From Shipping Container to Kitchen with B3 Roots
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we get an education from Blake Bennett of B3 Roots about "container farms", hydroponic systems, and creating sustainable agricultural practices with technology. B3 Roots is a hyper-local pesticide free vertical hydroponic shipping container farm in Apex, North Carolina that specializes in sustainable leafy greens and herbs.
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Rory Loughran: Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory your host for today's episode. We've got a great conversation for you today with Blake Bennett, the owner and operator of B3 Roots Farm in Apex, North Carolina. Welcome Blake, great to have you here.
Blake Bennett: Well, Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about what I'm doing over here.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, let's get into that. To start out, B3 Roots isn't like most farms. If somebody was to walk over to your farm and look at it, what would I see if I walked over to your house to check out your farm?
Blake Bennett: Really all you'd see, it's a metal box, a big white metal box that you probably wouldn't have any [00:01:00] clue what's going on inside, other than the fact my logo says "hydroponic greens". Most people just walk by, but yeah it's a big metal shipping container, and other than that, you don't know what's going on inside.
Rory Loughran: That's awesome. I guess to start out then, Yeah, you're growing hydroponically out of the shipping container, with a shipping container from Freight Farms who we've talked about before, but could you maybe give a brief explanation of the thinking behind hydroponic and vertical growing?
Blake Bennett: Yeah, absolutely. So hydroponics is the cultivation of plants, but without the use of soils, I guess it's not really cultivation. Cultivation is using soil. So it was growing plants with just using water.
It's been around for a long time, but it really, the technology is just really ramped up in the past few years. So with the land being so expensive around here, or the poor soil quality all over the world, it's become a natural meeting of the two. Our land prices have gone way up and so going up, you can utilize more of the space there is without having to go out, [00:02:00] and so every square foot counts. You can fit a lot more into one little area.
Rory Loughran: How much space does your Freight Farm take up and about how much produce do you approximately grow in that?
Blake Bennett: So the container is a 40-foot by 8-foot, 9-foot tall. It's 320 square feet. A little small area of land that I've got off the farm outside of the rural area. But yeah, within that 320, we produce as much as the traditional two and a half to three acre farm.
Rory Loughran: Wow.
Blake Bennett: Utilizing only a gallon of water a day. That's what I'm, that's what I'm averaging right now.
Rory Loughran: So yeah, we've touched on Freight Farms, which is a newer technology in the world of farming, and Freight Farms is a partner of Barn2Door. But could you tell me a little bit about how you came across them and the company, and what about that kind of piqued your interest.
Blake Bennett: Back in February last year, I didn't exactly know what I was going to do, but I did like working in greenhouses. It's something I did when I was in school, I worked in a greenhouse for four years and I always liked to do that.
But when I got out of school, the [00:03:00] jobs that were available more to landscape people. So that's what I did from the time I graduated, until last year was the landscaping industry. So I just started looking around at what was out there of greenhouse work and hydrophonics or something that definitely piqued my interest.
And I just started researching a lot and came across vertical hydroponics is something that's up and coming, and Freight Farms is one of the names that came up and seems like their technology is one of the more advanced technologies out there in this style of farming. So I contacted them back in February and I guess the rest is history.
I was really impressed with what they were doing and yeah, after that, that's who I went with.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Wow. Did you have, I mean, you've kind of touched on your, your background and landscaping. Did you have any background in, in farming or in that world?
Blake Bennett: No none whatsoever, and that's a lot of what the uh, the banks were asking me.
They were asking, " are you a farmer?" I was like, no, not at all. But I do like to make the argument that working in the landscaping [00:04:00] industry, you're trying to grow multiple different types of varieties of plants over different types of soils, climates, different sun exposures, different soil, soil types.
So, you know, landscaping is kind of farming in an aspect, but it's not farming for something that's edibles, just farming for aesthetics. So I do have, a background in farming, but just for different reasons.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. That's really interesting. I think kind of a cool way to look at it.
I mean, It's still, when it comes down to it, it's plants, you're trying to grow them. So you touched on you looking at, at Freight Farms there and it is pretty crazy, cause if you go check out Freight Farms work or website, it looks like, I don't want to say apple, but it's like a tech company.
Blake Bennett: Outer space, yeah it's technology mixed with agriculture. So yeah, it was really out there.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, and so how does the technology in a Freight Farm, how does that help you grow high quality products for your customers?
