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Plenty now open in Chester, hiring: Will exclusively grow Driscoll’s strawberries

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Plenty now open in Chester, hiring: Will exclusively grow Driscoll’s strawberries


Largest indoor vertical farm campus in the world: Projected $300 million investment expected to bring more than 300 jobs to Virginia

CHESTER — Did you know Plenty Unlimited Inc. [Plenty] in Chester is hiring? California-based, Plenty is the world’s first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale. The Plenty Richmond Farm Campus located at the corner of North Enon Church Road and Meadowville Technology Parkway opened last month.

According to Plenty, the farm in Chesterfield County is designed to produce more than 4 million pounds of strawberries annually in less than 40,000 square feet by growing vertically on 30-foot-tall towers. The farm will exclusively grow Driscoll’s strawberries, combining Plenty’s advanced technology with global premium berry leader Driscoll’s advanced genetics. The first strawberries from the farm will be available in early 2025.

Plenty grows Driscoll’s strawberries, 30-foot vertical towers

On opening day, September 24, Governor Glenn Youngkin delivered remarks at the agritech company’s Richmond Farm Campus ribbon cutting.

“With agriculture serving as the Commonwealth’s largest private sector industry, Plenty choosing Virginia for the world’s first farm to grow indoor, vertically farmed berries at scale reinforces Virginia’s leading role in the controlled environment agriculture industry,” Youngkin said. “Plenty’s farm will boost local agriculture production and drive economic development, all while diversifying against risks and protecting the environment. We look forward to supporting their innovative approaches to revolutionizing the industry, and know that Plenty’s success will be Virginia’s success.”

According to Plenty, while most vertical farms are limited to lettuces, Plenty spent the past decade designing a patent-pending, modular growing system flexible enough to support a wide variety of crops – including strawberries. Growing on vertical towers enables uniform delivery of nutrients, superior airflow and more intense lighting, delivering increased yield with consistent quality.

Every element of the Plenty Richmond Farm–including temperature, light and humidity–is precisely controlled through proprietary software to create the perfect environment for the strawberry plants to thrive. The farm uses AI to analyze more than 10 million data points each day across its 12 grow rooms, adapting each grow room’s environment to the evolving needs of the plants – creating the perfect environment for Driscoll’s proprietary plants to thrive and optimizing the strawberries’ flavor, texture and size. Even pollination has been engineered by Plenty, using a patent-pending method that evenly distributes controlled airflow across the strawberry flowers for more efficient and effective pollination than using bees, supporting more uniform strawberry size and shape.

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“This farm is a model for the positive impact climate-agnostic agriculture can have and proof that vertical farming can deliver the crop diversity, scaled and local production needed to future-proof the global food system,” Arama Kukutai, Plenty CEO, said. “The Plenty Richmond Farm is the culmination of 200 research trials over the past six years to perfect growing strawberries with consistent peak-season flavor indoors year-round. Driscoll’s sets an incredibly high bar for the quality of its berries and we’re excited to join forces to consistently deliver an ultra-premium Driscoll’s strawberry year-round.”

The Plenty Richmond Farm brings year-round production of fresh produce within a one-day drive of more than 100 million consumers. Growing locally reduces food miles and food waste, and the farm itself uses 97 percent less land and up to 90 percent less water than conventional farming.

“Partnering with Plenty for the launch of the Richmond Farm allows us to bring our premium strawberries closer to consumers in the Northeast, the largest berry consumption region in the U.S.,” Soren Bjorn, Driscoll’s CEO, said. “By combining our 100 years of farming expertise and proprietary varieties along with Plenty’s cutting-edge technology, we can deliver the same consistent flavor and quality our customers love—now grown locally. This new innovative farm is a powerful step forward in continuing to drive category growth in new ways for our customers and consumers.”

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Chester: Plenty hiring, grow your career, full-time positions

Founded in 2014, Plenty plans to introduce other crops to the 120-acre campus such as tomatoes and leafy-green vegetables. The Plenty Richmond Farm Campus is the largest indoor vertical farm campus in the world and a projected $300 million investment that is expected to bring more than 300 jobs to Virginia. Jobs advertised, at this time, include grow technician, maintenance technician, installation and integration engineering manager, QA/QC technician, senior maintenance technician, senior scheduler, and shipping and receiving associate. Future openings include sanitation supervisor, lead farm operations associates, warehouse associates, health and safety manager, and engineering.

For more information about Plenty’s career opportunities in Chesterfield County including current and future job openings, benefits and perks, visit plentyjobsvirginia.com.

Kristi K. Higgins aka The Social Butterfly, an award-winning columnist, is the trending topics and food Q&A reporter at The Progress-Index voted the 2022 Tri-Cities Best of the Best Social Media Personality. Have a news tip on local trends or businesses? Contact Kristi (she, her) at khiggins@progress-index.com, follow @KHiggins_PI on X and @socialbutterflykristi on Instagram. 

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