S8E93: Eric Levesque / Cultivatd - How Gaming & Poker Led Me to Going All-In on Vertical Farming

$680 million poured into precision ag last year.

Autonomous weeding robots dominated, and John Deere made 2 acquisitions in 3

months. A food company, not an equipment maker, bought a

robotics startup to protect its own supply chain. The deals are

accelerating, the money is moving, and the winners are already separating from the

pack. If you're investing, building, or buying in this space,

you need the full picture before your competitors get it. The 2025

Precision Agriculture Intelligence Report From iGrow News is now

available. Get your copy today at

igrownews.com/precision. If you are starting a vertical

farm and don't know where to begin or which technology would suit your needs,

then reach out to the experts at Cultivated. As indoor farm brokers, they

help connect you to the right technology and ensure your project is successful.

Best of all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners.

Visit cultivated.com to learn more. And that's spelled

C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com,

or click the link in the show notes. Failure is not something bad. It's got

this bad connotation of, I failed, it's over. You know, that's

a big F, it's bad. That's not the way that life is. Every time you

fail, if you see it as a learning opportunity, you can grow. You have just

went down one of the million paths and you know that path is incorrect. Now

there's one path less. And every time you fail, that's one path less that you

have to explore and more time that you can spend going down the right way.

Welcome to the Vertical Farming Podcast, weekly conversations

with fascinating CEOs, founders, and agtech

visionaries. Join us every week as we dive deep into the

world of vertical farming with your host, Harry Duran.

Vertical Farming Podcast Season 8 has kicked off. Regular

listeners, welcome back. I'm so happy that you invest an hour of your time, or

maybe if you're listening at 1.5x, that would be

0.75 if I have the calculation correct.

0.75 or 3/4 of an hour. Thanks so much,

regular speed listeners and fast speed listeners. If you are a new

listener, then regardless of the speed you listen at, thank you so much

for checking out the show and giving it a shot. It's one of

the most amazing things I've started. It's been 3

years that the show has been started. in 2020. I

can't believe we are at 3 years. We're at 90+ episodes, closing

in on 100. It's been an amazing, amazing ride, which shows

no sign of slowing down. So regardless of who you are, this

is the show where we interview fascinating CEOs and founders of leading vertical

farming companies from around the world. And my name is Harry Duran,

and I'm your host. In case you missed the kickoff to season 8,

last week we had a great conversation with Sonia Lo, the CEO of

Unfold. She shared her insights on the latest developments in indoor

farming, the role of genetics in improving crop yield and taste,

and we also talked about the importance of profitability for the industry's

scalability and the potential of next-gen agriculture.

She has an amazing varied background in law, management consulting,

investment banking, a little bit of martial arts as well, and she provides a

unique perspective on entrepreneurship and investment in the agtech industry.

Please check that out if you haven't done so already. You'll definitely be inspired by

her passion, not only for the industry, but for delicious

food and diversity in the investment process, which is important.

This week we have a round 3 visit from

Eric Levesque, CEO of Cultivated, also the

sponsor for this season and many past seasons of the show.

I can't say enough good things about the relationship I've built with the team and

specifically with Eric. We've been on a couple of trips together and it's been really

a fun experience to just learn more about him, about the

team, and I was really excited to have him on to get a little bit

more personal than we've heard in the past. And so we hear a bit about

his journey and we dive into his history with

gaming, professional poker, and all the twists and turns that have led him

to this wonderful world that we all love— vertical farming. He emphasizes

the importance of hyperlocal food, why he's excited about crops like

mushrooms that will be playing a growing importance in the

future of indoor farming. And Eric also highlights

the significance of reflecting on our own goals and values, pivoting business

models, and also building a culture that values respect and

flexibility. Eric has spoken previously about Cultivated's unorthodox

hiring process, but for him, what's more important is the emphasis on

creating a culture of respect and flexibility. And I believe that's

what's made Cultivated a leader in sustainable and innovative business

practices in the agtech world. Remember, if you enjoy

this episode or have enjoyed past episodes, please leave a rating and a

review. It's super easy. It'll take you all of about 4 and a half minutes.

Yes, I've timed it. You can go to ratethispodcast.com/vfp,

really easy URL to remember, and I'll be more than happy to read yours

out next episode. I also wanted to mention that we have a

community now available. Head on over to the LinkedIn

company page and search for you guessed it, Vertical Farming

Community. We've had some folks join recently, and I'm looking to provide

that as a free resource to anyone, not only in the industry, but those who

are learning about it and are looking to make a career shift

as well. So check that out, Vertical Farming Community on LinkedIn. Okay,

before we jump into this undisrupted conversation with Erik, here are a few words from

the amazing folks that support this show. This year, Vertifarm

takes place from September 26th through September 28th at the

Exhibition Center in Dortmund, Germany. For those new to Vertifarm,

it's the most significant trade fair for next-level farming and new food systems.

Their international platform is set to showcase the latest developments in

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and microgreens, as well as sustainable fish, insect breeding, fruit

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vertical farming and new food systems. Reserve your ticket and learn more at

vertifarm.de. That's

V-E-R-T-I-F-A-R-M dot D-E.

This year, Indoor AgTech is coming to New York City's Times Square, and it's bringing

together the world's leading growers, retailers, tech providers,

seed companies, and investors. Join us from June 29th to June

30th to meet, expand networks, and produce fruitful

partnerships. The team has been gracious enough to provide listeners of this show with an

additional 10% off of the registration. Simply use

promo code VFP when you register and lock that in. And by the way, if

you're on the fence, remember that early bird discount ends on May 11th.

After a pivotal year for CEA, the summit will explore what's needed to ensure

the industry can continue innovating and growing into a crucial part of the

global agri-food supply chain. What brand is that?

It's SteelSeries. That's the manufacturer? Yeah, it's like

a gaming brand. They make keyboards and everything for gaming,

keyboards and mice and stuff. Are you a gamer? Were you a gamer? I was

a huge gamer when I was younger. Yeah, huge, huge, huge.

Came hand in hand with playing poker, I think. You know, got to burn your

time. When you get mad with poker, you play video games. When you get mad

at video games, you play poker. There's a correlation between

gaming and poker, I think, right? Yeah, definitely.

The community like crosses over quite a bit. What was the first game you ever

played? The first game I ever played, I don't know.