Blake Bennett: All the data is there. That's where, if you're someone who is a data person who likes to go back and look at statistics, what you [00:05:00] did on this crop or what you did on that crop. The system, just, it just collects all this data for you.
So you can automatically know when something went wrong, and another aspect of that is it's very automated. The farm really takes care of itself. There's a few manual things that you have to do, like the seeding yourself, transplanting yourself, adding some fertilizers for the injections, but as far as everything else, it's just, it's a very automated system.
So you can focus on just going over the plants and making sure they look good. One great part of the software is it's lots of automation and it's remote. You can check on your phone from anywhere.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, that's really cool, and when you check out Freight Farm's website, they do kind of almost have it as two different products that they're offering their customers. There's the farm, there's the box, but then there's also the software that goes along with it, which you touched on with a lot of that data and such. But so how does that software go with their unit and how does it compliment that, and how do you utilize that in a growing process?
Blake Bennett: Oh [00:06:00] well, I use a software just about every single day. First thing I do is when I go into the farm is I check all my levels of everything, it checks my CO2 levels, it checks parts per million for both the cultivation tank and the seeding tank. So yeah, everything's there and just make sure it's doing what it is doing.
You do have to calibrate it every once in a while just to make sure that your sensors are in line with where they should be. So it's just a kind of a double check that stuff's always working in the background, but you still have to make sure it is doing what it's supposed to be doing, but you just let it do its thing and it mimics daylight, daytime, and nighttime. Temperatures go up when it's daytime and the temperatures drop when it's nighttime, which is actually the reverse of us. Right now my farm is about to go into daytime, and it will allow the temperature to go up to about 70 degrees.
And then around eight o'clock in the morning, the lights will cut off and it will drop our temperatures down to about 65 degrees to try to mimic real life, what is actually going on, so the plants get a rest period and they get a growth period in a 24 hour, 24 hour period.
Rory Loughran: That is pretty wild. That's incredible [00:07:00] that it can do all that and just automatically that's all built in. Wow. So how long have you been, you've been at this now about a year?
Blake Bennett: Well, I started working on the entire process about a year ago or a little over a year. But yes, getting the financing and getting location. Location, was a tough one. Zoning is difficult in the suburbs. I feel like maybe some of the larger cities would maybe look away from, you know, what it is, but the cities in my area were like, "were you agriculture or are you industrial? We can't figure it out. What you're doing is inside is agriculture, but what you're doing on the outside is industrial."
So that was really difficult. So yeah, it took a long time that Freight Farms had about a six month build. So I had to wait a little bit for the farm to get here. So it finally got here in December, and um, and then the power company was another 11 weeks wait to get the power hooked up. So finally in February I got everything up. I think this week just finished my sixth harvest. So yeah, then harvesting for six weeks growing for [00:08:00] since the middle of February.
Rory Loughran: Okay. That's awesome. That's really cool. What has changed over the course of that time and maybe what are the things you've learned?
Blake Bennett: Learning wise, it's definitely try to figure out what it is that people really want. I felt lettuce was going to be a big hit and lettuce has not been the bigger hit than I thought it was going to be. Uh, so, uh, Leafy greens from my Asian greens. Those kinds of things, what I really am focusing on now. So that's what I've been learning, right now.
Rory Loughran: Well, and I know Freight Farms are also very compatible for microgreens as well. Have you, Have you tried those out or have you thought about doing those?
Blake Bennett: No, absolutely. I've got a rack that I, I got a little spare space in the very back or behind the seating tray. And I've got racks back there. So I have been playing around with the microgreens and they've been very popular.
They are definitely something that gets me into the work. People try out the microgreens and then they're like, okay, let me try out everything else. So yeah, the [00:09:00] microgreens have been a great addition.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. That's so interesting that you say that. Cause that's something we see with so many farms is just like the in-the-door product, and it can be microgreens, it can be, I feel like a lot of times with protein farmers, it's something like, like bacon or like a New York strip or something like that.
But everybody has those products that, gets the attention of a customer, but then you, you hope that they then sign up for all your other products. Have you added or stopped growing any products in the time that you've been doing this?
Blake Bennett: Uh, We have radishes. They took a little bit longer than I thought they would. Radishes were one of the first things I did and I'm just harvesting it now. So I'll do it a one-time. And I think everything else though, I've had great success from it. I would say my mixed green bags, like a cut greens, 10 ounce bags. Those have been my most popular.
