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*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Webb: Well, the last great technological revolution in American farming is really when the tractor was introduced. But then there's the other side, and introducing robotics that's operating on AI, that's collecting data in our facility and making data-driven decisions. It is a non-profit organization that provides education and social services to low-income residents living in low-income apartments. It doesn't need to be one or the other, it needs to be both, and we're happy to be a bit of a public benefit corporation and B Corp certified. There's a lot of different ways to go public and at the time and we did it, and I think it was definitely the best decision for us at the time. By us running on completely recycled rainwater, we have no water cost. Now, we want to turn this region into an area of the country that's known for sustainable food production, but beyond just loving the place, I'm from Kentucky, beyond just loving this area, we can get to three quarters of the U.S. on a day drive. When he says sustainable, he doesnt just mean that in an environmental sense. But then what have we done with Root AI? To make the world smarter, happier, and richer. AppHarvest raised over $475 million in a public IPO, but it is not over. I asked on a call earlier today, well, have you had issues hiring people? The history of the world is in many ways the history of technology, and of our reactions to it. But if you look at the current food system today, it's high fructose corn syrup, it's sugary food that has low nutrient density. You've had fast-food chains, that is one of the biggest risk to a grocer is the paranoia and being terrified of where that product is being grown. Her estimated net worth is more than $15 million. Founder of AppHarvest, Inc., AppHarvest Morehead Farm LLC and In light of the challenges AppHarvest has faced in its early stages, Webb expressed hope that younger generations like Gen Z and millennials would continue to innovate and "fight through" any obstacles in their way. To me, this feels like just that, a growing market opportunity that is global in nature, and really the opportunity, just getting started. AppHarvest. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your bedroom should be a serene place for you to feel rested and rejuvenated. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Jonathan about the growing opportunity in the AgTech space. Theyre looking at a company and even though its pre-revenue it has all the necessary ingredients to succeed.. This company has plans to open two additional indoor farms in Kentucky and has already announced partnerships with the Dutch government and multiple universities to make Appalachia a hub for the agtech industry. The actor regularly posts photos and videos of himself, as well as engaging with his fans. Similarly, she owns yachts and private planes and serves on the board of the Women Golf Club Foundation. Very excited about the Root AI transaction. On today's show, AppHarvest Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb talks about AgTech (agriculture tech), the third wave of sustainable infrastructure. 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To me, at least, it feels like we are at the [] of a disruptive phase here, and a lot of that is thanks to technology. We look forward to providing you with even more cutting-edge market research, as Topio Networks. In the 1987 Rugby World Cup, Webb made his debut for England. Well, you need water you need food, and you need energy. The deal is slated to bring in $475 million in gross proceeds for Kentucky-based AppHarvest, including a private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction You can also follow him on Instagram. We have high demand for U.S.-grown and pesticide-free produce already, and when you combine that with the taste, color, and freshness of the AppHarvest model, on top of their social mission, it's driving our customers to ask for more." The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Tesla. Consumers are pushing back. We're in that classic scenario of demand exceeding supply. A universal harvester robot at AppHarvest's Morehead, Kentucky greenhouse, AppHarvests crops are monitored for quality control 24/7 and harvested robotically, a labor-saving advancement that lets the staff treat farming almost like a manufacturing process. Of course, the future is what really matters. Then we have to remember this isn't just a U.S. problem we're trying to solve. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Again, for their CEO, for their team to say to them not just about money, we can have more impact at scale with AppHarvest and achieve our mission and achieve our goals by working together. Below, we look at some of his most popular tweets. 2023 Fortune Media IP Limited. By locating within Appalachia, the company is also less than a days drive to more than two-thirds of the U.S. population. I like thinking about a future where AppHarvest and companies like you all are helping make our food supply not only here domestically, but really around the world better, more reliable, more transparent. With significant tailwinds from heightened investor focus on ESG initiatives and the secular shift to plant-based foods, we believe AppHarvest is well-positioned to execute on its strategy for rapid growth and value creation, he continued. Webb is one of very few knee surgeons to have played for both the England-France national teams. He was born into a medical family. All rights reserved. more. Offers may be subject to change without notice. US controlled environment agriculture (CEA) startup AppHarvest has announced a merger with NASDAQ-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Novus Capital, enabling it to go public. You talk about sustainable. He noted that in traditional agriculture, most everything happens incrementally, But now is not a time for incrementalism the thing that needs to be added to that recipe is folks [like Webb] that want to be aggressive in getting us ready for a world where its hard to grow crops.. Jonathan Webb, a Maryland attorney, has experience in criminal defense and DUI/DWI defense. Webb: Well, thank you and thank you for having me, and we've got a lot of work to do here, but I can assure you we're head down building and look forward to continuing the conversation another time. I know you're busy. WebJonathan Webb. Talk a little bit about what ESG means to you and some of the things that you've done, because corporately you set your business up to