Farm.One Wants to Bring 'Weird and Wonderful' Produce to Consumers

Tim Hammerich

News Reporter

Vertical farming has made a lot of headlines in recent years. The method of growing plants indoors may be limited by the types of crops it can profitably produce, but it holds a lot of promise for new and interesting varieties of those crops. Rob Laing is the CEO of New York-based Farm.One which he says grows weird and wonderful specialty items.

Laing… “You know, just in the realm of basil, there are dozens of different edible basil varieties. A lot of them are bred by kind of passionate hobbyists and they come up with strange and wonderful names for their creations. And so we've got something like Blue Spice basil, which is actually almost smells sweet. It has a berries and cream aroma. It has a very soft leaf, has a jagged sort of serrated edge to the leaf. And then when you put it in your mouth, it has a spicy taste. And that's just one variety of basil.”

Almost like craft brewing for fresh produce. Laing says vertical farming has the potential to provide these unique options to consumers.

Laing… “There are all these amazing flavors out there and because of the grocery store system and just the modern supply chain, you don't get access to most of those things as a consumer. But they are there, and I think that growing a much wider diversity of plants is an exciting thing, but it's also an important thing to help people remember that there's lots and lots of different things out there to eat.”

Farm.One is currently doing an equity crowdfunding campaign to grow the business on the WeFunder platform.