How AppHarvest’s indoor farming scheme imploded (2023)

https://www.lpm.org/investigate/2023-11-16/a-celebrated-startup-promised-kentuckians-green-jobs-it-gave-them-a-grueling-hell-on-earth

by andrewrn • 1 year ago

35 19 1 year ago

lpm.org

itsdrewmiller• 1 year ago

Needs (2023) - discussed previously here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34959649

grg0• 1 year ago

Also, "Exposé". Grammar don't check otherwise.

tomhow• 1 year ago

Thanks!

The vertical farming bubble is finally popping - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34959649 - Feb 2023 (270 comments)

smcin• 1 year ago

JD Vance, Martha Stewart were on the board of this indoor vertical farming startup. It went public in 2020 via a Covid-era SPAC (Novus Capital Corp), in 2021 raised $700m then went public at a $1b valuation, was sued by shareholders for securities fraud in 2022 (Vance had left in 2021), then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppHarvest

[1] https://apnews.com/article/appharvest-indoor-farming-bankrup...

[2]: Coverage of Plenty, Bowery, AppHarvest and AeroFarms https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/24/vertical-farming-company-p...

99_003• 1 year ago

I don’t get it. How could a high tech green house ever be more profitable than free sunshine, dirt

Your product gets, what? Max $2.50/# retail?

poulsbohemian2• 1 year ago

Farmland is stupidly expensive. The equipment and inputs (fertilizer, fuel) are stupidly expensive. Growing outside, you are forever at the whims of the weather rather than being able to control each detail of production. Fields inevitably have parts that have variable soil and water conditions. When you look at what a country like the Netherlands has done with greenhouse growing, it's pretty compelling. Was AppHarvest the answer? Apparently not, but that doesn't negate that there are indoor models that work.

nradov• 1 year ago

Which indoor models work? They might be viable for boutique produce that is highly perishable. But the notion that this could ever work for bulk staple crops is just stupid.

Farmland isn't that expensive.

Doxin• 1 year ago

For some context on the scale of what's going on in the netherlands, see this article for some lovely photos[0]

Mind that these aren't startups either. These are old companies making money. My grandfather used to talk about working in greenhouses exactly like these.

[0] https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/glowing-dutch-greenhou...

99_003• 1 year ago

It’s the opposite of compelling. The fact the tech and knowledge is well established but not widely used means it’s less profitable and not competitive with traditional farming except in exceptional circumstances

bryanrasmussen• 1 year ago

many products that are wanted year round in some freshness are seasonal and limited, tomatoes being the canonical example.

99_003• 1 year ago

Mexico City to Edmonton Alberta is a 48 hour drive

ryanwhitney• 1 year ago

In comforting news, post-bankruptcy, the founder and CEO of AppHarvest has gone on to start…uhh…The Nuclear Company?[0] Hopefully when it's ready they'll invite McConnell back to flip the switch.

0: https://www.thenuclearcompany.com

joshstrange• 1 year ago

Wow, I completely missed this when it was published back in 2023. I watched every briefing by the KY Governor and I remember AppHarvest coming up multiple times (9 times according to the daily transcripts people made on Reddit [0]). I remembering thinking how cool of an idea it was and how I really thought this could help our more rural areas.

It’s incredibly disappointing that this is how it turned out. Selling workers on the vision that they did and then completely going in the other direction is gross verging on evil. Especially the parts about top execs cashing out while employees and their friends/family invested in what they thought could be their future.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus_KY/search/?q=Appharvest...

andrewrn• 1 year ago

Oh yeah the founder is a bonafide grifter. The worst part? He’s not building a fucking nuclear startup…

How AppHarvest’s indoor farming scheme imploded (2023)

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