Photo: Bowery Farming

As the demand for fresh produce increases, so does the pressure for quality texture, color and flavor. In May, Bowery Farming, the East Coast-based modern farming company, announced its newest leafy green launch that appeals to just that.

Bowery Crispy Leaf Lettuce is described as a “reinvigorated version” of iceberg lettuce with an “unparalleled flavor” and “bold color and satisfying crunch.”

The release is Bowery’s largest product since 2015 and according to Carmela Cugini, executive vice president of sales, “Crispy Leaf is one of the most in-demand leafy greens from Bowery based on current retailer orders.”

Why has it been such a success? The Bowery team credits sales to the unique sensory experience consumers receive through its visually stimulating marketing program. Cugini also says that feedback from buyers suggest that the sensory experience “is poised to change the way consumers interact with lettuce.”

By accentuating the sensory aspect of Crispy Leaf, especially flavor, Bowery has appealed to consumers in a multidimensional way. Cugini believes this will become a common and essential strategy at Bowery.

“We’re investing in sensory experiences as a key marketing strategy because we see it as the best avenue for marketing in the current climate,” she says.

The climate Cugini refers to is the COVID-created stay-at-home orders surrounding the pandemic. Because of this, more families are eating at home and are looking for “new recipes, ideas and ways to bring health into their world.”

Cugini aims to maintain that and drive growth by establishing a connection to the consumer through sensory interaction. One way of doing that, she says, is by working with retailers to connect the dots on how to drive repeat consumers.

“The fresh category is the No. 1 category in produce that drives repeat and loyalty. If you can get great produce and it’s consistent and it’s fresh and consumers can rely on it, they will come back to you,” she says. “That is one of the things we think about when we launch products. We want to make sure we put flavor back into produce in a way that you don’t need dressing to cover up the flavor.”

Cultivating the experience

When Crispy Leaf was first developed, Cugini says it was founded on consumer insights. While iceberg lettuce is one of the fastest growing segments in produce, Cugini says no one was providing the sensory experience. That was, until Bowery created a product “that allows consumers to taste something they’ve never tasted before.”

One consumer insight that helped form Crispy Leaf was the crunch craze. According to Cugini, “crispy is a whole thing that’s trending,” which Bowery took into consideration. The company combined that with freshness, intensity and flavor and incorporated those into its sensory-based marketing tactic.

The crunch and flavor that's packed into Crispy Leaf appeals to consumers' senses, which results in its high demand.

Photo: Bowery Farming

Virtual visualizations

Before the pandemic, Cugini says Bowery offered in-store demos to consumers. But like most companies, COVID-19 prompted them to reimagine their strategy. According to her, 22% of people that typically shop in grocery stores are now buying their groceries online, and nine out of 10 of those individuals will stick to online grocery shopping.

This encouraged Bowery’s visual approach, which conveys the sensory experience across all platforms through the use of colors, images and lexicon.

In fact, Bowery’s production and innovation team held a virtual sensory evaluation — Bowery’s United Fresh Sensory Experience — that took attendees on a tour of the sensory naming process. Moderators explained the importance of proper lexicon that effectively portrays what consumers will taste and feel.

According to the tour, there are four key areas of sensory: color, aroma, texture and taste. There are basic “consumer terms” that most shoppers are familiar with and “sensory terms” that properly describe the feeling a product gives. For example, the consumer term for the color yellow is just that, yellow. But the sensory terms surrounding color are “chroma” and “color intensity,” which translates to “the purity or brightness of color,” and “the strength of the color from light to dark.” Another comparison are the consumer terms “juicy” and “chewy.” In sensory terms, those translate to “high moisture release” and “low fibrousness between teeth.”

Cugini says understanding lexicon is important when marketing flavor and creating a shared experience. “Two people may use different words to describe the same experience or vice versa,” she says, “and language becomes the thing that is standing in the way of a shared culinary experience.”

