Acme, Safeway Add Bowery Indoor-Grown Greens

Bowery Farms said this week that its indoor-grown greens are headed to 275 Acme and Safeway stores on the East Coast operated by Albertsons Cos.’ Mid-Atlantic division.

Five of Bowery’s packaged salads and herbs are now available in 164 Acme stores and 111 Safeway units. They are grown year-round in high-tech indoor facilities closer to stores than conventionally grown salads that Bowery said produce a more sustainable, fresh, safe and flavorful product.

“At Bowery we believe that everyone should have access to fresh, healthy produce,” Katie Seawell, chief commercial officer of Bowery Farming, said in a statement. “We’re proud to partner with Albertsons to bring millions of shoppers our local, wildly delicious, Protected Produce and meet unprecedented demand for our growing category, which we believe is the next frontier of agriculture.”

“Whether our customers shop with us in-store or through our websites and apps, they expect to find fresh and sustainable produce for delicious meals at home,” said Ricardo Dimarzio, produce sales manager for Albertsons’ Mid-Atlantic Division. “We’re proud to offer Bowery Farming’s innovative and sustainable produce to help meet customer demand for high-quality, local indoor-grown greens and herbs.”

Bowery grows its produce at facilities in Kearney, N.J., and Nottingham, Md., and is building what it calls its largest and most technically advanced farm in Bethlehem, Pa., to support further product availability.

These facilities use a proprietary operating system it calls BoweryOS, that utilizes sensors, vision systems, machine learning and automation to monitor and control all variables contributing to crop growth. Bowery said these farms are more than 100 times more productive than a comparable square foot of traditional farmland, and its crops grow more than two times faster than in the field, using a fraction of the water and land.

Bowery calls itself the largest U.S. vertical farming company, with nearly 700% sales growth in brick-and-mortar grocery since January 2020 and quadrupled sales on e-commerce platforms, including Amazon.