In 2022 Plenty announced plans to invest $300 million to build the world’s largest vertical farming campus in Chesterfield County’s Meadowville Technology Park. The company recently secured $400 million in a Series E financing round, the largest investment to date for an indoor farming company. Plenty’s proprietary climate-control, LED lighting, and growing technologies allow for the efficient and sustainable production of a variety of clean, flavorful produce on its 52-foot grow towers year-round. The company’s first farm will be completed by 2024 and will focus on strawberry production.

AeroFarms uses proprietary aeroponic growing technology to produce highly flavorful leafy greens at a rate 390-times more productive than field-grown plants. A mission-driven company, AeroFarms is committed to growing the best plants possible with processes that use significantly less water and no pesticides, while offering extremely high levels of food safety. By hiring locally and creating year-round employment, AeroFarms is able to grow all year to nourish its communities with high-quality produce that delivers optimal nutrition and flavor.

Greenswell Growers uses a fully automated, indoor system with both natural and artificial light to produce leafy greens year-round, prioritizing food safety, freshness, consistency, and reliability. The company has worked with Dominion Energy to utilize 100 percent of its energy from zero carbon sources. The hydroponic greenhouse is expected to produce nearly 3.7 million pounds of leafy greens for distribution in the mid-Atlantic during its first three years of full production. The facility will be able to produce 28 times more product per acre than a traditional growing operation.

In 2013, Red Sun Farms invested $30 million in its first high-technology greenhouse production operation in Pulaski County. The state-of-the-art, climate-controlled greenhouses on 45 acres of land in the New River Valley Commerce Park grow quality greenhouse-grown, non-GMO, pesticide-free vegetables. With more than 100 employees, this environmentally safe greenhouse ships 200,000 pounds of tomatoes weekly from April to October.

Herndon-based Beanstalk created a vertical farming technology capable of growing lettuces, spinach, basil, carrots, lavender, and more. The company’s technology is vertically integrated from infrastructure to hardware and software. This deep integration empowers Beanstalk to quickly create, test, and iterate growing environments, robotic automation, and value-added processing – all working together to make produce exciting, tasty, and convenient. Beanstalk currently grows and sells a variety of fresh produce to local customers.

Babylon Micro-Farms develops and produces remotely controlled, indoor hydroponic systems for growing fresh herbs, vegetables, and salad greens. Babylon’s location in Richmond’s Scott’s Addition will enable the company to expand its capabilities in manufacturing, software development, and research and development so it can begin distributing nationally and internationally.