The main attraction

Since iceberg lettuce is a traditional offering, Bowery wanted to add innovation to the market and rethink salad as a whole.

“Unlike the iceberg head that you might have had at your grandmother’s house, or you might have at a restaurant when they chop it in half, it’s a different experience when you eat it,” Cugini says. “We wanted to prove time and time again, that Bowery can create super fresh, flavorful food. By creating this really unique flavor, we hope that consumers will start to see that lettuce is more than just a side and it can actually be the star of the show.”

Bowery Farming has two farms in Kearny, New Jersey, and a third in White Marsh, Maryland. Crispy Leaf is locally grown with no pesticides — like all of its products — and is available at more than 250 grocery stores and markets in the Tri-State and Mid-Atlantic region. It is also sold through their partners, Amazon Fresh, Peapod and Hungryroot.

Given Bowery’s sensory-based marketing and experience, Cugini is confident in consumer retention and reach.

“If we can educate consumers on the type of produce they buy — and why they buy it — we are confident that they will be repeat Bowery customers. This education starts with defining the sensory experience and ends with the consumer trying the produce at home and imagining their own culinary journey. “

Berlin-based Infarm can’t stop growing. After expanding to Japan this past February, the vertical-farming company is expanding its in-store mini-farms to shops in Canada. This spring, Infarm will partner with the Empire family of brands to provide produce in stores across seven cities: Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria and Winnipeg.

Infarm’s model is based on “in-stores,” mini vertical farms located within local supermarkets and other grocery retail outlets.

Emmanuel Evita, global communications director at Infarm, talked to Produce Grower about Infarm’s expansion, how in-store farms can educate consumers and more.

Produce Grower: What effect do you think in-store farms will have on the public’s knowledge of fresh produce growing?

Emmanuel Evita: We’ve found that our in-store farms generate a lot of curiosity and interest from customers. It’s not uncommon to see shoppers stopping to take photos of our farms. They can see the produce growing for themselves and know that they’ll have access to the most sustainable and fresh produce possible. Additionally, through our in-store sampling programs, we’re able to educate consumers on the benefits of our modular approach, and they can taste how fresh and pure the produce is themselves. But ultimately, our mission is to help cities become self-sufficient in their food production while significantly improving the safety, quality and environmental footprint of our food.

PG: How does disease management work in this setting and what are the challenges of keeping plants healthy and pests in check in this environment?

EE: Infarm controls the farms remotely using sensors and a centralized, cloud-based platform that adjusts and improves itself continuously, so each plant grows better than the one before — providing plant seedlings with an ideal combination of light spectrums, temperature, pH and nutrients for optimal growth. From the cloud at our Berlin headquarters, we’re able to gather up-to-the-minute information about how our plants are growing and how they respond to different growth environments on a minute scale. We can make many of the needed adjustments remotely.

PG: So the data on the plants is collected and environmental control is run by Infarm’s AI systems? What are the safeguards in place?

EE: Yes. Infarm controls the farms remotely using sensors and a centralized, cloud-based platform that adjusts and improves itself continuously, so each plant grows better than the one before. Our machine learning and IoT [internet of things] technologies make it possible to collect huge amounts of data from our farms around the world in real time. With more than 700 farms in stores and distribution centers, we’re able to use the data on each one of more than 250,000-plus plants we grow every month to understand their unique growth patterns and offer the highest quality product to consumers.

Living Water Farms in Strawn, Illinois, built its 10,000 square-foot hydroponic greenhouse in 2008 and started shipping out leafy greens in 2009. Today, the company grows leafy greens, edible flowers and microgreens for a mix of retail and restaurant customers. It was the latter group that served as a springboard to the current growing output. 

“We were servicing upscale restaurants in Chicago and that’s the experience we went off of to do a hydroponic greenhouse so that we could go grow year-round in central Illinois,” says owner and manager Denise Kilgus. Denise owns and operates the farm along with her husband Kevin, their daughter Natalie Schneider and her husband Mark Schneider.

