One thing you’ll never have to do harvesting tomatoes is work in the cold!
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True that. The best working conditions are when it’s 30-50 outside and cloudy. When the sun comes out and shines through the glass, it starts heating up. On days when it was 10-25 degrees outside, but sunny, you start sweating, especially up above the plants on the elevated cart.
We got a quick couple inches of snow here and more’s coming down at the moment, so we’re on a delay waiting to see how road conditions are after the sun comes up. May go in later today.
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Maybe your not privy to this knowledge, but any idea what it costs to heat a place like that for a month in winter? I’m assuming its natural gas0-
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Which Supermarkets in the South East have those Tomatoes for sale?
I’m in NC and would love to try some.
We picked the last dozen Big Denas from our small greenhouse a few weeks ago but considering the cost of the electricity to warm the greenhouse on a 25 degree, they probably cost $10 each. It was an interesting experiment but we plan to plant earlier and target Thanksgiving as Tomato time next year
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My greenhouse is heated by NG at ~$13 per mcf. To maintain a 20F temp differential it’s about $15 per day for 1725 sqft. They probably maintain 40F differential but maybe they pay half for fuel so that would even out. For an acre that comes to $375 per day. For 80 acres = 30K per day. For 120 days $3,600,000.
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I wonder if they use radiant heat… much more efficient… I would love to combine that with a solar tube collector …and Recently read somewhere that the clear glass on greenhouses will conduct solar energy thus be a solar panel of sort
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I’ll check into it, and if it’s anything I can divulge.
@blueberrythrill, I think they sell to Costco and Kroger, and others I’m not aware of. You might be able to find out by googling Appharvest and stores. I’ll see if I can find out after work, I came in for half a day because of the weather. We got a couple inches of snow and more on the way. Will have to work tomorrow too.
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I’d imagine it’s very expensive to operate in the cold seasons as fruitnut stated. Unless there is some high R value glass or something they use//covers?
Next time i’m down to Bolz Conservatory in Madison i’m going to see what they pay. That is a 100ftx100ftx50ft square pyramid shape that they keep from 65f to 80F… when i was there a few weeks ago the coconut trees had fruit on them, the papayas were ripe and their cocoa tree had a few pods. I want to live in there. Also they have birds flying around inside.
I don’t think greenhouse tomatoes in this state would make sense unless you have a free source of heat.
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Well, it’s the same old story…the communities they are locating in are financing the utility bills including gas…in order to lure the ‘farming factory’ to their communities!
Sorry, I don’t have the stats on this in front of me, but I’ve been around the block a few times and know these things are built in “industrial parks” for a reason.
I guess it did? If you get tired of tomatoes…come to Somerset and pick berries! 
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I’ve noticed for years a lot of the fresh tomatoes in the grocery store come from Canada. They must have huge subsidies or free heat. This country is weird…with all the land out west you could grow vast amounts of veggies/fruit under glass. I’ve read that the US is way behind the rest of the world on covered strawberry production (which has much higher yields).
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We do have some large commercial tomato GH near here. Maybe 20 acre size. They appear to use natural ventillation for cooling. I don’t know how they heat.
To answer your question, from the company website-
For example, the natural gas that heats our facilities produces carbon dioxide, which we then partially capture to use as a nutrient for our plants.
No idea on the costs.
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These stores were buying the beefsteak a year ago, but I don’t know about now. This season we’re growing beefsteak, tomato-on-the-vine again, along with a different type.
Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Food City and Meijer, where they are co-branded with Sunset Grown.
I’ve seen Sunset brand produce locally at Walmart and Kroger, but not all of it is from our facility. If you see a Sunset label with a “KY” on it, we grew it.
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And ‘foodservice’ companies that furnish restaurants…they getting any?
Nah, I’ll let you do that… or pick greens in Berea, or pick 'maters in Richmond…
Sorry, I don’t know. I’ll see if I can get some newer info on where we’re shipping.
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Thought I’d post an update. I left Appharvest about a year and a half ago, the brutal work environment and wishy washy management style was a bit much for me to deal with. I did last a year though, which seemed to be about twice as long as the average worker.
Well, apparently they couldn’t deal with me leaving, or maybe it was for other reasons, as they recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Founder Jonathan Webb was removed as CEO in July and is now Chief Operations Officer. The Morehead facility, where I worked, and the Richmond greenhouse (both grow tomatoes) were sold off to a creditor, while the Berea site (they grow leafy greens) was sold off to the company’s produce distributor. The Somerset facility (strawberries and cucumbers) was sold to Bosch Growers.
Its stock was priced at about $6/share when I left last March, now it has been delisted.
Looks like they will continue operations with most of their employees, but it’s been a very volatile couple of years. Sad to see that it didn’t work out, but perhaps they will be successful with their new owners.
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The AppHarvest name/signage still up late in August as I drove by the Somerset facility.
Maybe a month ago, a really HUGE pile of ‘guts’ from the greenhouses lay in a heap nearly long as a football field outside the plant. I guess somebody changing to raise something different than the original factory.
That’s my first post about this in July 2019. Who would have guessed?
I guess the losers were the share holders. The new owners are getting nearly new facilities at a discount to replacement cost. Probably a steep discount. Maybe they will be better growers and make a profit. It’s still a tough business with high overhead and labor costs.
It’s hard to be both a visionary of a project like this and a first-class grower.
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Was it a bunch of plant material? If so, they’re probably cleaning out old vines/plants and cleaning the greenhouse before they bring in new plants. We did that in July/August. They grow strawberries and cukes at the Somerset facility, but I don’t know if the new owners will grow those again. I thought they were considering blackberries instead of strawbs.