be able to account for some of that transparency and whatnot. Moser: Yeah. You have food safety concerns. No one else in America is doing something at that scale. Before founding AppHarvest, Jonathan worked with the U.S. Department of Defense on the largest solar project in the Southeastern United States. What are you trying to accomplish? It's so cool to think about what you guys are doing there. But if we do the work to center the people who benefit from that technology in the middle of the conversation, then progress doesnt have to be a bad thing. When youre building tech for techs sake, you start to question what youre doing. What's the technology that you are looking toward to help you change this space? Were building important stuff with long-standing value, so the Great Resignation has actually helped us acquire talent.. Look at how many times in the last few years you've had leafy greens yanked off store shelves. Accomplish what they wanted to pursue? If were all doing that, we have a pretty phenomenal organization.. Why? No one else in America is doing something at that scale. Look at the open fields in Mexico. Jonathan received his bachelors degree from the University of Kentucky. We love DC, but we don't want to just be selling to the high-end restaurants in DC. His fund's based in DC, we had them as early investors. Jonathan Webb is a specialist knee surgeon and a former English rugby union fullback. Then we'll be able to give that data over to the grocer in more real-time. Now, his company AppHarvest (the name is a play on both Appalachia and the high-tech nature of what they do), operates a sixty acre greenhouse in Morehead, Kentucky that grows hydroponic tomatoes up to the ceiling. ESG should be at the core of profitability and it should be at the core of building a resilient company. Moser: It's impressive to think about the scope of what you are taking on because agriculture, farming, that's been something for so long, people just think, well, it's just what it's always been and we do it this way because that's the way we've always done it. The project aimed to help achieve an Obama-era goal of ensuring the militarys hundreds of installations develop resilient on-site power generation and receive 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Moser: Well, you said it on the call. Jonathan Webb's Appharvest shares are currently valued at $20.96M. Everybody has full healthcare. We just have to keep our head down and execute and do our job every day here at AppHarvest. Its first crop will be non-GMO tomatoes, which will be provided to a number of US grocers. Webb is a highly-respected knee surgeon in the United States. The regulators are pushing that direction. I'm really excited to have you all as a recommendation in our service and hopefully, our members are too after talking with you today. Yes, today, we met our quarterly earnings projection, we hit our guidance, but we're making the hard investments and spending the hard time to set an organization up that's going to thrive 10 and 20 years from now. All rights reserved. It sounds like there's a lot of potential there. We're ramping up and scaling quickly. But one thing we'd like to talk about is competitive advantage, what makes a company special? We're building these facilities here where we can access markets and get to about three-quarters of the U.S. on a day drive. His grandmother grew up in Whitley County, where a coal mining accident killed his great-grandfather. Despite the off quarter, Webb has much to celebrate. For young people, we've invested heavily in high school education here in this region and part of it is, we're not just building facilities, we're building an ecosystem and part of that is change the narrative that farming is simply outdoors and on a tractor, we very much respect American farmers, we have great respect for the four-season farmer that's putting food on our table but we have to get young people to think, the average age of the American farmer is about 60 years old, and so for us by investing in high schools, it's teaching young people you're operating a farm with an iPhone and iPad using industrial sensors, with robotics operating on AI. He was made a Fellow of the British Association of Surgery on the Knee (BASK), and has since taught many international and national athletes in sports medicine. With that difficult work that in mind, Webb has designed his company to grow as much produce as possible as sustainably as possible. How do they plan on achieving that goal? WebJonathan Webb grew up in Kentucky and has been committed to developing sustainable projects from Central Appalachia. It means being a little bit more upfront with your investors. We've just been selling product for a matter of months. I don't want to keep you all day, but before we wrap it up, I did want to talk to you a little bit about ESG, environmental sustainability governance issues. Project Access, Inc. was founded by Mr. Webb in 1999. I'd tell you, we go through tomatoes, handover, [] in my house alone, I'm sure. Sustainable investor Equilibrium Were investing heavily in our future, so were spending heavily today, he said. Again, the private markets get a very bad rap socially. That's, for us, again, there's a piece where we need to be very close to the product and that's we're optimizing for the plant. We take that long term approach, we don't view things by quarter. That's how quickly the energy industry shifted. I was hoping maybe we could talk a little bit about that idea that you're farmers and futurists. He scored 296 points for England and played in two Rugby World Cups including the 1991 final. AppHarvest is an indoor farming company, so has massive greenhouses They can be competitive. He has also held roles in movies and television series. We're going to be headquartered in Central Appalachia, execution at scale here in the U.S. but this is a global problem that we've gotten phone calls from around the world about how and when we can take our solution and go elsewhere. WebJonathan Webb, CEO, AppHarvest: AgTech Farming for Our Planets Future. Webb founded AppHarvest in 2017, and the company was certified as a B Corp two years later. We talk about how, Visualize this, down the rows of our facility, we have a robust that's going to take thousands of photos of a tomato plant. Webb, a Kentucky native and University of Kentucky graduate, says he remains committed to his goal of employing large numbers of people at high-tech farms around the eastern half of the state. I mean, all of the stuff that you just talked about really does matter. Its easier than ever to find a