“When we spoke with local chefs, they said they wanted year-round fresh greens instead of having to order them from Arizona or somewhere that isn’t here,” Denise says. When the product is sent to the chefs, it is left in the growing media when bagged, allowing chefs to cut the greens themselves and give the consumer a fresher product. 

For about as long as Living Water Farms has been in business, it has been working with Jiffy and using the company’s Preforma propagation plugs. When the relationship started, Denise says Jiffy went out of its way to customize Performa’s makeup for the farm’s needs. Specifically, she says Performa’s standard-binding agent wasn’t working for their nutrient-film technique system, so Jiffy switched how much of it was being used. Since then, Living Water Farms hasn’t changed its formulation — coconut hull with a peat mixture with the altered binding agent — and doesn’t see that changing any time soon.

“We order Preforma by the pallet and we go through it quickly every week,” she says. “They were more than willing to put a special recipe together for us. We’ve stuck with it because it’s worked so well.” 

For the business to succeed and continue operating and growing at its best, Denise says having the right propagation plug is essential. As the company looks towards diversifying — perhaps into vegetable transplants — they’ll turn to Jiffy products and the company’s expertise to help get a new venture started. She adds that their rep, Mike Cade, regularly lets them try out new products that might work for the business and consults Jiffy’s cache of experts for any questions Denise, Kevin or anyone else at the farm has. 

“The effort they went through, the product they sent out for us to test out and seeing what worked best for our system — that’s huge for us,” Denise says. “I don’t know what would have happened for us if we hadn’t found Preforma and started working with Jiffy. When you make those connections and the service is top-notch, you’re not looking to change.”

At only 30 years old, Ashley Rodgers became one of the youngest female organic farm owners and operators in Georgia and has relied on one major company to ensure her day-to-day production needs — Atlas Greenhouse Systems.

With 64 acres of land — 15 used for organic growing, 20 for vegetables and 5 for perennial fruit orchards — Rodgers has solidified her importance to the local community and Metro Atlanta area with her certified organic farm, Rodgers Greens and Roots Farm.

Established in Douglasville, Georgia, alongside the Chattahoochee River, the historic farmland is home to a Pro-Com Gutter Connect greenhouse, two standard budget plus high tunnels and three high tunnels that were previously used, but “doctored” by Atlas when necessary, Rodgers says. The greenhouse is primarily used for propagation and microgreens, while the high tunnels are used year-round. According to Rodgers, they’re good for season extension, especially in the winter.

“I’ve been farming for 11 years. I’m going on the fourth season of owning my own farm, but I’ve actually always farmed with Atlas Greenhouse Systems,” she says. “Their structures are very popular in our area and I’ve used them from the very first farm I was on and built one on the second farm I was on, so it was kind of a given that when I went to have my own farm, that I was going to work with them.”

With 9 acres used for production, Rodgers primarily grows vegetables, fruits and herbs for farmers markets, wholesale and previously, to restaurants in the surrounding area. Her harvest calendar includes foods like arugula, basil, carrots, eggplant, fennel, kale, okra, spinach, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and winter squash.

While that sounds like a large workload, Rodgers’ farming style is medium-scale, mechanized production with tractors, tools and machinery in use. It also maintains sustainable farming of compost, cover crops and crop rotation, which Rodgers considers the “backbone” of the farm. She also aims to build community awareness of local, seasonal and organic food, and advises growers to partner with Atlas Greenhouse Systems if their goals are similar.

“Since they’re local to me, it’s easy and the shipping is cheaper, but the quality of their tubing is a lot better than other companies — the sturdiness of it,” Rodgers says. “And their customer service has just always been really, really great. I worked primarily with one person there and when I needed something or have questions, he sent me pictures and sent me questions for two weeks straight. I couldn’t [have built the structures] without him. Plus, their pricing is really great, and the structures are high quality compared to other companies out there. They have just always been really great.“