My parents never let me have a one of those consoles

even though I asked for one for Christmas pretty much every time. So I

always had to stick to PC games. So I played a lot of like pretty

complex real-time strategy games and that's kind of where I

started and then that evolved into some pretty competitive nature which then

transformed into the poker career and then, you know, do a

little bit of poker and video games on the side. Is it one of those

keyboard games where just everything's with the keyboard? Like at a mouse? Yeah,

yeah, yeah. It's like, uh, yeah, that the first game I played, like

your actions per minute are supposed to be like 350 to 400 per minute.

So you're just lightning on the keyboard. It takes a lot of hours to

get into it, but it was really cool. Were you just too early? 'Cause now

you missed— well, you didn't miss it, but there's the whole esports wave now, which

they're like making millions of dollars now. Yeah, I definitely did miss the

wave. I played for some of those teams. Like I was a bit older. I

was definitely older than the crowd. Okay. But yeah, like when StarCraft II,

which was like the really big game where all that started kind of happening, came

out, I was much older. It took like 10 years before—

between the first game and the second one to come out. And so yeah, I

just put in a lot of time into the second one for the first year

or so, just, you know, it requires so much time and so much

dedication to play that at that level that you can't really be doing anything else.

And, you know, as a 25-year-old or somebody older than that, you should probably not

be spending 8 hours a day playing video games, so. What is it that people

like don't get when they're looking at it from the outside? Because it just looks

like someone banging away on a keyboard. They consider themselves athletes,

and it's— there's— you need some endurance or something to

play at that level. Like, what separates like the top level from the folks who

are just doing it for fun? You need some insane

mental endurance. You would not believe like how much focus it requires,

because in those games you're playing in real time against just one other person usually,

and the tiniest mistake over 1 second can cost you a

40-minute game. And a lot of prize money. Like some of these games now,

they're the top prizes for a tournament, $1 or $2 million. So

it's pretty shocking how much time and effort they put into it, but they train

a lot. And obviously if you're fit physically and fit mentally, it's going to help

you to stay sharp. So before, I feel like gamers had this connotation of

being overweight and hiding in their basement, but now they're all in the gym pumping

iron and eating super clean and they have like, you know, mental health

coaches and stuff. Yeah, it's pretty cool to see. That's crazy because that was gonna

be my next question, like what's a workout regimen look like for an esports

gamer? They work out like similar to what an athlete would.

It's pretty cool. And then like how did you ever make the transition to poker

then? So I think when I first

started— yeah, kind of a complex question, but

I worked a handful of jobs. I was a teacher for a little bit. Okay.

And the 9 to 5, like that job was definitely not for me. I just

kind of got pushed into it. Both my parents were teachers, my sisters are teachers,

so was just kind of the natural progression of, oh, I guess, you know, I

should follow along in the family business. But did you study how to be an

educator or education? Yeah, exactly. I studied— I was studying to become a

teacher. Okay. And so yeah, I did that for a handful of years, just mostly

supply teaching, but I just kind of go in every day and that wasn't

really the job for me. And I had done a handful of other jobs while

just kind of looking to find my niche. And you work for these big corporations

and you try to make an impact and it's so hard to climb the ranks.

You just feel so undervalued in those big ones. And so I had played poker

to kind of supplement my income on the side. And, you know, that

was something that took me away. Like, it took me a

while to really get to where I needed to be, but it just like allowed

me the freedom of having my own schedule, which is what I wanted the most,

which is what I feel like most people today want, is that freedom of time.

But it was not the greatest lifestyle. There's a lot of ups and a lot

of downs. Obviously, you live a little bit like a vampire. And,

you know, although it was great for me for a time, I started

realizing as I got older, there's no way I can sustain this life lifestyle.

And, you know, it's not something that most people want to be involved with

where it just doesn't seem like, unless you're in that little sphere,

it's hard to understand, you know, just how those people live. And

so that's actually how I got into vertical farming. I just was

working and hanging out with Eric Burschnau, who's my co-founder. We played soccer together for

the majority of our lives. Okay. And he had a little startup in the space

and he was looking for basically employee number one. To do their

sales. And I was so burnt out from that lifestyle. I just figured I'll

give this a shot. Let's see what we can come up with. And I was

in love right away. Like the fact that our team was 3 people, 4 people,

like I was like, okay, what I'm doing here every single day actually matters. If

I don't show up, these people are gonna miss me. These people are gonna miss

my work because I'm 25% of the team or I'm 30% of the team.

So right away when I was giving him ideas, you realize in a

team that small, everyone has to contribute so much that like you have to have

innovative ideas. You have to push the envelope. You have to be there

grinding. And, you know, that's what really made me fall in love,

like with video games, with poker, everything that I did previously, I just

went all in on it and wanted to be the best at it. And I

had never found that in my work life until this came about. And

so it was the perfect fit for me. And then I just felt valued

at work, which is something I had never felt before with these other conglomerations

that I had worked for. So yeah, it really— I was hooked right

away. And then I had the fortunate You know, timing of being in an

industry that is absolutely booming, working with a good team and young.

Yeah, exactly. Everything is going in the perfect direction. We grew so fast, we hired

so many people. So it was just kind of a natural fit.

And it's evolved from there over the last decade or so. Do you think

it was something about— you talk about the gaming and talk about the poker, those

are mainly individual pursuits, right? Because there's no,

really not a lot of team. I mean, maybe in e-gaming is a little bit.

But you're sort of responsible for your own schedule and you

maintain your own lifestyle with like, especially with poker.

And was it something that you were missing then, this connection with other humans?

No, not so much. I think so. I actually, I've always kind of been

like that. I've always kind of been doing my own thing a little bit solo.

Even when I played sports, like I would play badminton, I did track and field.

I always preferred the solo events versus the team ones.

