Appharvest 60-acre greenhouse

General Fruit Growing
101

There were several factors that brought it down, but the fact they couldn’t produce as many premium tomatoes those first couple growing seasons was a killer. So they lost money selling tomatoes at a discount, and there wasn’t as big a market as they assumed.

Plus, they couldn’t get the other greenhouses online fast enough, so that didn’t help. That’s one of the reasons they filed bankruptcy, because their biggest creditor foreclosed on them due to the Richmond greenhouse taking so long getting built.

It is very labor intensive work, we rarely had more than a couple days off, I usually had to work Mon-Sat. Once those plants get going, you cannot afford to leave them unattended for too long. Now strawberries and leafy greens may not be as bad, but tomatoes take a lot of work.

The hot and humid working conditions, plus dealing with all the pollen, plant resins, molds, bugs and a inconsistent management style lead to a high turnover rate. Plus, $13/hr seemed to be a bit low for the work required.

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102

No—looked like aluminum or an alloy. I assume to be recycled? But the mountain disappeared 10 to 15 days later. I figured a change of crop meant re-tooling.

103

Okay. Like I said, they grew strawbs and cukes, so maybe they are switching over to different material for different crops. When we cleaned out the greenhouses it was mostly plant material, but we grew only tomatoes.

104

As you probably are up on it…AppHarvest declared bankruptcy. Dutch and Canadian concerns purchased the facilities, or part of them.

There’s still a chance the Securities commission may file suit against the guy that promised the moon but didn’t deliver.

105

Hope they can successfully continue under new ownership. As a public traded company it seemed like a bad investment with limited growth and profit margin plus plenty of debt.

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