks ago he came back and we're super excited and happy to continue to support him. But instead of getting mad or disappointed or anything like that, all I could think about was, golly, he's been through the wringer. Right. I don't need to be in the ringer with him. I was just, I'm super thankful that he's back to the table and his project is he's got the property now. He's been able to climb back up that hill and we're still standing there right beside Withem, ready to launch a significant project in Southern California. So it's patience maybe.

Harry Duran 00:17:12:

Yeah. How do you think about building the team that puts you in the right place for succeeding? You know, especially when you have to look at projects that take. Have a long Runway. You have to figure out where's the best use of your resources so you can plan for the long term.

Rick Langille 00:17:28:

True, we've been super lucky because we've kept a small team. I've not overhired. Okay. But I will tell you that because of some other companies letting some people go, there's some really, really good people available to hire right now. And we've just got two that are. You'll meet them in Vegas. You'll get to meet the couple, two new guys in Vegas. And I'm just so excited to introduce it to them. But yeah, our competitive advantage has been hiring people saying, look, you know, we're still, I, we've been at this now for what we're coming into our fifth year. Right. So I really still consider ourselves to be startup company. We're not pre revenue at all, but we're certainly not making lots of money yet. Okay. But we are, we're doing, we're going to be just fine. 2025 is really our. It'll be our first positive cash flow year.

Harry Duran 00:18:23:

I've asked this question before about what's a tough question you've had to ask yourself recently. So in lieu of what has been happening since we last spoke and what you're looking at in the next 12 months. How would you answer that question? Now?

Rick Langille 00:18:35: That one's easy. But I have an opportunity. When I was in Dubai, I did meet Ram Gopal. He is the CEO and owner of Future Ag, based in Chennai, India. Okay. I challenged Ram because most of these guys, the people that I've met in the past, have just, they get all excited. Then you go away from a trade show and it's vaporware. Like, it's, it's gone. So I said, ron, you show up at harvest today in Broomfield, Colorado, and we'll talk. Right? Guess what? He showed up.

Harry Duran 00:19:08:

Okay.

Rick Langille 00:19:09:

And then when he was here, I said, you showed up. I'm coming to Chennai. I want to see what's going on. I'd never been to India before and I gotta tell you, I just, my eyes and heart were opened. I really. Wow. How they manage. I understand so much more about the economy, the people, their faith in Hinduism. All that was just, it was, until you go there, judgment. Just go figure it out. And I was like, wow, you know.

Harry Duran 00:19:43:

How long were you there for?

Rick Langille 00:19:44:

I was there for a week and a half.

Harry Duran 00:19:46:

Okay.

Rick Langille 00:19:47:

But I also, I snuck over to the Maldives and went diving for a few. I'm not going to sail that or not going to travel that far. Not go diving or go sailing. You're trying to have some fun, right?

Harry Duran 00:19:58:

So talk a little bit about that experience because I think, you know, we hear of the regular opportunities in the markets in indoor farming and obviously, you know, I haven't heard a lot about what's happening in countries like India. So I'm curious what your perspective, what you discovered when you went there.

Rick Langille 00:20:13:

Two distinct opportunities. Okay. One of them is to. We are going to start manufacturing a couple strategic components for the harvest wall there and then bring them over. Not nearly the bulk of it, but a significant amount of it. That's what I'm praying for. That will impact our bottom line for costing to be able to sell stuff at a lower price point. And it will happen. Okay. Tooling is already in process. There's. And the other thing too is our industry because of, I don't know, probably the best example is this, this net.

Harry Duran 00:20:51:

Can you describe that for the listener?

Rick Langille 00:20:52:

It's a net cup. It's a two inch net cup. And these little net cups, you can buy them all day long on Amazon for 18 cents, 19 cents. Right. Well, I'm going to get them a lot less. Right. And we will be able to retail these to our farmers for less than 10 cents. Right. It's because we've tooled it up ourselves. I'm just, I'm done. There's just too many sticky fingers. And it's not. And I don't hold anybody accountable for that, Harry. It's just that that's the way the industries developed or evolved probably is a better word. Right. And that allows, you know, people are making margin all the way along the way. So the closer we can get the fabrication of this part all the way to the farm, the less of it. And we don't have sticky fingers. We're reasonable business people. We're not greedy at all. But we need to make money. We all need to make money. The same thing as people selling will head a lettuce, they got to make money too. I get that. But the question is, you know, how much is enough? You know, I know what my overhead is and I know what I want to make. And at the end of the day, end of the year when I'm filing my taxes, I want to know. I want to have roughly 10%. I'd love to have 10%. You know, I got millions of dollars invested here. Right. There's a reason I'd like to get a 10% return.

