Plenty Unlimited Inc. ’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on March 23 , 2025 , was a pregnant mo for vertical husbandry , not just due to the scale of its crash but also because of what it revealed about the broader see to it surround agriculture ( CEA ) manufacture . As one of the most well - capitalize player in the history of perpendicular farming , back by around $ 940 million in funding , Plenty ’s decision to reconstitute under court superintendence has suck sharp commentary and reflective insight from industry leadership . Despite varying opinions , their collective content is clean-cut : Plenty ’s trip is not the prostration of an industry but a cautionary narrative of the grandness of scalable scheme and saucy increase within a chop-chop evolve industry .
diligence leaders point to scale leaf , not applied science , as the issue"Plenty is one of many haywire examples in CEA , " wrote Ruud van der Vliet , CEO of Van der Vliet & Van der Oost BV . " Controlled Environmental Agriculture ( CEA ) consists of all forms of indoor agriculture : low , mid , high - tech greenhouses and vertical farming . In total , the size of CEA worldwide is estimated by Rabobank , WUR and AVAG at 3.7 million hectares . Of this , most is low - technical school , meaning limited weather protection , and most of that low - tech acreage is in China . Growing fruit and veg can be done most sustainably in high - tech nursery , according to recent enquiry by WUR . "
" Worldwide , the area of high - technical school is calculate at 70,000 hectares , of which 10,000 hectare are in the Netherlands . Vertical agriculture covers a maximum of 1,000 hectare worldwide . All types of greenhouses are wait to retain to grow well because of the need for planable and more sustainable solid food . The domain of gamy - tech greenhouses is expected to grow over the next 5 to 10 years to 120,000 hectares . " According to van der Vliet , eminent - tech greenhouses are the most sustainable method acting of cultivation not only for ornamental plants but also for greenhouse vegetables and balmy fruit . “With the USD 400 million from Plenty , 100 hectare of high - technical school greenhouses could easily be built – enough for about 70 to 80 million kg of vine tomatoes per year , " he wrote . upright farming still has a position in a hybrid futureCharlie Guy , chief executive officer of UK - based vertical husbandry business firm LettUs Grow , said:“The CEA industry is much broad and much bigger than just vertical farming . These high - profile fatal accident are less than idealistic for anyone impacted , but sadly , they are a profound part of the industry growing up . Vertical agriculture will continue to produce ( likely slow than many had hop / count on a few years ago … ) as a subsector , but it will remain a comparatively minuscule proportion ( for now ) of the much larger orbicular CEA trend that ’s bringing more and more crop production under covering and under greater environmental ascendancy . "
" There are many unlike structures and systems that achieve this protection and ameliorate yield and environmental result considerably vs traditional subject growing . At LettUs Grow , we ’ve been rivet on developing Advanced Aeroponics for both greenhouses and vertical farms for almost 10 age now . We understand and apprise the benefit and the limitations of these two different CEA production environments and are happy to advise on this in the unlike geography we work in . "
The future will be hybrid , a premix of upright , horizontal , polytunnel , greenhouse , and full indoor . Alongside traditional , seasonal subject maturate , of course of instruction . The CEA sector as a whole is growing ; do n’t be disheartened by the struggles of inspirational industriousness pioneers like Plenty . Doing thing otherwise is never easy . "
Plenty ’s go - to - grocery store strategy draw sharp criticismOther view were more direct . Rien Kamman , CEO of Source.ag , said : " Could this money have been spent differently to make more impact on intellectual nourishment availableness and affordability ? I think yes . In the last 2 years investors such as SoftBank Group Corp. , Walmart , and Jeff Bezos lost $ 2.7B due to bankruptcies of just 4 land troupe : Plenty ( $ 1B ) , AppHarvest ( $ 700 M ) , Bowery Farming ( $ 700 M ) , and AeroFarms ( $ 300M).““In my view , that variety of money could have been put to much more worthful use , truly contributing to the affordability and accessibility of refreshful yield and vegetables : building declamatory - scale solid food clusters , inspired by Agriport A7 ( NL ) or Leamington ( CA ) . Agriport A7 is a 1000 ha ( 2500 acre ) industrial clustering in the Netherlands , where 3 kinds of companies work together :
It ’s an ecosystem that strengthen each other . The greenhouse can use excess heat from industrial deftness and bit as an ' energy buffer storage ' for ( intermittent ) renewable vigour sources , using the spare electricity from the net when there is overcapacity and providing electricity back to the net when there is a deficit . In doing so , the nursery industry in the Netherlands supplies almost 10 % of all domesticated electrical energy demand . ““The combined ~600 hectares ( 1500 Akko ) of greenhouses in this cluster produce sufficient fresh tomatoes , peppers , and cucumbers for approximately 20 - 30 M ( ! ) consumer . For reference , that means one such clump could leave affordable , sustainable , fair , dependable , healthy fresh produce for ~10 % of the entire US population . ““Developing such clusters is complex and involve collaborationism between government , substructure investors , experienced greenhouse operator , energy companies , technical school society , and other stakeholder . But such a cluster could probably have been construct for less than the $ 2.7B now misplace on reinvent the farming wheel . “Community - focused example extend an alternative pathNona Yehia , chief executive officer of Vertical Harvest Farms , a Wyoming - based vertical farming company know for its social - encroachment model , said , " Another one . Another upright farm single file for failure - this time , Plenty . And while I ’m not surprised , I am trite . Tired of see headlines that propose erect agriculture does n’t work when what ’s really damp is the business model . stock of hype getting more attention than firmly - earned progress . Tired of level like this making it harder for those of us show up every day , doing the work . ““At Vertical Harvest Farms , we ’ve take a unlike path . We ’ve drop nearly a decade operating a commercial vertical farm . We ’ve made mistakes , learned hard lessons , and used them to construct a model root in community , efficiency , inclusion , and foresightful - terminal figure viability . But headlines like these ? They make our job harder - harder to raise cap , hard to gain faith , harder to scale . “Founded in 2016 , Vertical Harvest Farms grows leafy greens in urban environments and employs individuals with impairment as part of its inclusive hiring scheme . Unlike Plenty , which pursued a interior scale through massive capital infusions , Vertical Harvest Farms ' approach has been profoundly local . The next chapter begins with smart scaling and sharper strategyThese diverging view converge around a shared theme : upright farming is not inherently flawed , but its commercial success depends on context , exfoliation , and execution . While opinions differ on its office within global food systems , upright farming continues to show promise for specific crop , climates , and use cases , as other operators present through diverse , topically adapted model . For now , Plenty ’s Chapter 11 may dish up as a pause peak and a genuine moment for the industry to evaluate what sort of conception is fundable , scalable , and truly sustainable .
For more selective information : Van der Vliet & Van der Oost BVRuud van der Vliet , CEOwww.linkedin.com/in/ruud-van-der-vliet-21766831www.vandervlietenvanderoost.nlLettUs GrowCharlie Guy , Co - founding father & CEOwww.linkedin.com/in/charlie-guy-084a6910awww.lettusgrow.comSource.agRien Kamman , Centennial State - laminitis & CEOwww.linkedin.com/in/rienkammanwww.source.agVertical Harvest FarmNona Yehia , Co - founder & CEOwww.linkedin.com/in/nona-yehia-3b2266awww.verticalharvestfarms.com
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