This Massive Vertical Strawberry Farm Is Just A Short Trip Outside Of NYC
You may already be familiar with luxury fruit farming company Oishii who’s selling the tastiest tomatoes most expensive strawberries just outside of NYC–they’re a Japanese variety Omakase Berry priced at $50 a tray!
And yesterday, June 3rd, Oishii opened the doors to Amatelas Farm, the largest, most futuristic indoor vertical strawberry farm, and it’s just a short trip outside of NYC.
Amatelas Farm, which is named for the Japanese Goddess of the Sun, is pretty massive, spanning almost 240,000 square feet. It’s the most technologically advanced farm to date with over 50 state-of-the-art robots working in tandem with Oishii’s bees and farmers.
And these robots are no joke–nearly 50 of them work around-the-clock to ensure the berries are picked at peak ripeness. And considering the farm is split into individual farm units, which are each home to 250 moving racks of berries, that’s no easy feat.
Even more, the robots capture over 60 billion data points annually, which are used to monitor and adjust the environmental variables of each farm unit, ensuring they’re producing the best tasting fruit.
And though the farm is producing seemingly endless amounts of berries they’re not harming the environment.
Amatelas Farm runs on renewable energy and its harvests are grown primarily with solar power sourced from the 50-acre solar field next door. The facility’s multi-million dollar water purification system also has 8x more capacity than the older Oishii farms, allowing it to recycle the majority of the water it uses today, making for a more-efficient paradigm for indoor agriculture.
Hiroki Koga, CEO and Co-Founder of Oishii, stated:
In just two years, we’ve developed technological breakthroughs now in use at Amatelas Farm that make our growing process significantly more efficient, yet just as delicious. Our desire to maintain this exponential rate of innovation is driven by a deeply human need: we see vertical farming as a critical part of the solution to our failing agriculture system. Our new farm represents a huge step forward in our mission to grow food that’s better for people and the planet.
Amatelas Farm has the space to grow more than 20x the number of berries from its previous facility. It’s now serving as the primary production facility for Oishii’s ever-popular Koyo strawberries.
They’ll continue to grow their coveted Omakase berries at Mugen Farm, their 72,000 square foot farm in Jersey City which opened mid-2022. They’ll also add more space to Mugen Farm to grow the jewel-like Rubī Tomato, unveiled late last year.
And if you already can’t get enough of their Koyo and Omakase berries, boy are you in for a treat–they have plans to unveil a new strawberry varietal later this year!
Never-before-seen footage of inside the new indoor vertical strawberry farm can be seen below:
You can learn more about Oishii online here.
The post This Massive Vertical Strawberry Farm Is Just A Short Trip Outside Of NYC appeared first on Secret NYC.