Harry Duran 00:22:02:

Sure.

Rick Langille 00:22:03:

If we had that, that'd be great. I'd be super happy. Right. So that's a pretty good example of the impact that I've been able to bring from my work in India. But it's going to go both ways. We're actually going to set up a division over there. We're going to set up fabrication of the whole system, but that's going to be for the region, which means now I'm not going to fabricate full harvest wall systems here and then ship them over there. We're actually going to tool it there, assemble it there and distribute it there. So out of the facility in India will service the Asian market, Australia and the Middle East. Right. Because, you know, I don't know if you know, but Chennai, India to Dubai is the three hour flight. It's right there. Right. And we have a couple, you know, because I've been to Dubai quite a few times, we've got a couple pretty good projects over there. And that's going to be run out of our office. That'll be in Chennai.

Harry Duran 00:22:52:

Where are you seeing the most opportunity, Rick, in terms of like regions?

Rick Langille 00:22:56:

North America. Yeah, it's right here. It's still here. Yeah, it's Canada. Canada and the United States. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, we still have again, strategically, because the harvest wall is what it Is Harry. The things that we're doing in classrooms, for example, we've got two walls. One of them's in Saudi Arabia, the other one's in Wales right now. And they're making some pretty big inroads into some pretty big departments of education because you can take it and you can roll it from thing to thing from classroom to classroom. You can take these things and the kids can take them home. You know, they're not relying on hydroponic, pure hydroponics to be able to do it, because they can just take this and put, I done what I did. It's goal, right? And there's a really big impact to that. And the harvest world is definitely going to change the way we do that. And I've had one of our customers say, he said to me, he said, rick, you realize that you're going to change the way foods grow. And I'm like, well, golly, that sounds great, but, you know, we're just do one day at a time and the irrigation's working. Haven't even started to tell you about our SaaS thing that we're another one up my sleeve.

Harry Duran 00:23:59:

Please do share.

Rick Langille 00:24:00:

I met this amazing guy. He's just like, you know, you just look at Peter and you go, dang, this guy's smart. He doesn't even have to open up his mouth. Right. But Peter is an absolute genius as it relates to the economics of the connected world. Okay, so we've come up with a super app. We'll be launching it hopefully this summer. Right. But it's one of the components of glue that our industry is missing. And that is as we see a farm with a harvest or a consumer that wants to connect with a doctor. So we can understand this whole food is medicine thing. Right? People don't. There's nothing that pulls it all together. Not to mention, okay, if this is what I really want to work on, how the heck do I do it? Where are the goods and services that's going to put me on that path for wellness? Right. It's diet. What we put in is a result of what we are, right? So the ability to get government. And I think now that we do have a new administration in Washington, we are going to be able to start to see a potential impact of when somebody needs a prescription. It's not going to be a pill anymore. It's going to be go and talk with this dietitian, right. And then be able to go to a local farm. Our super app is going to be able to connect all those points And I'm excited. I'm excited about that. It's great.

Harry Duran 00:25:25:

Is that something that's going to be like, I think about the open source model, so it works with different forms, or is this something you're developing as a proprietary system?

Rick Langille 00:25:31:

A hundred percent open source, buddy. We're here to help. You know, will we make money from it? Yeah, because it's going to be all backdoor, just like Google makes money today. How does Google become one of the most, you know, profitable companies in the world? It's exactly the same thing. We're not trying to be Google. I'll never try to be Google, but I am going to put together this. It's as much, I don't want to call it food, you know, health and wellness and food. We have to come up with a really clever way to market it. But. And that's something that I will be talking to you about. Okay, but there's a bunch of things we're going to do, but we're going to get the background, the back door, all working with Peter and we'll be ready to do it this summer. Yeah, I'm excited about it because. And again, it is going to have branding, it's going to be harvest today, but it's 100% open source and people won't have to pay for it. There's no fee for it.

Harry Duran 00:26:18:

How would a user interface with the app.

Rick Langille 00:26:21:

Well, how would they get connected to it?

Harry Duran 00:26:23:

Through how they connected to it. And how do they use it? Like in Day to Day?

Rick Langille 00:26:27:

I'll be able to tell you that more when I know more about it. Actually, you know what, let's get Peter on a call with you.

