cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/buycanadian@lemmy.ca/p/902428/after-15-years-goodleaf-proves-theres-profit-in-vertical-farming-betakit
Guelph, Ontario-based GoodLeaf Farms has become profitable across its vertical farming operations for the first time.
The context: GoodLeaf, which was founded in 2011 in Halifax, has spent over a decade developing recipes and proprietary tech that helps the firm maximize the yield and quality of its produce by monitoring and controlling light, air, and water delivery to its plants. The company, which counts McCain Foods, Farm Credit Canada, and Power Sustainable Lios among its backers, attributes its success to “years of innovation, disciplined growth, and strategic investment.” It also comes on the back of fivefold revenue growth over the past three years, as GoodLeaf’s total sales soared from $6.4 million in 2023 to $34 million in 2025. GoodLeaf said its revenue is up another 31 percent this year, thanks to rising consumer demand and expanded retail distribution.
proprietary tech
Ah, how solarpunk! /s
Edit : I was wrong, vertical farming is as ground-surface efficient as horizontal.
"Proof" with a quick calculation for those interested
I compared numbers using batavia lettuce as an example. Those are yearly outputs in kg per square meter of sunlight, assuming central Europe.
For vertical hydroponics, I’m assuming a solar irradiation of 1’000 kWh/m²/year, a panel yield of 20%, and no other loss, that is 200 kWh/year of electric power per m² of solar panel.
1 kg of vertical lettuce needs about 8 kWh to power the lights (https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2026.1783548/full)
So a square meter of solar panel should produce about 25kg of lettuce a year. This compares to 20-50kg/m²/year in horizontal non-light-supplemented hydroponics.
My numbers and assumptions could be quite a bit off, but clearly I was wrong with the 30x comment.
My old comment :
Vertical farming isn’t very solarpunk though, it takes about 30m² of solar pannels to grow what could be grown on 1m² using direct sunlight. And I have not mentioned accumulators yet.In my opinion this is the exact opposite of low-tech energy efficient developpement that solarpunk aims.I do strongly support urban agriculture, if on roofs, using direct sunlight as energy source, and heated with the lost heat of the building below because that is simple and efficient (I would even call it elegant).it takes aboit 30m² of solar pannels to grow what could be grown on 1m² using direct sunlight.
Where can I read more about this? I had thought that solar panels absorb a lot more energy than plants can, and I would think that collecting energy across a wide range of wavelengths and then using that energy to emit only specific wavelengths could give plants more useful light. But I admit I don’t know how each is optimized for different wavelengths.
Thank you for correcting me !
I kept the 30x number in mind since when I worked for a horizontal farming tech company. It is incorrect thanks to the wavelength trick.
I don’t know all the details of vertical farming, but there is more to it than energy efficiency. The controlled environment is supposed to remove the need for pesticides, bring fertiliser use right down to the minimum possible, and then there’s the efficiency in logistics of growing food closer to point of consumption, especially when temperature/humidity/ light control lets you grow exotic stuff locally year round.
Whether it is worth it overall is unclear. Probably the answer is “sometimes, it depends on the situation”.
Also growing food in areas that wouldn’t support growing food, like deserts
That’s what greenhouses are for. Deserts aren’t exactly short on space, so you can drop all the extremely difficult and expensive vertical farm infrastructure and just build horizontal.
I figure it only makes sense in near Arctic communities where shipping costs don’t make it easy to have a supply chain of fresh vegetables and the heating costs are likely going to overwhelm the cost differential of a greenhouse.
one adjustment to this, it’s actually usaully more useful in urban food deserts rather than desert deserts, the idea being that the energy waste expended by growing crops in a tall building that would have done better in direct sunlight low to the ground is offset by reduced transport costs where most of the environmental harm of factory farming is done
I’ve been curious about earthworks with some small amount of tech for this. Though a with vertical farming, growing is only half the battle and you need an efficient harvest method.
Vertical farming is mostly used for leafy greens and shoots. For the energy dense staple foods that people get most of their calories from, it doesn’t work well. They need a lot more time to mature, what means a lot more energy needs to be invested and it immediately becomes unprofitable.
Rooftop greenhouses?
I find the idea very solarpunk
Would be way better if they used mirrors, or transferred sunlight through optic fibers. I mean if possible.
I get where you’re coming from. (Also, “profitable” has nothing to do with “ecologically responsible.”) I have a lot of the same concerns about bringing plants indoors and having to meet their needs using a lot of energy and material inputs when growing them outdoors with free energy and fewer resources works so well. However, one thing outside can’t do easily is multiple layers of plants. If we can find a way to bring the vertical part of vertical farming outside, I’d be more supportive of it. It’s just a tough problem to solve when it takes a lot of money to build the structures and the structures can get wiped out in one bad weather event.
Could it be a vertical wall of greens? I am imagining a glass building with lettuce behind the south-oriented windows, on each floor. Seems technically complicated but interesting as a though experiment.
I dig it