And it was just because then you have no one else to fault. If I

win a tournament, I know I won that tournament. If I lose the tournament, it's

because I did not perform the way that I should have. Yeah. And so it

was really important for me when building out these teams to just make

sure that I found like-minded individuals who believed in the mission, who believe in

what you want to accomplish, and who are going to be on board because that

friction is, can be so detrimental to a small

organization. Like I was saying, when you're 5 people, 6 people, especially in the beginning,

People better be believing in what you're trying to accomplish because there are some

long days and a lot of stuff going wrong, and you have to be prepared

every day. What was it about poker? Because we got to connect in

Dubai and chat for a little bit, which is actually where I learned about it,

which is cool because I got sucked into the Chris Moneymaker wave as well

and, and played. And we've played a couple of times. We got to play a

little bit in Vegas. But there's something about the poker specifically that I

love. It's because you're— maybe because you're playing against another human being. So it's not—

for me, it's not gambling. There's a lot of psychological aspects to it,

and which I— from playing a little bit with you, I get the sense that

you enjoy that part of it as well. Yeah, I mean,

don't get me wrong, the game is definitely gambling. It's a gambling-based game

unlike every other casino game. It's certainly not the same where it's a

bit closer to chess and where there is a giant skill gap that can

be achieved when you study and you understand exactly how the game can be played

and how the psychology can be applied. Most people don't see it that way. because,

you know, they've played for $5 with their friends one time and don't really understand

the rules. But when you dive into it, it's one of the most beautiful games

on the planet and it's really wonderful. So I played for a long

time. I played, you know, I've played pretty much consistently since I'm 18, less

so over the last 10 years or so since I've been in business, just to

time and, and not needing it for income. But it has really

helped me transition into business. The skills

definitely apply of, you know, when to push and pull and how to

build relationships and how to notice little micro trends and

things like that. So it's something where I had a lot of anxieties

leaving poker and coming into business, just feeling

like maybe I didn't have the proper skills that would translate over, but it has

really not been the case. You know, you have— you put in a lot of

super high stress situations when you gamble for a living, obviously.

And so yeah, it translated so well. It was kind of

perfect timing. Like I said, it was a— it's been a perfect storm the last

little bit. I think what people don't realize who don't play it on a

regular level or have played it in person is the physical

changes that happen in your body when you're in a high-stress

situation. We were talking about a situation recently where I was bluffing

and I had a bluff on the flop and the turn and the river, so

3 times not having the cards at all, and my heart like

was literally beating and I felt it in my chest and I'm staring at

the other guy and I'm like— I'm Don't call, don't call, don't

call. And it's so, you know, I guess if you're good enough, you can see

those tells, you know, at the regular recreational level, you probably can't, but

internally it's amazing. Like what physically

happens to your body when you're put in that sort of that stressful situation.

Yeah. It's actually really funny. Like I've played for a long time. I've

coached a lot of friends. I used to have my own coaching website and, you

know, that was one of the things where you would tell these people, okay, you're

getting them ready to go play their first live tournament. And they've played online so

much. Like, I'm ready. I'm like, you will be. Petrified when you sit at a

table and you look at all these people who have been doing this for years

and are so comfortable. Your hands will be shaking, your heart will be going, and

they're always so confident that it won't. And I guess it's kind of like me

doing these podcasts half the time. But yeah, it's— you

cannot believe it. Like, your heart rate is going up to 180 when you're bluffing

and you have nothing, and you think you've got— they got

to be able to see this. Like, I am sweating bullets over here. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like my leg is like bouncing underneath the table.

And it's so funny because you can't even hide the handshaking. Like if I grab

chips or I'm like going to make a bet, I can see my hand shaking.

I'm just like trying to like keep it under the table, but it's these little

things. And it's not even like I'm at $1/$2, so it's like, you know, a

couple hundred dollars. I can't even— you've played at the highest levels as well,

thousands and thousands of dollars. And I guess at some point,

you know, if you can handle it at the the lower levels, it just becomes

a little easier, I imagine. Yeah, it gets to a point where

you kind of lose that unless you're playing in those like really big nosebleed games.

But it's so much better that way. You're so much more comfortable. There's nothing fun

about bluffing and just being sweaty at the table. So that's

something that goes away with time. Obviously you become an expert at anything you

do if you put in enough hours and, you know, it's an

expensive education and it's, you know, it's very

humbling where you start to think you're good and then you get into some higher

games and you realize, wow, I do not belong here, but it's like anything else,

you know, you have to really believe in yourself. And that's one of those games

where you really have to trust your kind of inner monologue and your

gut, because you have to be able to think like, I put in so many

hours into this craft and I have to trust that, you know,

I am good at what I'm doing and make the right decisions. Because especially in

a game like that, when there's a lot of money at stake, people will chicken

out on their decision and they say, oh my God, you know, I think I'm

right, but If I am wrong, I'm going to lose so much. And then so

then they make improper plays because they're scared of the money. So yeah, it's a

lot of that also has translated into business. You know, I've had swings of up

and down with money and it's really taught me that I've

always been able to make it back. I've always trusted myself and that's what allowed

me to grow so much. And in business, that's a big proponent. You're going to

have to gamble once in a while. You're going to have to take risks. You

know, you're going to have to hire new people. You're going to have to invest

in something that where you're not sure whether it's going to go. And it's been

like that for us. When we started this company and we've pivoted a

handful of times, you invest a lot of money and time and every one of

your staff is all chasing this one thing and you realize halfway through,

this is not it. And you have to be willing to just abandon and move

on to the next thing, even though you've invested so much time and capital,

because you realize I could keep chasing this to just not look like an idiot

because I've committed. But if I go all the way down this rabbit hole, you

know, you're gonna burn yourself out and you know, you're gonna It's going to be

detrimental to your company. So being able to let go of those things is

monumental. I can totally see how the skills you've

acquired in poker, that ability to be calm under

pressure, it's needed. And a lot of people who get into business like

don't have that skill set. So when they encounter that first bump, and especially as

an entrepreneur, when you fall on your face the first time, or you lose thousands

or hundreds of thousands of dollars in a deal or in a

transaction or something that you thought was going to payoff for the

business, it's the biggest gut punch like in the

world. And, and physically what it does to you, it just kind of like deflates

you. And if you're not prepared mentally, a lot of people I would imagine just

kind of pack up their bags and just go back to the security of like

a 9-to-5 job or something. I bet it happens all the time. And

it's funny because I don't even really remember it happening in my company. And

in the sense that I remember a lot of things we invested capital in that

did not work out, And we just kept chasing and kept working. But

none of those fazed me whatsoever. And that's probably because I had a decade of

doing it and falling on my face in other aspects where it's just

become the norm. But, you know, I'm a big proponent of failing

fast, which is, you know, a pretty well-taught

and well-known thing. Failure is not something bad. It's got

this bad connotation of, I failed, it's over, you know, that's a

big F, it's bad. That's not the way that life is. Every time you

fail, if you see it as a learning opportunity, you can grow. You have just

went down one of the million paths and you know that path is incorrect. Now

there's one path less. And every time you fail, that's one path less that you

have to explore and more time that you can spend going down the right way.

Do you ever continue to get imposter syndrome? I mean, I think I

go through different phases of it. I had it in the beginning, obviously, as an

entrepreneur when I started my business. I had it when I started this podcast,

like I was coming into this space and no one knew who I was. So

a lot of it was just like, wow, you know, can I pull this off?