Harry Duran 00:26:32:

Yeah, we can. Is he coming to Las Vegas?

Rick Langille 00:26:35:

I don't think so. Yeah, he's in Florida.

Harry Duran 00:26:37:

Okay.

Rick Langille 00:26:37:

You know, I can ask him. You know what?

Harry Duran 00:26:39:

You know what?

Rick Langille 00:26:40:

I haven't asked him. That's good.

Harry Duran 00:26:42:

Yeah, it might be helpful to. If you think about you're trying to create an app that's a universal connector between the benefits of the farm and the farm itself. And, you know, I'm sure there's other ideas that he has for it. So, you know, when you think about SaaS startups, you always want to get as much feedback as possible, especially for people that you want to interact or you want to. Or if you want to connect forums or you want to connect other systems, you want to be able to speak their language and make sure you're building something that is in fact going to be open source.

Rick Langille 00:27:12:

I'm making a note so don't forget. You realize we're only like five weeks away, right? Yeah, yeah. It's like a crazy, like tomorrow it's going to be here.

Harry Duran 00:27:23:

Yeah.

Rick Langille 00:27:23:

I'm pretty excited. We're starting to build our booth here in the shop because we have this, you know, it's the second largest footprint on the floor this year. So it's a. We're doing a 20 by 20 booth.

Harry Duran 00:27:33:

What's an ideal outcome at the conference.

Rick Langille 00:27:35:

For you if we were to just impact the community with Harvest Today is here to serve the needs all the way from anything in your kitchen. If you really want to grow something in your own home, all the way up to a full multi layer controlled environment or greenhouse application, we can do it. I didn't tell you about ROM, but FutureEgg, they do greenhouses as well. Okay. He has just completed a 100 acre under glass building. That's a big.

Harry Duran 00:28:08:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rick Langille 00:28:10:

And he's like. That took him a long time. It took him a little longer than what they thought it would take. But yeah, he's got the ability to do that. I don't think we don't have any aspirations to market greenhouses here. We don't. We just don't. But all of his tech and the screens and everything that connects stuff together. Absolutely. We'll see where that goes. But yeah.

Harry Duran 00:28:31:

And how much of a presence are you making in. I know you mentioned the Middle east as well. How much of that in terms of 25 and maybe 26 plans, are you looking at having a presence or having some visibility in other markets?

Rick Langille 00:28:43:

Yeah, the gentleman that's going to hopefully get hired here in the next week, he will be in Vegas. That's the plan. So you get to meet him. His plan will be in Dubai at least once a week, a month. Right. But he's already launched another company there, so he's got really good connections. And we've already got a couple pretty good projects there already that he'll take over because we were running it through a gentleman that was doing it out of Europe, but Europe is just too busy. As he says, he can't be bopping over to Dubai anymore. I said too far. Right. It's the same thing as us thinking we could try to manage a project over there from here. That's not good though. But from India. Absolutely. And shipping, distribution is going to be fine too. You know, the other thing too is that as we look at expanding into those other markets, it's really how do we grow organically into having space, offices I am in the middle of an investment to put a test farm here in Colorado. Okay. That is going to happen. And the way we've decided we're going to do this, Harry, is here in Colorado will be we're going to do a greenhouse. Now it's going to be a sealed, controlled environment greenhouse, for lack of a better term. But there's been some conversations on LinkedIn particularly about we never really kind of give the data on the quantify or quantify energy and output. Okay, I'm going to spill our guts. Absolutely. Because I actually already know it's. It'll work just fine. You combine that with a little bit of solar. The input that's going to cost to run this farm, virtually nothing. Yeah. But we're just going to get lots of plans out of it. We're going to do exactly the same thing up in Winnipeg, but we're going to do it as a controlled environment, sealed building. But we're not talking big farms. There only be a couple thousand square feet. Sure. But it'll be substantial enough that would be. You know, we got probably one of our most successful farms is in London, Ontario. Be Kiss growers. You can look them up on LinkedIn. They're just. Jeremy and Sarah are just phenomenal growers. They are good growers first. Right. They're obviously using the harvest walls and just doing Fantastic. They have 7200 plants. They're making a living with 7200 brands.

Harry Duran 00:30:58:

How long have they had the farm up and running?

Rick Langille 00:31:00:

Almost three years.

Harry Duran 00:31:01:

That's great.

Rick Langille 00:31:02:

They're just fine. That's a perfect example of community supported ag.

Harry Duran 00:31:09:

Right.

