Local Bounti Expanding

Jennifer Polanz

Earlier in January 2023, Montana-based Local Bounti announced it broke ground on a new indoor growing operation in Mount Pleasant, Texas. The new six-acre facility is a hybrid greenhouse-vertical farm, with a proprietary Stack & Flow Technology system to grow leafy greens. Varieties to be grown there include spring mix, butter lettuce, romaine crisp and green leaf, among other blends. The facility should be growing greens by the fourth quarter, according to the company’s announcement.

The goal with the facility is to serve markets across Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri.

“Local Bounti is excited to call Mount Pleasant home to our latest facility in a rapidly expanding national footprint. Future local operations will help us answer existing customer demand within the Lone Star State and adjacent markets,” said Craig Hurlbert, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Local Bounti. “Today’s announcement comes at a time when demand is surging across the country for our sustainable produce, and we are excited to establish a new regional base of operations where we can continue to reduce food miles.”

The addition of the Texas facility comes as the company continues to build out its Byron, Georgia, growing operation. It completed Phase 1-A in July 2022, and is looking to finish construction of Phase 1-B in the first quarter of this year. Once complete, the Stack & Flow Technology will begin to be integrated first into Phase 1A and then 1-B. The total facility will be six acres of greenhouses and multiple climate, water and spectral controlled Stack zones, according to the announcement.

There’s also a 3-acre facility under construction in Pasco, Washington, which is expected to be completed in the third quarter this year. That will also have multiple Stack zones.

Local Bounti was founded in 2018 in Hamilton, Montana, where the headquarters is today. The initial growing operation there opened in 2020. The goals for the future include Heat and Eat Meal Kits (the first of which was announced recently) and moving into berry production in 2024 with a new Stack & Flow 2.0 technology.