And I feel like it happens, but at different levels with each new challenge

that I take on. So definitely when I started

in business, there was a time where, especially at the very

beginning, I just had no clue what I was doing. It was so new to

me. And I was like, you know, I'm a pretty bright guy, I could fake

it. And We'll get there. And I just started faking it every day. And

not in a bad way. I was just— you have to have some belief in

yourself. Like, look, I figured out these other things that I had no clue. So

I'll figure this out. And I was just faking it and faking it. And then

we raised a round. Every day I'm waking up thinking I'm faking it. And

then one day you wake up and you realize, I haven't been faking it. I've

just been figuring it out. I've never been faking it. And now I'm here.

And recently, I had a little spell of it. I think you and I chatted

about this as well. But I had a little spell where I started thinking again,

like, this is spiraling so fast. This is getting so big, this company. Like,

we're all over the world. I traveled to maybe 15, 20 countries last

year alone, and I'm on the move. We're hiring people all the time,

conferences all over the place. It was strange. I was like, how did I—

I don't even remember getting here. It just happened so fast. I've just— this is

my life now, and it's polar opposite of what I was doing

previously. So yeah, I think It's a pretty normal

thing. I've spoken to quite a few people about it. And it seems like you

said, it comes and goes in waves. But it's important to address when it

happens. I think it's important to kind of be introspective and look at like, why

am I feeling like this? And like, you do belong. And, you know, maybe

you have some stuff to figure out. But that's just all part of the process.

What's interesting is I was just thinking about the show. And I was like, oh,

it's been a couple years. And I'm like, no, wait a minute. It's been 3

years. It's been crazy. Like, I mean, started in 2020.

This— we're in March now. And it's The third year of starting this show. And

I'm just like, you know, sometimes you're such in this like go, go, go mode

that you don't have time to sit back and see what you've done. We're closing

in on 100 episodes with the show. And I'm wondering if it's— what

it's been like for you, because, you know, we sort of kind of were introduced

to each other around the same time with you getting started with Cultivated.

And do you have the time? Do you think about like where you were,

where you are now? Is it just go, go, go? Or do you— Do you

make time to reflect on how the company's grown? It's always been

go, go, go, but I'm pretty good at reflecting back. I think it's really

important for you to just like not lose yourself in that process

and to kind of reflect on what it is you're doing because your goals will

change quite a bit throughout your life. And if you're not paying

attention to that, I think you can get kind of lost in that rat race

of you're just chasing something that never ends. And, you know,

it's always I'm chasing something and then when you get that, It almost feels like

you're not satisfied, and you're like, well, now I got to chase something else because

I have nothing left to chase. And then you just keep making bigger and bigger

goals for yourself. And that part is good because you should always be trying to

better yourself and always trying to innovate and always just trying to be

happier. But I'm pretty good at that now. I've taken some time,

and my staff is also very good at that. And once in a while, we

kind of reflect on like, hey, how did we get here? Like, where do we

want to go? Is this exactly the direction we want to take? Because a lot

of people, like I was saying. You get kind of caught up in that greed

and that consumer lifestyle, which is just so normal nowadays. And

taking a step back and just making sure that you're on the path you want

to be is really important. So let's take a look back because

if you think about what you had envisioned for Cultivated when you started

and where you are now, like what's the team look like? How's it grown? And

what have been some maybe surprises for you along the way?

Yeah, we chatted about this on the last podcast as well a little bit, I

think. But, you know, when you start a company, you have

just— it's just an idea, right? Yeah. And you think this idea could

become this gigantic thing if we could just— if all the

stars could align. And so let's chase it to that. And you

really need an ambitious goal because if your goal is too small, then it can't

really turn into something special. So every entrepreneur dreams so

big. And, you know, for us it was strange because it all

materialized so quickly. We launched and I think

we raised our first round the first month that we were in operation. So we've

literally launched with just an idea and a website. And then all of a sudden

we had a nice value and some money in the bank and we

put it to good use right away. We got really lucky with some employees. First

one actually that I hired was from your podcast, who is now our VP of

operations. She's fantastic. So shout out to her. Thank you for that. Shout out to

Erica. Yeah, absolutely. And so Yeah, it's such a

strange thing. It's moved really quickly. And that's kind of what I was saying,

you got to take a step back sometimes and take a look at it. The

model has changed quite a bit. This company was supposed to be just me and

my co-founder. I was just talking to a friend about this. It was only ever

supposed to be 2 of us who were like, we don't want employees, we don't

want, you know, all of this, but the idea was just too

good. And we just hit such a vein in this industry.

It just had to be done. And so we just didn't think about it. We

just You know, the business model pivoted and changed, and we just went with the

flow. I think that's why we grew so quickly. We didn't kind of,

you know, we didn't say, oh, you know, the original plan was X, Y, and

Z. And so should we do this? We just let it evolve. We let it

become this living and breathing thing. And I mean, you've met most of my staff

now. They're so wonderful. You know, it's easy for me to sit here and take

credit and say, wow, look at everything I've done. But you've met them.

Like, I would be nowhere without those guys. And everyone's on the same team.

Everyone's on the same page. And we're battling every day and everyone helps each other.

So. It's so easy when you can craft a team like that around you.

So I always try to emphasize when people ask me for advice in terms of

starting a business, the people you surround yourself with are 100% of how you're

going to get there. And even just one bad egg out of 10 or

20, like that's 5% or that's 10% of your entire staff. Plus,

as soon as they start, you know, nitpicking at stuff, it can really crush

that morale. So if you can keep morale really high, it's insane what a small

team can accomplish in a short amount of time. Yeah, and kudos to you

and Eric as well for building a culture of folks. And

it's probably a testament to your style and hiring people who are

similar to you in terms of like what you want to see happen.

And I think giving them the flexibility. And then I think I get the sense

that there was no specific job description written up for any of these positions.

But I think I get the sense that you hired based on fit

and quickly figured out if someone was, you know, made sense for the company or

not. And I have had the ability to hang out with

the team in Dubai for a couple of days. And just everyone on the team,

it's interesting that they're all like sort of marching in the same direction, but with

an enthusiasm and an energy level that it's rare to see

sometimes on a team. You know, there's always some folks that are not a fit,

but it seems like so far everyone that I've met and I've got to hang

out with at the conferences, it's like there's this energy

about them that's really contagious. Yeah, I don't know if we've spoken

about this specifically, but My hiring style is very

unorthodox, and that might be because I haven't been in business. And I've

also been through a bunch of interviews, and you get frustrated with the process of,

you know, how did you tackle a challenge when you were 14

years old? Yeah. You know, it just seems so redundant to me, and it just

didn't really seem to make sense. And so we've never really put a job posting

up. We've never really hired for a specific role.

