AeroFarms Expands Into 350 Stop & Shop Stores
Stop & Shop has increased its commitment to sustainable greens by expanding its offering of AeroFarms leafy greens to more than 350 stores in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
A Certified B Corporation, AeroFarms has patented indoor vertical-farming technology that enables safe year-round local production. Its process uses up to 95% less water than traditional farming methods, without pesticides.
“Customers have fallen in love with our award-winning greens,” said David Rosenberg, co-founder and CEO of AeroFarms, which has its global headquarters in Newark, N.J. “We are excited to be able to expand our distribution with a great partner like Stop & Shop to offer our high-quality produce all year round at consistent pricing and availability, and we can help grow the entire category of leafy greens and drive consumption with our sustainably grown produce that is ultimately winning on taste.”
The Stop & Shop news comes as AeroFarms prepares to bring a 136,000-square-foot aeroponic indoor farm online in early 2022 in Virginia, enabling the company to serve retailers throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.
The new location will feature AeroFarms’ proprietary agSTACK technology, creating a fully connected and digitally controlled farm that integrates hardware, automation, intelligent controls and sensors, machine learning, machine vision, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and manufacturing execution systems to create a powerful data loop. By collecting and analyzing data through 26 crop turns per year, AeroFarms’ team of engineers, plant scientists and programmers gathers insights about plants, and applies these learnings for the continuous improvement of its farms.
One of these improvements is AeroFarms' signature FlavorSpectrum, which represents the breadth of flavors and hundreds of varieties of leafy greens that the company is able to grow. AeroFarms’ team of experts pair each specific tasting note with a representative color to bring the FlavorSpectrum philosophy to life. Across its leafy greens packaging line, the cool blue tones represent sweet and mellow notes, while the intense reds represent bold and zesty flavors.
Through its proprietary growing technology platform, AeroFarms has grown more than 550 varieties and has introduced innovations in the area of speed breeding.
On March 26, the indoor vertical farmer revealed a definitive business combination agreement with Spring Valley Acquisition Corp. Upon the closing of the deal, AeroFarms will become publicly traded on Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol ARFM.
AeroFarms' state-of-the art commercial indoor vertical farms are certified for USDA Good Agricultural Practices, SQF Level 2 Good Manufacturing Practices and Non-GMO Project Verification, as well as being OU Kosher.
Meanwhile, Quincy, Mass.-based Stop & Shop is reaffirming its commitment to offering fresh high-quality products across its 400-plus stores by relaunching its Freshness Guarantee. The pledge ensures that if a perishable product bought in Stop & Shop’s meat, seafood, produce, dairy, bakery, floral or deli department doesn’t meet a customer’s standards for freshness and quality, they can return the item and receive double their money back.
Ahold Delhaize USA, a division of Zaandam, Netherlands-based Ahold Delhaize, is the parent company for Ahold Delhaize’s U.S. companies, consisting of Food Lion, Giant Food, The Giant Co., Hannaford, and Stop & Shop, as well as e-grocer Peapod; Retail Business Services, a U.S. support services company providing services to the brands; and Peapod Digital Labs, its e-commerce engine. Operating more than 2,000 stores across 23 states, Ahold Delhaize USA is No. 10 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 list of the top food and consumables retailers in the United States.