Rick Langille 00:31:09:

And it's just the two of them. They don't have any hired help. Just the two of them. That's what they do. What a great life, eh?

Harry Duran 00:31:16:

This sounds nice. Yeah. Bobby, might make sense to have a chat with them.

Rick Langille 00:31:20:

You talk to Jeremy? In a heartbeat. Yeah. They're not. Number one, Peter. Number two, Jeremy.

Harry Duran 00:31:28:

Because obviously there's a lot of folks listen from all different aspects and avenues of this industry. You know, people that have been involved in bigger projects, you know, multimillion dollar projects. But also there is the smaller farmer who's trying to figure out a way to get started, what systems make sense, which systems have a proven track record, you know. So anytime there's farmers coming on and doing something in the vertical farming space and they're having success, I think it's important to mix in some of those stories as well.

Rick Langille 00:31:55:

Yeah, absolutely. And probably if there's any one thing that I've seen about Jeremy and Sarah is that they're personally dedicated to the success of their business. They're not trying to remotely run their business or hire too many people and not supervising them or anything that they've. This is the lifestyle that they chose to do. They're easily succeeding at it. Absolutely right. And I think is the essence of community supported ag. You know, are they going to become millionaires? Are they going to make a wonderful living? Yes. And they're going to have quality of life through that journey. It wasn't a big investment. They only got 10 harvest walls, so it wasn't a lot of money at all. But Jeremy's an amazing craftsman himself and he was able to build a building and did it extremely well. Like, he's done a really, really good job. So he's not cut the corners, but he's a craftsman. He's not going to DIY something up and duct tape it and wish the bugs don't get in. I've seen that too.

Harry Duran 00:33:05:

Well, it seems like there's a model, especially if he's created something that works well. With the harvest wall, they're having success and I'm sure if there's other folks who want to enter this space at that level, there's probably some lessons to be learned from that.

Rick Langille 00:33:21:

Oh, yes, absolutely. And Jeremy, be happy to tell you about it. Yeah, that would be a great one. Yeah, I like that a lot. But they're super sweet people a lot. Well, they're Canadians. Wait.

Harry Duran 00:33:32:

Super polite. So as you think about the opportunities that present themselves, Rick, and like you said, you're mentioning you're making an investment in getting a bigger footprint at indoor E Con. You essentially have a feel for where you want harvest today in the direction you want to be going. I'm curious how you're feeling about the next 12 months with the projects you got line up and where you think the best use of your focus is.

Rick Langille 00:33:56:

The speed in which we can produce the harvest walls because we have to scale up. And we've got a couple really fantastic innovations coming up related to the tank and the tank assembly. And I will have 3D printed parts in Vegas, so you'll be able to see it. I'm excited. When I look at it, it's an obvious evolution of what the product was, but we've also learned what the challenges were. Right. So I'm not even going to really call this V3. It's really kind of 2.0 or 2.2. Right. Because the basic. When you look at the wall, it's exactly the same thing. Right. It's a 2.0 wall. Absolutely. So that part's been just fine. But that part of mechanical innovation, right, that's making it better, allowing it to not drip a drip of water ever anywhere again. Right. Because we've been trying to bind materials of different, know, PVC with asa and that's been a challenge. Now we certainly learned how to do it. We're doing a great job of it, but it takes a long time, it's just really slow to put it together. So the labor component to make the wall is a little bit too much. So again, those are the steps that we've learned along the way. That said, oh, there's a better way to do it now I had to invest some more money and some more tools, but here we are. It's fine, it's going to work. And now we're going to be able to put together bigger farms so we can drain, drain to recycle, no problem. Or you can drain to use like, or you know, don't drain at all. Like we've always said nutrient solutions to the harvest wall is a one way trip. Right. And now we just, you know, we circulate it, aerate it and use it as the plants grow. Right. And then you just continue to just fill it up until you're to the harvest. Then you take it apart, clean it up, and away you go. So we've worked with Rooted Robotics here in Boulder. We have an amazing. Yeah, Max and Eric have been great.

Harry Duran 00:35:47:

We just had Maclig last month.

Rick Langille 00:35:48:

Yeah, yeah, he's awesome. Yeah, he's works hard. He's a good young kid. He built a really cool washing machine for the harvest panels. It's right here in the shop. It's cool. Yeah, you don't want to be anywhere near it. You want to rehab, you'd have to put it in a room because he's like, yeah.