trustworthy doctor. He pointed out that, At NASA in the 60s, if you would go visit a facility and you walked up to a janitor and asked, What do you do here? they would say, Im working to put a man on the moon. Thats been the same mentality here Its the collective thats making this thing possible.. We'll head down here and then I would start or I would end with what I started with. I think it's clear that investors should really be excited for the future of AgTech. He represented his country in 33 Test matches and played for Bristol and Bath. Get 5 free searches. My background was a part of building some of the largest solar projects in the U.S. David Lee, who joined us from Impossible Foods, joined impossible foods five years ago as their CFO and COO raised them nearly over $1 billion in the last five years and turned them into what was a boutique idea, into a mass-market product on store shelves. Founder & CEO at AppHarvest. The fired Google engineer who thought its A.I. And because of the work they are doing, those companies will be able to hire the brightest people, despite resignation trends. We've moved most of our fruit and vegetable production down to Mexico and we're importing and shipping in 2,000 miles. Jason Moser has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Youre reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fools Premium Investing Services. Thanks as always to Tim Sparks for putting the show together for us. I would not want to be one of those large operators and food today when you see the consumer trends changing as quickly as they are, and we feel very optimistic again about where our growth trajectory is. AppHarvest knows its far from being the only player in the CEA game. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice| Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information| Ad Choices The private markets can be a part of every solution we have that we're seeing today. One of AppHarvest's mobile units ready to fight the food fight, outside of AppHarvest's offices in [+] Lexington, Kentucky, If we cant treat people with dignity and respect who put food on our table, where do we think humanity is going to end up? We pay every employee at AppHarvest a living wage. We thought in order to build an organization that's going to be selling to the top grocers. We're one of four companies that are publicly traded that have both of those as a company. Webb is an expert in reconstructive and arthroscopic surgery. Even with the help of AI, farm work at AppHarvest is still hard, manual labor. We can better understand what product we are going to have available? These food companies today are like the cigarette companies 40 years ago. Become a Motley Fool member today to get instant access to our top analyst recommendations, in-depth research, investing resources, and more. We arent burning through cash with pointless R&D when we can buy incredible technologies over in the Netherlands, Webb says. They're not going to be solved in a month or a year or a quarter and we just want to build an organization that's going to be able to go toe-to-toe with the larger incumbents out there, and the best way to do that is to have that rigor of being a publicly traded company. You look at California and the Southwest of the U.S., drying up, drought-stricken, flagged by wildfires. The greenhouse, completed in 2020, yields up to 30 times the crops a traditional farm would, Webb said. "For us, being transparent with not only the consumer, but having that transparency of a public company as we build a large global food company, we think the long-term benefits are great.". A full transcript follows the video. If I were an investor, Id want my CEO on the ground with the team, not just in an office tower, he said. You have illegal chemical pesticides where the EPA cannot track the chemicals being used on these farms in Mexico. Dr. Webb graduated at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine. in August is launching what it describes as the worlds largest greenhouse later this year, consisting of a 2.76 million square foot facility in Morehead, Kentucky. It made good logistical sense since Kentucky is within a days drive of 70% of the United States, plus there was an untapped labor force there ready and waiting to be hired. My answer to that is always; sustainability is profitability. Your email address will not be published. Like every Kentuckian, Jonathan grew up knowing of the devastating job losses in the region. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. We're building infrastructure in an area of the country where we're having record amounts of rainfall, and if you look at the climate maps, we continue to get wetter. We need to all collectively have a much more longer-term viewpoint on how we're building companies that are going to be good for communities, good for employees, and return a good return to our investors and shareholders. Typically, you would do 40 to 60 meetings to get a couple of investors. Webb grew up in Kentucky, and founded AppHarvest in 2017 after years in the solar development industry, based in New York. 95% of a fruit and vegetable is water. Instead of just being able to tell a grocer 24-hours in advance here's the quality of product and here's when it will be shipped, with robotics going down the rows scanning the plants, we'll be able to get to days out and weeks out of being able to predict the yield, predict the quality, give more information to the grocer on when that product is going to be coming. Part of it is that building big stuff fast in the US is very hard. We're focused on bringing that production back from Mexico that has been shifted outside of the U.S. and bring that back into the U.S. in a controlled environment. AppHarvest is recovering from a challenging third quarter, in which it reported a net loss of over $17 million; Webb attributes it to hyper-growth. Executive Vice President and Head of Enterprise Development, Support Activities for Agriculture and Forestry, Contract Support (U.S. Army Office of Energy Initiatives), Intelligent Assistance and Bots Ecosystem. WebJonathan Webb. Yes, maybe we're paying marginally more in the short-term, but that workforce is the one that's beating production targets daily. Other AppHarvest investors include TV cook Martha Stewart, VC veteran Peter Thiel, ValueAct Capitals Spring Fund, Revolutions Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Equilibrium Capital, and Narya the new VC firm co-founded by JD Vance, author of best-selling Appalachian memoir Hillbilly Elegy. 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