We've never, you know, I don't— I'm assuming we have resumes on file, I would

hope. But, you know, the way we do it is just, I'm lucky

enough to have come across so many great people in this industry, people reaching out

and saying, I love what you're doing. You know, I really want to participate. I

want to be part of this. And then we just talk about the industry.

And if it's a fit, I build a role around the person. It's a startup.

Like, I could have 100 more employees if I could afford them. And

there would be work for everybody because we're reaching out in every direction of this

industry. But it's so important for people to

be in a role where they not only desire that, but they

feel valued and they feel like they're doing their best work. And it's

really hard for somebody to say, okay, well, I'm applying for this marketing role

and marketing is not exactly what I want, but I'm not sure how to

get there. Where, look, there's so much work to go around. You can do

a little bit of marketing at Cultivated and you could do a little bit of

sales and you could do a little bit of something else as long as you're

filling your day and you're being productive. And I think that's why the team is

so happy. You know, we we don't have normal schedules. You work

when you want. You work when you know you take as many vacation days as

you like. You work in the office. You work from home. It doesn't matter as

long as your work is getting done. And because of that, I feel like

we get extreme productivity out of all our employees because they don't have the anxieties

of thinking, "Oh my god! You know I have a dentist appointment and I got

to ask for it off." You don't have to ask me. You're a normal person.

You know people want what they want and. That's just the way it needs to

be. And people thrive in an environment where they just feel respected.

The things that I offer to my employees is just the way that I want

to be treated and the way that every time I had a position or a

job, that's all I ever wanted was, you know, oh, my mother's sick.

Why do I need permission to go see my mother who's sick? That's just insane

to me. And so we've built it that way and it really shows. Like you

said, the staff is amazing and they're all marching in the same

direction and The energy is something really undeniable at this company.

I think the total count so far of people that have engaged with this podcast

and then connected with you is 3 now.

Yeah. Well, so when we did the first podcast, we hired

Erica, who we're saying is just our VP of Operations now, and our Head of

Business Development, Adam Abadi. He reached out after the second

podcast. So I just can't wait to see who my third employee will be after

this. I'm going to get a really good one, I'm sure. Brian, I think, told

me he He listened to one of the episodes during the hiring process as well.

So, there's a connection there. I could definitely believe it. Yeah, absolutely. It's been a

great resource. That's for sure. Well, after this episode, I think when people

hear about the culture, I wouldn't be surprised if you get some more

folks sliding into your DMs now on Instagram. Yeah. Well, you know

what? We're good with that too. Everyone who requests kind of an

interview, we at least vet them. And if we don't have a role, we

keep them in a warm pool and we kind of keep those conversations going. We

keep those relationships. Because we grow quickly and we're going to need

people as we go. So it's been nice. And this industry is, for

the most part, really friendly and everyone cares. Like, we're all trying to

get the same thing. We're all trying to heal the planet. We're all trying to

make a difference here. So it's really easy to find people that

are competent and nice to get along with. And the fact that I— it's so

funny because I should be using this podcast to let people know that I'm thinking

about growing my team as well. And I mean, if it's working for you, I

might as well be like, well, because we're looking looking to expand out to maybe

possibly more shows. So if anyone is listening, then maybe you

can DM me and then we can figure it out and we can have that

success story of people that started working with me because they heard me on this

show as well. It's pretty good. I never had

expected it to work in that fashion, but the leads and

like the people who have reached out because they've heard me on this podcast have

been fantastic. So cannot speak highly enough of the

relationship you and I have had. It's been It's been worth every penny, that's for

sure. So we talked about the conferences, and

I can't even imagine what your count is in terms of places you've been. You

talked about the different countries you've been as well. What has changed, or

what have you seen in terms of the industry from the time you started

attending to the most recent ones you've been at? The shows have grown

a lot, that is for sure. It's nice, actually. I know, you know, you've been

starting to come to shows. We brought you to AGRAME with us, which was fun,

and you were just at Indoor AgCon with us as well. It's interesting

because, you know, the news is kind of curated right now to make it seem

like vertical farming is in some big downturn and

everything's going by the wayside. It's important to remember this is still a

new industry and, you know, the news curates in the way that it

does. A negative story is a lot more appealing to the general

population, unfortunately, these days than a happy one. You know, every

industry's gonna have its growing pains and some of these larger players going by the

wayside is not an indication of where this industry is going

whatsoever. And, you know, we see that because we're in this industry and we're going

to these conferences, the excitement is very real. The

booths, you know, they're growing from 20 people exhibiting to 200

exhibiting in a year or 2 years and 500

attendees to 5,000 attendees. I mean, these are not small

conferences. We went to MJ in

Vegas, 35,000 attendees, you know,

2,500 exhibitors maybe. And some of these other shows

like the AGRAME were 5,500 people over 2 days. Like that show was out of

this world. World. Some really big key players exhibiting. And

like, this is not just like an abandoned hotel room. These are

massive conference centers, and people are paying big bucks for

tickets, and the speakers are world-class from billion-dollar organizations and

talking about topics that are very well needed. So

it's nice to see it's still going in that positive direction, and people

are realizing more and more this needs to happen. 10 years

ago, no one had a clue what we were doing. We would tell them, and

they still Couldn't even grasp it. And now every single person I talk to is

like, oh, wow, I've heard of this. My cousin is in this, or,

you know, I've wanted to invest. And it's really something that we

need to address. And it's nice to see it trending in

that direction. Do you notice anything different regionally because you've

gone to conferences in different countries? Are the

questions, the concerns, the needs different in different regions?

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, there's shows in Europe,

shows in the Middle East, and shows in North America are the ones we

attend the most. The shows in the Middle East definitely have a different

vibe, and that's because they really are incapable of growing the majority

of, you know, just about anything. And so they have a big

focus on animal feed, which is a big portion of this industry that is

developing quickly. Obviously, the need for animal feed is even greater than the

need for human food for consumption. So that side of things is

becoming very important for us. But in general,

everyone is just kind of going in the same direction, which

is that this is a problem that needs to be addressed. And regardless of whether

it's for animal feed or human feed, we are running out of water, we

have run out of land. And these issues are a lot more serious than

people take them currently. It's one of those things where you just kind of push

it off and you're like, well, you know, I turn on the tap and water

comes out. So why should I be worried right now? But That will not be

the case forever, unfortunately, especially for the land and population

rising. We crossed 8 billion population in

November of last year. That population will grow to over 10 billion

by 2050, which is a very short amount of time.