Harry Duran 00:36:04:

You know, talk a little bit about that relationship and how that came about because I think it's fascinating and it's something that I've always encouraged with these conversations, like this spirit of cooperation. And a lot of people, we're all moving towards the same direction.

Rick Langille 00:36:18:

Yeah.

Harry Duran 00:36:18:

And trying to solve problems. And Max and Eric are really strong expertise, you know, in robotics. And I'm curious how that relationship came about.

Rick Langille 00:36:27:

It was actually through Wit at Inspector. It was.

Harry Duran 00:36:30:

He's another great connector.

Rick Langille 00:36:32:

And at our booth at Indoor, like we did last year, we're sharing the space with Wit. Right. So all the harvest wall stuff will be Displayed with spectra grow lights. Okay, that's.

Harry Duran 00:36:44:

Is Whit going to be in Vegas?

Rick Langille 00:36:45:

Absolutely.

Harry Duran 00:36:46:

Okay. Same person?

Rick Langille 00:36:48:

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, definitely. And it was through his son was working with Max and Eric. And that's how we got connected with. Well, then. Okay, then to your exact point. Here I was over at the shop in Boulder and walks in Jake from Spur at csu, Right?

Harry Duran 00:37:09:

I don't know Jake.

Rick Langille 00:37:11:

Oh, you need to meet Jake too. See, there's another one. Yeah, no, he's great. In fact, I was talking to him this morning and Jake is. Jake Hawley is his name. He is the Ph.D. director of CSU campus. The SPUR campus for CSU. Okay. So beautiful, beautiful greenhouse on the fourth level of the Spur building down in Denver. Well, guess what? There's four harvest wells in there right now. Okay. And the plants are growing from the output of his aquaponics. It's cool, Dan. They look. They almost. He sent me a picture a while ago and I said, that's cgi, man. That looks like it's so perfect. It's fake. Guess what? It's not like, wow, this plants are perfect. He's super happy with it. The growth velocity. He was tweaking. He was just getting it a little bit better because he knew his nitrogen was a little low, but he didn't have. I said, you don't fish, man. You need more poop. And he's like, yeah, you're right. But again, a perfect example of how do we work with people in the industry. How do we go and say, look, it's in the hands of this guy. And if a PhD guy can make it work, anybody can.

Harry Duran 00:38:22:

Yeah, for sure.

Rick Langille 00:38:24:

It's funny, but he's a great guy. And we've just put some eco bloom stuff in greenhouse with him too. Okay. So we'll start to see data flowing. So hopefully at indoor in Vegas, Harry, I'll be able to show you the dashboards so you can actually see data coming out of the farm at Spur and here at Harvested a well that's not going to work because we're going to have it. So I got another one up my sleeve, buddy.

Harry Duran 00:38:51:

Yeah.

Rick Langille 00:38:52:

200 strawberry plants.

Harry Duran 00:38:54:

Oh, really?

Rick Langille 00:38:56:

In a 5 foot by 5 foot square foot or 25 square foot space.

Harry Duran 00:39:02:

And you're going to be showcasing that at indirectcon as well. Okay, that's going to be good. That'll be fun.

Rick Langille 00:39:09:

I can't wait. I hope we switch them and they're flowering crazy now. So we'll say four or five weeks away. Right. The question is, are they Going to transport well.

Harry Duran 00:39:19:

So you're going to have the actual strawberries there. Yes.

Rick Langille 00:39:22:

Well, that's the whole night. Yeah. Yeah. Remember, nobody ever goes there and say, this is what we do. This is why we do it. Right. I want to be different. I want to say, look, this is why we do it. Taste it. That's why. So half of them, we got some. The seascape variety that we got on one side is just exploding. Like, it's looks fantastic. It's great. The Albions, they're okay, but when you look at seascapes and they. I want those ones. Right. And I think it's a varietal thing because Kristen was saying that Albions are a little slower. So we might not have strawberries off the Albions by then. But the seascapes, we will remember. Yeah, they look great. So this fun stuff, what else you.

Harry Duran 00:40:14:

Got up your sleeve?

Rick Langille 00:40:16:

Okay, you know me too well. This is bad. One of the things that I got in a really good conversation with Henry. Henry Gordon Jr. Yeah. When we were in Dubai and I said, henry, what's really missing? It's. We don't have a really good kind of farmer facing easy access to capital. We could impact this a lot faster without the constraints of government if we had some sort of a, you know, really private equity fund set up. I believe I found a guy to do it. He's a retired New York investment banker.

