Square Roots, an indoor farming company, and Gordon Food Service, one of the largest food distributors in North America, celebrated the opening of a new climate-controlled, indoor farm in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The newly opened farm will supply fresh produce to Gordon Food Service customer restaurants, schools, hospitals and local retailers throughout Kentucky and surrounding states.
Together, Square Roots and Gordon Food Service have deployed five co-located farms on Gordon Food Service distribution centers in Grand Rapids, Michigan (2 farms); Kenosha, Wisconsin; Springfield, Ohio; and now Shepherdsville, Kentucky.
By operating farms directly on distribution centers, Square Roots and Gordon Food Service are dramatically shortening fresh food supply chains, reducing food miles and giving back days of freshness to consumers.
Co-founded by technology and impact entrepreneurs Tobias Peggs and Kimbal Musk in 2016, Square Roots is the only indoor farming company that co-locates its farms with major food distributors. Inside the company’s modular, climate-proof farms that can be deployed anywhere, Square Roots can recreate the ideal growing conditions for plants in a controlled setting, allowing the production of fresh food in any location and at any time of year.
Furthering its commitment to responsibly grown, local food, Square Roots has developed a smart-farm technology platform that contributes to a more sustainable footprint; using significantly less land and 90% less water than a traditional farm.
Square Roots aims to hire locally at all of its farms and open new pathways for more people to enter the high-tech agriculture industry. All of the company’s farmers in Shepherdsville are local hires who live in communities directly served by the farm.
The Shepherdsville farm is the first to use the latest version of Square Roots’ tech platform, which increases yields by 30% and features a range of automation technologies for key functions including seeding, harvesting and sanitization. Inside the farm, the local team uses Square Roots’ proprietary software to manage every aspect of growing—from planning production tasks to monitoring plant health. All Square Roots farms are USDA Harmonized GAP+ Certified for the highest levels of food safety.
