Greenhouse Builder Takes The “Locally Grown” Movement To A New Level

A N.Y.-based company whose mission is to build greenhouse farms to supply fresh produce to regional supermarket chains is expanding its operations rapidly to take advantage of the “locally grown” trend. BrightFarms’s newest customer is Chicago-area Mariano’s stores, but it has built, or is building, greenhouses in Virginia, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Illinois. The business model seems sound, because the idea is to cut food transport costs by building the farms near stores. According to founder Paul Lightfoot, the Chicago greenhouse will produce a million pounds of fruits and vegetables a year, applying hydroponic technologies that use 90 percent less water, 75 percent less land and 98 percent less shipping fuel than conventional lettuce growers.