Harry Duran 00:40:51:

Okay.

Rick Langille 00:40:52:

If everything goes well, you'll meet him in Vegas, too.

Harry Duran 00:40:55:

Okay.

Rick Langille 00:40:56:

So a component of financing farms. Right.

Harry Duran 00:41:00:

That's really important.

Rick Langille 00:41:01:

Well, I think, you know, if there's anybody that. We've had so many people, and I don't want to put them in the category of dreamers, but I want to say that they probably have a servant's heart. Right? Yeah. People that really want to go out and. But they haven't been able to get money. Right. Well, I'm going to change that.

Harry Duran 00:41:17:

Sounds like we're having a couple of long conversations in Las Vegas.

Rick Langille 00:41:21:

Can't wait. Okay, well, but you got to come over. We did what we did last year. You're absolutely welcome. Oh, my gosh. This would be great. We've rented a big house. Okay.

Harry Duran 00:41:29:

Okay.

Rick Langille 00:41:29:

Yeah. So I want you to come over. We're going to have this dinner on the Monday night, you know, after setup's all done and we're ready to get ready for the next day. We've hired a chef, and we're just going to have a catered dinner at the house and.

Harry Duran 00:41:39:

Oh, that sounds great.

Rick Langille 00:41:40:

Come over and have dinner. With us.

Harry Duran 00:41:41:

Yeah, that'd be fantastic.

Rick Langille 00:41:42:

Yeah. Yeah.

Harry Duran 00:41:44:

Well, thanks so much for reaching out, and I'm really looking forward to connecting in person for the first time. And, yeah, this.

Rick Langille 00:41:54:

I'm seven feet tall. You know that, right? No, I'm just kidding.

Harry Duran 00:41:58:

We'll find the social media pics after the event. We'll validate that. Funny.

Rick Langille 00:42:03:

That's great.

Harry Duran 00:42:03:

Yeah. Well, I'm so excited to see everything that's been happening. I know it's been a series of ups and downs and then, like. But things are all moving in the right direction, and I think it's just a matter of, like, sticking with it. And the fact that you've got new versions of the Harvest World shows that you're listening to feedback, you know, from your partners and then continuing to iterate and also taking, you know, looking at what's existing in the mechanical engineering world, like, what are the innovations that we could benefit from, you know, to grow this and to create a better product. And I get the sense that's always top of mind for you.

Rick Langille 00:42:34:

Always. Yeah. Well, the last thing that's up my sleeve, I'm in the process of hiring a new CEO for the company. Because as the entrepreneur, as the founder and current CEO of the company, I've been blessed to know that I'm only so smart. Right.

Harry Duran 00:42:48:

Yeah.

Rick Langille 00:42:48:

And I know that there's people that will take this from where we're at right now to a completely different level. Right. Because what I love to do is the engineering. It's. I'm a tinkerer. I'm a perfector. I want things to be right. And there's so much more work to do on the app. There's so much more work to do. We are setting up the fabrication of the harvest walls is moving out of Colorado. It's going to Tulsa, Oklahoma, buddy.

Harry Duran 00:43:13:

Okay.

Rick Langille 00:43:13:

Why? It's four bucks a square foot. I'm paying 20 here. I am dedicated to making this as cost effectively as possible. And it will be reflected in the pricing of our products. Absolutely. It's not about making more money. It's going to be about making the product as cost effective as possible for everybody and make it more attainable.

Harry Duran 00:43:35:

Well, that's very admirable and it puts a nice bow in this conversation. Because at the end of the day, if the goal is to feed more people in a sustainable way, in a healthy way, differently than we've been doing in the past, making it more accessible to farmers and to eventually the end consumer, I think it's always a strong and positive aspiration. And so I really appreciate that you bring that up, and then that's where your end goal is, to kind of continue to look at ways like how do we reduce costs so that you know you can succeed on those fronts.

Rick Langille 00:44:08:

Quality is number one, though.

Harry Duran 00:44:10:

Yeah.

Rick Langille 00:44:11:

Always. Always, always. This isn't a toy. It's not a toy.

Harry Duran 00:44:14:

Yeah.

Rick Langille 00:44:15:

Right. So we'll figure it out. Go ahead. It's good to see.

Harry Duran 00:44:18:

Good to see you, Rick. Nice to catch up, and I'm excited to. Rick Brit in person.

Rick Langille 00:44:23:

Let's do it.

Harry Duran 00:44:24:

Appreciate your time.