NEW YORK, NY — Bowery, the largest U.S. vertical farming company serving more than 2,000 grocery stores and major e-commerce platforms, today announces the expansion of its core greens portfolio with the launch of Bowery Spinach. This nutrient-rich green, which is famously challenging to grow indoors, is the latest milestone in the innovative work of Bowery’s agricultural scientists to secure the future of food. Bowery Spinach will begin rolling out on shelves this month.
Bowery continues to demonstrate product-category leadership in controlled environment agriculture (CEA), adapting its indoor growing system to grow highly sensitive crops. After screening dozens of cultivars, Bowery’s R&D team selected a seed with a distinct nutty, herbaceous flavor, resulting in fresh, baby spinach that stays fresh for weeks in your fridge. Grown in a micro-environment tailored for this beloved super food, Bowery Spinach has a lush texture and pleasing mouthfeel, and does not need to be washed because it’s pesticide-free and grown in a safe, controlled environment. Spinach ranks second on the Environmental Working Group’s “Dirty Dozen” list and is often washed with water containing chlorine. Even when triple-washed, conventional spinach can have a sandy, gritty texture and chalky mouthfeel.
With this milestone, the company is meeting booming customer demand for this everyday staple by offering a reliable, pesticide-free spinach with superior flavor and texture. Bowery Spinach, with its fork-ready leaf size, is ideal for eating raw in salad, wilting during cooking, or blending in a smoothie.
“Bowery Spinach is a shining example of science enabled by engineering,” said Susan MacIsaac, SVP and Head of Agricultural Science at Bowery. “In an uncertain time of climate change and crop shortages, it’s more important than ever before to grow smarter and build reliable sources of fresh, nutrient-rich food. Our AgSci and Engineering teams have cracked the code on every aspect of optimizing and scaling spinach grown indoors, including crop-specific irrigation, which maximizes yield and preserves water, giving each plant only what it needs.”
Spinach is the latest release in Bowery’s broadening portfolio as the company works to reimagine the entire fresh food supply chain to be smarter, safer, and more sustainable. Bowery Spinach is now available in a 4oz clamshell with a peel-and-reseal lid in more than 165 Giant Food stores located throughout Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. This launch expands a long-term partnership between Bowery and Giant Food; a total of 13 Bowery SKUs can now be found on Giant Food shelves.
“Giant Food is extremely excited to continue our partnership with Bowery introducing a brand-new spinach item to our already successful line-up of Bowery products,” said Josh Hardester, Category Manager, Produce, Giant Food. “Bowery continues to provide sustainably grown, high-quality salads that Giant customers crave!”
Diners in New York City can also expect to see Bowery Spinach popping up on menus, including at restaurants like Chef Einat Admony’s Balaboosta and at clean-eating destinations like Om Juice Bar, founded by Anastasia Kulinich, who’s committed to serving only the best ingredients that leave as minimal footprint as possible. These establishments, among the first in the U.S. to serve spinach grown in a vertical farm, represent like-minded brands that are committed to a more sustainable food system.
Bowery continues to push industry boundaries, with the expansion of salad kits, the acceleration of partnerships to bring Bowery to new venues such as stadiums like Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, and a 2023 rebrand that features a fresh creative expression across website design and product packaging. Bowery increased its retail footprint by over 19x between 2020 and 2023, all while growing more with less. Wherever food is needed, Bowery can grow it.
About Bowery
Bowery, the largest vertical farming company in the United States, designs and builds smart indoor environments to reimagine the future of food. Through its network of smart indoor farms and proprietary end-to-end technology, Bowery is transforming the entire fresh food supply chain to be smarter, safer, and more sustainable. Bowery’s farms are 100x+ more productive than traditional agriculture while using a fraction of the resources, including 95% less water than field grown produce – all enabled by leading-edge technology.
Bowery is scaling quickly with five farms in operation, including a state-of-the-art R&D and innovation farms for pioneering indoor Agriculture Science, and two commercial farms under development that will more than double the company’s total production. Bowery’s brand has been in the market since 2016 and is currently sold in more than 2,000 locations including Whole Foods, Ahold Delhaize, Amazon, Safeway/Albertsons, and Walmart.
Bowery is backed by tech and agriculture industry leaders with $647M in equity and debt raised from investors including Fidelity, Temasek, Google Ventures, KKR, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, First Round Capital, and individuals including Jeff Wilke, Tom Colicchio, José Andrés, and David Barber of Blue Hill.
