Apr 13, 2023
Editor’s Note: The following article includes information derived from interviews with Brac Webb, Fifth Season CTO, and David Ceaser, Agritecture’s Lead Agronomist.
Repeated lettuce recalls and lettuce-free grocery store shelves over the past few years have become a consistent challenge for producers and consumers alike, increasing consumer awareness around the importance of food safety.
According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – fall ill annually after eating contaminated food. Of this, 420,000 die every year.
Image sourced from Fifth Season
The biological controls brought with controlled growing environments are being looked at as a potential solution to these problems.
With over 20 years of experience working in all facets of agriculture, Agritecture’s Lead Agronomist, David Ceaser, adds that “many people think that vertical farms are inherently safer than conventional farms regarding food safety - but this is not automatically the case. Vertical farms can be much safer than conventional farms if they are designed and operated correctly.”
Besides allowing for a high degree of traceability using emerging technologies, a key factor in food safety is the reduced need for harmful pesticides. “Well-designed vertical farms exclude disease vectors that are found in conventional agriculture and this reduces the need for applications of pesticides for pest management. That said, vertical farms are amazing environments for the growth of bacteria since they are constantly humid and warm. Thus, it is critical for vertical farms to have food safety procedures developed by an expert and ensure that they are followed continuously.”
As seen in this summer 2021 salmonella outbreak, the risk of contamination isn’t zero within CEA facilities. That said, CEA-grown produce does have a significantly reduced risk of such occurrences compared to conventional agriculture.
Brac Webb from Fifth Season shares that “for controlled environment agriculture to live up to its promise of food safety as a core competitive advantage, and capture more share of the market, we [vertical farms] have to hold ourselves to the highest standard of safety by making ‘Design for Food Safety’ a key DfX ("Design for X" meaning Design for manufacturing, serviceability, food safety, cost, etc.) in automation design, and have Food Safety processes built into end-to-end integrated software systems.”
Currently, “there’s too much complacency about food safety protocols in indoor growing environments, and recalls will eventually erode the trust we’ve [vertical farms] built,” says Webb. “The major food safety recalls have occurred in greenhouses, which lack certain design controls that a truly controlled environment can provide and therefore can’t minimize the risk the same way vertical farms can.”
Image sourced from Fifth Season
Vertical farms are responsible for building better farms that have food safety protocols designed into the operating systems. Here, technology plays a key role.
While most vertical farms “buy technology built by others and splice it together to create their farm,” Fifth Season has “built a system of robots synchronized by their fully-integrated, end-to-end, full-stack software, providing traceability and operational excellence for food safety.”
Webb shares that “our own software that runs our custom Bots makes it possible for us to design food safety best practices into the system from the start.” And, “our systematic modular design and proprietary fertigation system drastically reduce the risk of contamination in our produce because they make it virtually impossible for any pathogens to spread throughout the farm. Lastly, our fully-automated system means no human hands touch the greens during the growing process.”
As members of the CEA Food Safety Coalition, Planted Detroit and Bowery Farming are two other vertical farms similarly committed to food safety.
Meg Burritt from Planted Detroit shares that their site treats water and air coming into the facility. They also have physical boundaries set up for employees and visitors to change their shoes and outside clothes, and numerous hand-washing stations to limit contamination possibilities. Learn more about Planted Detroit in this exclusive interview.
Through vertical integration, the Bowery Farming team shares that they “control all aspects of our supply chain and flow of food from the time a single seed enters our farm to when it’s fully grown, packed, and shipped to your local grocery store.”
To them, “true traceability requires actionable data, additional recordkeeping requirements, and technological advancements that are not yet widespread in the food industry. Product tracing at Bowery begins with our effective food traceability system that revolves around the power and real-time data collection capabilities of the BoweryOS.” Learn more about Bowery in this exclusive interview.
This is an expensive undertaking for a farm of any size; why should entrepreneurs consider investing more time, energy, and money into establishing more robust food safety practices?
Image sourced from Fifth Season
In the case of Fifth Season, the outcome of these extensive technological and operational measures is a 100% SQF (Safe Quality Food) score, meaning that Fifth Season’s greens have been tested to be 100% clean. “We’ve been told by a veteran third-party auditor that we have the cleanest and most superior food safety program they’ve seen,” says Webb.
Webb highlights that this score may not mean much to consumers. But, what does matter is what they don’t hear about in regard to Fifth Season, i.e. “no outbreaks, no recalls, just consistently fresh, reliably safe and tasty produce.” These under-the-radar benefits demonstrate the commitment of a vertical farm to consumers.
As a bonus, vertical farms with their own, custom-built software and robots can more easily duplicate their systems when it comes time to expand because they’ve invested the resources to build and perfect their own technology, according to the Fifth Season team.Webb shares that Fifth Season is already benefiting from this in their expansion to Columbus, as they will replicate proprietary tech - the same Bots and software - at the new farm.
Are you a new business looking to integrate food safety processes into your farm seamlessly? Here are some top tips from Ceaser and Webb:
Ceaser’s #1 tip is to have someone on board with HAACP certification. This is relevant for all farms, even very small operations.
Webb’s #1 tip is to consider Food Safety from the start. This means Design for Food Safety should be a critical requirement in all automation design, with Food Safety being part of all operational process design. Enhance the design factor with proprietary software that ensures excellent execution of operational processes.
Ceaser shares that rather than being an afterthought, “food safety should be considered in the earliest stages of farm design and planning, as they will be critical in considerations relating to surfaces, work flow and operating procedures.” Additionally, even though strong government regulations may not be in place right now, it’s best not to wait to develop food safety protocols until they are required. “Begin developing them at the inception of facility operations so that they only need modifications, versus a complete reorganization of activities when a regulation sets in.”
