Eden Green Technology to close in December

Eden Green Technology, a hybrid vertical farm operation that served Walmart and other retailers throughout Texas and Oklahoma, will permanently close Dec. 13.

More than 100 employees will be laid off, according to a WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice filed Oct. 15.

In a released statement, Eden Green reiterated its original goal of providing fresh produce by relieving supply and distribution issues.

"Since our founding in 2017, we have worked to transform how fresh food is grown and delivered — closer to our communities, with less waste and with more care for the planet," the statement said. "Together with our team, partners and supporters, we grew millions of pounds of fresh produce, donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to local food banks and proved that innovation and community can grow side by side."

The grower opened its first greenhouse in 2022 and grew leafy greens in its proprietary and patented vertical growing technology. The business opened a second 2-acre vertical greenhouse that same year and broke ground on phase 3 of its expansion a few months later. The large greenhouses were equipped with a vertical NFT system of sorts, energy curtains and a mobile LED light bar. 

The Eden Green campus is located adjacent to a Walmart distribution center, which was part of the grower's plan to reduce logistics issues.

"Because we’re located next to the Walmart distribution center, our product goes from harvest straight to packaging and loaded on the truck, all in the same footprint," Eden Green CEO Eddy Badrina told Produce Grower in 2022.

With the leafy greens market suffering from saturation and low margin issues, Eden Green announced in 2024 that it was launching an herb program made up of 10 varieties and planned to supply 350,000 to 400,000 pounds of fresh herbs to retailers.

"It’s proven to be a great strategic shift for us. One, because herbs have higher margins, and two, because our core technology — our grow towers — hasn’t changed," Badrina told Produce Grower in 2025.

Attrition in CEA continues, especially in high-tech operations.

"Very high capital cost vertical farm facilities with complex proprietary systems driven by high tech are not the way to go, and the capital markets are starting to realize this," Eric Stein, executive director at the Center of Excellence for Indoor Agriculture, told Produce Grower in an interview after the Eden Green closure announcement. "We are, after all, selling produce such as lettuce and have to ask ourselves, 'Should we spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on production facilities with high labor and energy costs?' This is a low-margin business, and it just takes too much time to recoup the investment. Patient capital understands this dynamic and is willing to fund smaller, more focused ventures that are sustainable and can scale."