But then everything else I sell you can buy by the ounce and then they've been doing well. So the lettuces were not as big of a hit as I thought they were. That could change, I think, maybe in the middle of summer, but I think in the winter time, there's lots of competition [00:10:00] for lettuce. So I'll continue to do the lettuce, but just not near as much as I have.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Well, and that's kind of an interesting thing that you mentioned there is like the seasonality that most other farmers deal with, doesn't affect you as much. Could you maybe speak to that a little bit and how you plan for that?
Blake Bennett: Yeah, that's a great point. There is no season in the farm. Every single day is 65 degrees and 70 degrees. So, Yeah, I can grow collards in the middle of the summer and just about any type of leafy green I can do anytime I want. I'm experimenting with some pansies or violas right now for edible flowers, but yeah, just about anything can go anytime a year. So there, there will be no seasons for me.
Rory Loughran: Wow. That's so interesting. At what point did you start looking at selling and using Barn2Door to do that?
Blake Bennett: When I started this, I wanted everything to be pretty automated. Farmer's markets are great places to sell, but one of the reasons I've decided to switch as, wanted time with the family on the weekends.
I wanted something that was very automated, something to work in the background, when I'm doing other things. [00:11:00] So I started looking at software for just, online software, like Shopify or anything like that. Nothing really hit what I wanted, nothing was very specific and happened to run across an article, maybe in the Wall Street Journal, about Barn2Door and checked it out and was like, you know, this sounds pretty good. So that fits the niche market and yeah, I don't regret it at all.
Rory Loughran: That's good. That's we like to hear that. I was, and I was going to say too, because one of the features that you're utilizing in this store that I think is always a big one for farmers is subscriptions. But you kind of have this unique advantage with subscriptions and being able to know all of your grow times and really have that down to an exact timing, which plays nicely into the subscription format.
So how does having those specific grow times contribute to your subscriptions?
Blake Bennett: It's just fantastic. I can predict five weeks out what my harvest is going to be. And the majority of the mixed greens are cut greens. I go in, cut the leaves off and then regenerate. And I know that those plants are going [00:12:00] to last for about eight weeks until they need to be changed out.
So, I can just plan everything out that far ahead. And I've got a good estimate of what each panel, so the Freight Farms have panels inside. I can get so many ounces per panel, per week. And so it's just, I can really have a great forecast of what I've got coming up.
And so really I don't run out of inventory. I can really estimate how much inventory I have on that. Then if I start seeing that one product getting close to selling out, at any point, I could ramp up production of that one, one product or many products where the mixed greens would be five or six different greens that go into the bag. And so, yeah, it's just, I can really forecast what I need coming up. I love it.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. That's really nice. And then also knowing that you have those sales already spoken for is great. You're growing those things, knowing that they're already, they're already spoken for.
Blake Bennett: I love the subscription, cause it just automatically hits, you know, Friday or Monday or whatever so, "sale was [00:13:00] made," and I can just be throwing the frisbee for the dog and I'll get an email and say, "here's a sale."
Rory Loughran: That's great. So what all are you doing subscriptions with right now, in terms of your products? Do you have mixed greens, microgreens?
Blake Bennett: Right now, the subscriptions I'm doing are just a mixed green bag.
That's a 10 ounce bag which actually becomes two, five ounce bags. I don't have a bag that's 10 ounces, so it's two fives, and then I'll do that as a weekly basis or either a biweekly basis. Some people don't get through that much. So they'll do every other week on that.
Then I also have just a mix of head lettuce. So when I harvest heads of lettuce, it comes with the roots and everything, so that's my other subscription you can do as well so, just two right now. I'm trying to find that a chef that maybe can come up with a good mixture of breeds for me, have like a spicy mix, a regular mix, and then just something that's very unique.
So I want to have about three different mixes of the mixed green bags. Cause that's what I am seeing sells the most right now.
Rory Loughran: I'm kind curious, like thinking [00:14:00] through this as a customer, has there had to be any conversations with your customers that are like, how the heck is this guy getting these things out of a shipping container?
What has that been like? And are most people pretty interested in how you're doing this?