For example, in 1960, we had only about 3

billion population. So over the last 60 years, the population has grown by 5

billion people. You know, we need to put those people somewhere. We need to feed

them somehow. And we've already used all our land. We're using 70%

of all fresh water on the planet currently for agriculture, for outdoor

agriculture. And in the next 12 years, the need for that amount of

water will grow by 50%, which is 105%,

if you can do the math. And I don't know if you know, but there

is unfortunately not 105% water on Earth. And

so, these farms will become a staple. We

cannot go without them. These farms that reduce 90 to 95% of water,

They will be encouraged and incentivized in ways that we can't

think of right now because we just don't have a choice. Currently,

about 25% of all the people on the planet already don't have access to clean

drinking water. 25% is staggering, and that's getting

worse and worse. There's over 1.5 million people a year that die just

due to lack of water intake every year on the planet. So

these problems are huge, and they're only getting bigger.

So this is something that we, you know, like I said, we've seen

the writing on the wall for a long time and people are finally starting

to adopt it. The war in Ukraine has been a huge, you know,

showing of what happens to a really fragile food chain once when an

event like that happens. The COVID-19 virus really,

you know, messed with supply chains and we're lucky,

you know, we're the most fortunate. We live somewhere where we don't really have these

problems, so we don't try to pay attention. But the other places in the

world who have been suffering are suffering infinitely worse right now.

And if we can localize food production, we can make a real

difference. And this will have to happen. And over the next 10

years, this will happen. Absolutely. And we're glad to be

positioned to help. And that's kind of why we made our platform the way it

is, where most of our services are free. We realize how

far behind we are, and that has to change. And we

want to move as quickly as possible. So it's been a nice reception,

but it's still not fast enough. And, you know, everyone who's in this

industry, and I think I just heard this on one of your other podcasts, but

we all want the same thing. We all want to do good. We all want

to make a difference here. And it's nice that it's trending in the right

direction, but it needs to go a lot faster. And so every time there's new

companies popping up and new competition, We're just looking at it the wrong way.

These are people who are helping as well, and it's going to take a combined

effort of all of us to really get to where we need to be. Has

the nature of the conversations or the requests in terms of the types of

projects people want to start changed in those conversations with you?

Yeah, they've definitely changed somewhat. We spoke about this

before as well, but we used to just deploy more mom-and-pop

shop farms where it would be a container farm or something small, and

for some reason it was almost always in a really small city.

And I guess the reasoning for that is that they probably have to import a

lot of food there. It's hard for them to get more fresh access to food

because they're not local and everything has to be shipped there. And they kind of

have to rely on themselves, so they'll have the support of their community when they

deploy that. But people are also caring a lot more over

the last 10 years or so what goes in their body. I mean, when we

were kids, we never looked at the calories. That didn't exist. We didn't know we

were putting in their bodies. We were just We would eat what we were served

and that was kind of that. Or just how colorful it was, like Lucky

Charms. Yeah, exactly. And no one ever told you like,

this food is bad and this food is good and you have to have the

right amount of protein with carbs and that's how you're going to

get to where you want to be. But people really care about that now.

And it's good that they care about that because we've realized we've been

putting some really terrible stuff into our bodies and look at how much

better you perform and How much better your mental health is and your physical health

is when you eat properly and you know where your food is coming from and

it's not covered in pesticides and toxins and microplastics.

And that part is really important and is also helping to grow.

We're hoping that in the near future, the food miles will be something that has

to be attributed to food packaging because that will really push our industry forward. So

there's been some talk of moving that into legislation, whether that will

happen in the near future or not. I'm sure is something big, large

farms don't want. But the fact of the matter is that the average produce

still travels 2,200 miles to your plate. That is a shocking,

shocking, shocking statistic. As soon as you cut the plant, it starts to die. The

nutrients drain from it. By the time the bag of lettuce gets to your table,

there's nothing left in there. You're eating air, you're eating nothing. And it's

something that needs to be addressed. So, you know, that's another

cool thing about this industry is that You go to the store and you buy

some of this lettuce and some of this kale and you're like, wow, I can't

believe how good this tastes. It's not that it tastes good, it just tastes like

what it's supposed to taste like. You're supposed to harvest it and eat it right

away. It's not supposed to go in a truck and travel across, you know, state

lines to get to you. Some of that stuff is really shocking

and eye-opening. Shout out to our friend Ali Danyali who

put me onto this book called The Secret Life of Groceries. It's one of those

books that I did the audiobook version of it That you don't

want to listen to because it's very disturbing. It covers the

produce industry, it covers the shrimp industry in Thailand.

And by the time you're done with the book, you almost feel like you can't

eat anything without feeling guilty about what that food has gone

through. They talked about some of this produce that gets

pulled when it's so ripe that they say the tomatoes fall on the floor and

they bounce. And they're basically kept in this

homeostasis environment, sometimes for depending on the

produce for a couple of days to a couple of weeks. And they've managed, you

know, between the management of the ethylene that allows it to ripen, just

controlling that specific aspect of it to the point where when

it's ready to ship, then they turn it on. But what people don't know, and

they somehow get tricked because they see a little vine on a tomato that indicates

it's fresh, but it's not. And so I think if people understood literally what's

happening and the machinations that have to happen for food to

appear fresh after it's traveled 3,000 miles, I think it'd be

a bit of a wake-up call for folks. Yeah, it's one of those things where

people have an inkling of it, but it's one of those— it's

tough to really open your eyes because then you're admitting that all the food you

eat is treated that way. But food has been

designed and engineered for travel, which is crazy.

You know, you have companies like Unfold and some of these newer ones that do

seed genetics that are working with seeds to make them have a better

taste profile, a better crunch profile, better flavor,

more nutrients, instead of, well, I'm making this seed so that when

the plant is cut, it's able to live for 2 weeks to get

to its destination. What a weird concept that, you know, no

one ever thinks about, but you're putting that in your body

and that's not what you want. Nothing's been sprayed with pesticides the entire

time it was in the field until it's harvested. And You know, I'm sure

you've done this the same way all of us have. You go to the store

and you're doing your groceries, you buy a bag of salad mix and you

put it in your fridge and you forget about it for 48 hours. And you,

you pull it out and it's all wet and soaking and you're like, what's— it's

already gone bad? It's because it's been in that transit period

for 3 weeks. It should last in your fridge for a month. If you grow

a head of lettuce and you cut it and you put it in your fridge,

you can eat it 2 weeks later without any problems. But those

bagged salads that turn to water after a few days, it's because they've

already had that transitory period, and that's not what you want

to be putting in your body. Yeah, I've been so much more conscious of it

since starting the show. Shout out to Revel Greens, who is local here in

Minnesota, and they've got a greenhouse here. And I, you know,

in the beginnings, I think I would just pass by it. It is a little

bit more pricier, but I think it just takes 2 or 3 times

of like trying it, even just one time of trying it. My girlfriend tried and

she's like, Wow, this is amazing how fresh, how crunchy, how

much more flavor it has, how much longer it lasts. And now

it's just— there's no turning back. Like, you can't flip over a bag of lettuce

without seeing Salinas as the origin point of it.

