Berries aren’t an easy crop to grow in greenhouses and vertical farms. Ophelia Sarakinis, founder of Gush (a vertical strawberry farm in Montreal), Katia Kouloumprouka Zacharaki, consultant plant scientist at InnoPhyte, and Rodrigo Santana, co-founder and CEO of Beritech, Inc. (a Canadian ag tech company that creates systems for year-round raspberry and blueberry production), addressed the challenges associated with berry production during their panel at Indoor Ag-Con last week. While the market for CEA berries has profitability potential, the panelists agreed that progress needs to be made before growers can tap into it.

“There’s no ‘berry’ profitable in CEA, just profitable,” Santana said. “We’re on the road to profitability, but we aren’t there quite yet.”