Gordon Food Service® and Square Roots today announced plans for their partnership’s first urban farm campus location, to be constructed on the site of Gordon Food Service’s headquarters in Wyoming, Michigan.
Even as media and the marketplace responded to the companies’ initial March 6 announcement of their relationship, the partners were pursuing necessary local government approvals for their first site plan.
Now secured, the partners’ flagship farm campus plan includes ten specially designed Square Roots shipping containers in direct production, with four additional containers providing operational support. The containers will occupy less than two acres of the Gordon Food Service HQ’s fifty-acre site, yet are projected to produce more than 50,000 lbs of herbs annually.
Additionally, Square Roots will recruit and hire a class of new farmers to participate in its unique, year-long Next-Gen Farmer Training Program at the new Wyoming, Michigan farm campus. The recruitment process will start in early summer, and the program will begin in the fall. Interested applicants can find out more about the program on the Square Roots website.
Rich Wolowski, North American President and CEO of Gordon Food Service, noted, “This partnership brings together technology, agriculture, young farmers, and scalability, in a model that could revolutionize our food systems. And it’s wonderful to be starting in our own backyard.”
The companies said their herbs and greens are non-GMO, pesticide-free, and will fully meet Gordon Food Service’s high quality and safety standards. Product will be available for purchase by both commercial chefs and consumers shopping at Gordon Food Service’s area retail stores.
Construction and installation of the first container farm campus is expected to be completed by the fall of 2019, with growing operations beginning immediately thereafter. The partners approached this first deployment within the Gordon Food Service distribution network as a template for future farms, with plans to develop additional farms at or near their U.S. and Canadian distribution centers.
Jack Poll, Mayor of the City of Wyoming, Michigan, expressed enthusiasm for his city’s pioneer role in the partnership’s development plans, “Our community is proud to be home to an international business leader like Gordon Food Service and to support new, game-changing innovations in fresh, local food production and distribution.”
Gordon Food Service and Square Roots said the partnership reflects a shared vision and commitment by both organizations to invest in a modern, unique offering to meet growing customer demand for local food across North America. It also signifies the first, significant expansion to new locations for Square Roots and its farmer training program. The Square Roots and Gordon Food Service exclusive partnership comes at a time when customer tastes and palates are seeing an increasing demand for fresh, high-quality, local food, according to the companies.
Tobias Peggs, co-founder and CEO of Square Roots, earlier noted, “This partnership means we will grow delicious, local, real food at huge scale. We’re so happy to be working with a mission-aligned partner in Gordon Food Service - leveraging technology to bring real food to a huge number of people across the country, while delivering real social impact by empowering thousands of young people to become our country’s future farmers.”
For more information:
Christa Montano
Square Roots
Ph: +1 (862) 251 1529
christa@squarerootsgrow.com
www.squarerootsgrow.com