And it's just night and day. And I think it's just a matter of

educating people and getting them to try it, because I think once they do,

it's just a real aha moment. Yeah, I mean, it's the same for us, right?

We're in Canada most of the time, and we're not growing food for at

least half the year. So our stuff comes from especially far. Like,

it's a— we're the prime candidates of the 2,200 miles to get to your

plate. And it's something that I never really thought about

or noticed until I got into this industry. But now every time I go to

the restaurant, I order, I order a salad or something. It's strange, you

kind of nitpick at it. I'm like, you could tell that this came from over

here, you know, but that's not the way it should be. And then it makes

you not want to eat out at restaurants, especially when you know how far they

are from the source. And it's not to their fault. It's the only way that

they can get lettuce is to import it from wherever or to get it at

the store. But that is changing. This is a movement. And

it's like you said, it's night and day. Once you have that, if you have

that available to you, that it's been locally grown and you purchase it, you know,

it's the same reason people love farmers markets. You go there and you get your

meat. You know that that meat was, you know, it's ethical and it came

from around the corner. You don't have to worry about whether it was factory

farmed and pumped with something. And this movement

is very important because it will define the future,

and it's something so needed. So it's been kind of a slow burn,

even though the industry moves at a mile a minute. It's still not enough,

but we're getting there. We're definitely getting there, and it's nice to see. I think

what I also found interesting is the definition of local. I heard somewhere

that you can call something local if it comes within 400 miles, I

think, or I don't know if it's— hopefully I'm not getting it too wrong, but

it wasn't like local is like a couple of miles away. It's a big,

big radius. And so what I've seen more folks talk about is this idea of

hyperlocal. Hyperlocal meaning— I just had a conversation

with Jonathan from Adapt Ag, and he talks about how one of the restaurants talk

about their mushrooms as, I think, 500-meter mushrooms. I saw him post

something about social, and that was a reference to the fact that it was

grown with their partnership, like literally next door. So

that's really hyperlocal, and I think maybe it's

educating. Like these labels that people see, natural and local, they just assume that's

good, but I think when you start to dig in, I think really hyperlocal

is where the conversation should be, 'cause that really speaks to what we're doing, I

think, in vertical farming. Yeah, it's funny, I was about to just

name-drop Adept as well, because I know a lot of their farms are literally

500 meters away from where they distribute those gourmet

mushrooms. So shout out to them, because they've really been crushing it, And they're

addressing something too. Mushrooms are a big part of the future and there's not too

many people tackling that and they've been really great to work with. So

that's another company you should definitely check out, especially if you're on that mushroom side

of things. They've been crushing it and they've got some really cool stuff. But I

wasn't aware of that description of 400 miles. I mean, it's silly to think

400 miles would still be considered local because it's certainly not local, but

it's funny that it's still more than 5 times better than what we're

getting right now. We're saying that sounds silly and it's 5 times better than what

we're getting currently. So, Yeah, I mean, most vertical farms, you're looking at about

a 25-mile radius, maybe up to 50 miles, but 50 miles is

perfect. You can drive 50 miles in an hour. That's not a problem.

You know, if I found out that my food that was in the store got

there an hour ago, I'd be thrilled. Yeah, I remember probably,

was it the '90s when there was a big movement of farm-to-table? Like

every— all these new restaurants were popping up, farm-to-table, farm-to-table, farm-to-table.

And I wonder if there's going to be a new wave in terms of restaurants,

like you mentioned, with what Adapt Ag is doing. I don't know what the new

term would be, hyperlocal to table or something like that, but just restaurants that care

about the entire destination or

the process, right? That's becoming more of a thing. So a lot of the companies

we work with right now actually have seed-to-harvest traceability. So a lot of them, the

packaging will have like a QR code that you can scan and you can see

Michael planted this seed November 2nd at

4:45, and then it'll show you kind of 5 steps. It was harvested on this

day, it was shipped on this day and it was delivered. And then you see,

oh wow, it was delivered yesterday. Wow, that's amazing. How can you not buy it?

Oh, it's a dollar more. That's— I'll gladly pay a dollar more for something I

know exactly where it came from. I can trust the company. I can look into

the company. I can vet it. And you know how fresh it's gonna be. So

yeah, there's a bit of a price premium here, but the price of everything has

been skyrocketing. And you know, if there's some things you shouldn't cheap

out on, the food that you put inside of you on a daily basis is

probably one of those things. Yeah. So we've

chatted a couple times. Things have changed,

obviously, and there's a lot happening in this industry. Everything is moving

pretty fast. And so this might be— you might have a different answer for this

than the last time I asked you, but what's a tough question you've had to

ask yourself recently? Always with the good questions. What's a

tough question I've had to ask myself lately? We've been

thinking about pivoting some of our model again.

And so I think it's just the tough questions. You're always asking

yourself tough questions when you're in business, to be honest. So it's hard to kind

of just pick one, but you know, I think you really have to be honest

with yourself. We touched on this a bit earlier, but you can't be

married to what you're doing. I think a lot of entrepreneurs fail

because you spend so much time and effort in creating, you know, your

baby and you're so happy with everything that you're doing. And it means

so much to you that sometimes you realize that your company needs

to go slightly a different direction or some things that you've chased, which which trust

me, I have done quite a few times, are not going to materialize the way

that you wanted. And you just have to let them go. You have to let

them go because they'll drown you if you don't. And we've had a little bit

of that lately in some models that we chased that we were really

confident with, that we were so excited. And like, I dialed the whole

team in, we're all chasing this thing and we're all excited. And then halfway through,

you just think, wait, I just found a giant plot hole here and this is

definitely not going to work. And to be able to drop that as a team

and pick up the new thing and all start moving towards that new thing and

everyone stays positive is crucial. So I don't really

have a great example for you off the top of my head, but it's more

of a— it's always an evolving conversation. It's always an evolving thing.

And you have to take great care to be

introspective to make sure that you kind of check yourself because you can

get lost, especially when you get a few wins in a row. You start feeling

like you can do no wrong and, you know, everything's always sunny side

up. And then when something goes wrong, you want to start blaming something

else. It can't be me, it can't be our team, we never make mistakes.

So it's really important to just keep an eye out

for that kind of stuff and be really proactive. And we chat with our

whole staff. Everyone has an opinion that is valued equally, whether you're the

CEO or you're the farmer or whatever, it doesn't

matter. We just, we want your opinion. Everyone's in there working together every

day. And so everyone is valued equally. And everyone has contributed

ideas in terms of strategy for our company, regardless of their position.

And I think that's another reason why, you know, we are the way we are.

So we are recording this end of March 2023. What

are you most excited about for the rest of this year? What are you looking

forward to? We've got some stuff coming up that I can't announce just

yet that we're working on, but I do have some stuff we're really excited about.

We're going to do a little rebrand in the near future. We've got a new

website launching. Like I said, there's some new stuff that we're

changing. We're going to be announcing some new services as well.

We've kind of found our niche even more as we go.

We've been offering kind of everything for free and casting a really wide net,

and it seems like people want more specialized services.

And so we've been working at developing some frameworks for that. So we'll

be launching some more formalized auditing of

technologies and standard operating procedure documentation that we

can build out. I think it's really important for

some type of compliance to start entering this industry. We obviously just saw

the closures of all these big farms and it's been kind of the Wild West

and that's because no one was keeping anybody accountable. We were just kind of throwing

stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. And it can't be like that

anymore because this industry, you know, this downturn is actually good in the

sense that we're not faking it anymore. This is

real. This needs to happen, and there's going to be some more diligence.

There's going to be some more compliance. People aren't just throwing money at this and

hoping it works. People are paying attention now, and it's got to be done right.

And we're kind of going towards that direction. You know, we work with about

65 companies or so currently, and there needs

to be some compliance enforced in here to make sure that the people who

are entering this have the best chance at success. And that was the core premise

of starting this company, and that's really where we're headed. So we're doing an

audit of a really large company right now. And then we've got a couple other

that others that we're putting on the books. And I think it's really

important that we kind of work together to make some type of

certification or some type of documentation that shows,

look, these people have been vetted and what they're promising is

accurate. And so you can trust that, you know, your money is safe

here and your dreams are safe here. So I think that's going to be over

the next few years a really big proponent of this industry. I'm really glad you

said that because I think it's— so people that are on the outside looking in,

they just see the Fast Company article about, is this the hype of

vertical farming over? And obviously, anyone who's outside has probably

been sent that article by their friends and be like, oh, I heard you're in

vertical farming. Is that still a thing? Without knowing the

specifics of what's happening. But I think this idea of it growing up, I just

had a chat with David Farkar, this idea of crossing the chasm.

All tech cycles, they have their ups and downs, and I think

weathering this dip and seeing who really has

solid business practices, who really has a solid business model, those are the

companies that are going to succeed. So I think things like these audits are going

to be really good for the industry, so I'm glad to hear that. Yeah, absolutely.

It's been a long time coming, and that's what I was trying to

allude to earlier where the news is the news.

you know, they want to make it seem like everything's on fire and the world

is going to end. It's always been like that, but we live in a pretty

good period of time where we all have it pretty easy for the most part,

and it's important to realize that. But it's a new industry and there's going to

be failures. You can't just do it right. I mean, 5 years ago, this

thing barely existed, and now we're competing with outdoor

crop prices, which is incredible to believe.

And I mean, you've seen some farms as well as I have, where in the

beginning you were going and it was not much in a warehouse, you know, some

racks and some heads of lettuce, and they didn't look so

healthy. And now you're looking at mega-scale farming with full,

complete robotics and automation. And what we're headed towards,

it needs more investment and it needs some patience, but we

are getting there. And it's so, so, so important. So

we just got to keep plugging away. But you're in this industry and you see

everyone, everyone's still so excited and everyone loves what they do. And

we're all moving in the right direction. And this downturn seems negative to maybe the

outside world, but to those of us who are doing it and who have been

doing it right, it really hasn't been much of a bother. Yeah. Well,

Eric, my friend, thank you so much for coming on for round 3. I know

sometimes it's— this is something that's, uh, you're wondering how these are

going to go, especially with these first 2, but I hope Hopefully, you

felt like this was a pretty good experience. I'm always happy to tell

your story because I think you guys are doing great things and I want

more people to learn about what's going on with Cultivated. Yeah, I think

the more we get to know each other, the easier this becomes for me. And

I like how you just tricked me into just recording the second I jumped on

here without saying anything. So, that's definitely a bonus for me. I

appreciate you taking the time and I'll be looking

forward to round 4 next year. Yeah. Well, I appreciate the partnership with the

podcast. really grateful for everything

we've been working on together. Cultivated.com— I

think you'd have to be hiding under a rock if you don't know all the

details about where to find more information about Cultivated. But as always, we'll make sure

all those links are in the show notes. So thanks again for

taking the time to come on and giving us an update. Thank you. Thanks again

to Eric, and returning to the show for round 3 to share a little bit

more about his story that we hadn't heard before, and also about the great work

that Cultivated is doing. As always, full show notes with summaries,

key takeaways, shareable quotes, and resources mentioned are available at

verticalfarmingpodcast.com. Thanks again to our Season 8 title

sponsor, Cultivatd. If you are looking into a vertical farm and don't know where to

start or which technology would suit your needs, reach out to them today. Best of

all, their service is free because they work on behalf of their partners. Learn more

at cultivatd.com, and that's spelled

C-U-L-T-I-V-A-T-D.com. Just leave out that last E.

Podcast production marketing provided by Fullcast. Learn more at fullcast.com. Thanks for listening.

As a reminder, if you enjoyed this show or past episodes,

please leave us a rating and review at ratethispodcast.com/vfb.

Come on, I know you want to hear you get a shout out on

the next episode, so do that. Tune in next week for my conversation

with yet another fascinating leader from the world of vertical farming. This time it's Daphne

Prias, CEO of Carbon Book. Until we meet again, here's to your

health. Thanks for listening. To read the full show notes for this

episode, Which includes any links mentioned in the episode, as well as

a full show transcription, visit

verticalfarmingpodcast.com. There, you can sign

up for our email list to be notified when new episodes are

published.

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