Blake Bennett: Yeah, I think most people are pretty much in awe about it. They're like, "I've never heard of anything like this." I think for me, it's just funny when, a lot of people have never heard of hydroponics. Course, I've got the horticulture agriculture backgrounds so, it's something that's been common to me, but there's a lot of people out there just don't even know about hydroponics.
So that's the first thing, they're just like "you've lost me there." Yeah, it can become a long conversation, but they're always very interested, especially when the pictures start coming out and they see the blues and the reds and the technology behind all of that.
Yeah, everybody's very interested about it and it probably a little bit maybe not trusting it yet until they try it.
Rory Loughran: Yeah.
Blake Bennett: And then they try the greens, and they're like, "wow, there is a difference."
Rory Loughran: How have you maybe combated some of that, like buyer distress, of being like, "what is this?" Do you usually kind of try and communicate that through [00:15:00] social media or something?
Blake Bennett: I am doing social media, but I think it's still, it's just the taste. Once someone tastes the product and not the hydroponic stuff, it that's when it really comes full circle. Seeing is believing, but the tasting is probably even more of a truth be told to that, because you can see it, the product looks really good.
The red veined sorrel was just absolutely amazing the colors of it. But once you finally bite into it, that's when you're like, "okay yeah, there definitely is something different about this."
Rory Loughran: It's a funny thing to have to explain, I guess. I think a lot of times, you know, explaining your practices to customers is a common challenge for a lot of farmers, and getting them to understand why they should be buying from them versus the grocery store or something.
Blake Bennett: Yeah, I think two things that are maybe a little bit of a hurdle is you're buying produce online, you know, instead of going to the farmer's market and be able to touch it better, be able to taste it, you know, walking through the line and looking at things, almost like the first time I bought something from Amazon. I was a little bit strange about not buying it from the store.
But yeah, just clicking a button and that's the [00:16:00] one thing I like about Barn2Door, it's very easy. You just click the button, and it shows up however many days later. So that's been a little bit of a hurdle, is getting people used to that. The way I'm doing hydroponics inside of a shipping container, that's very strange.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Something you touched on there, is this idea of clicking a button and it's on your doorstep and you do offer a direct home delivery.
So I was curious, like, how does that combined, especially with something like a subscription, just make that even more convenient for your customers to get those microgreens and the mixed greens?
Blake Bennett: I think it's really easy for them. They just get through my shop. I'll try and keep the inventory updated about three times a week I go through, we'll just check on things, make sure I've got the right numbers in there and they'll shop and buy things, and it just shows up and once I get used to it, they really, they really enjoy it.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. How are you going about delivery at the moment? I think you're probably in the early stages of starting a delivery program, and I think a lot of farmers are looking to maybe start delivery. You know, it's, It's a big, new [00:17:00] fulfillment for a lot of people is being able to offer that to customers.
How has that process been going for you and where are you at in that process?
Blake Bennett: I prefer the delivery because it let's me manage my own schedule. I've worked in garden centers before, and I know sometimes if you just have people stopping by to pick up things, it can really sway your schedule.
I fully enjoy talking to people about the farm, but sometimes you can get the person to stop by and, two hours later, you're still talking about what you're doing there. I really enjoy showing people what I'm doing out there, but as far as the day-to-day operations, since I'm a one man show, I just really like having delivery service because I harvest everything the day it is delivered. So it's less than six hours from the time I cut it until it shows up to the door and just, schedule everything out, deliver everything, start with the next day.
Rory Loughran: Wow. That's really cool too, that you can get it to people so quickly, and I'm sure part of that is you're using a Freight Farm, so you can be a little closer to some of those more populated areas, which is nice.
Blake Bennett: Yeah. Yeah. The farms only, it's only about seven [00:18:00] minutes from my house, so I can be there really quick. The other Friday night, not too long ago, I had a restaurant text me and say, "hey, we're out of the microgreens" early at about seven o'clock, and I was like, okay, no problem. Give me about 30 minutes, I'll be there.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. That's crazy that it was just so quick. You've started this from scratch really without much of a background in, in farming, but it seems like you've dove in head first and are really doing a good job of, kind of, adapting to your marketplace and such.
What kind of advice would you have for other farmers that might be doing the same?
Blake Bennett: Expect roadblocks. It seems about every single step of this process is not going like I thought it would. The financing, the insurance, location. Good gosh, trying to get electrical run, just about everything has been somewhat of a roadblock.
Dealing with Freight Farms and dealing with Barn2Door has probably been the two easiest things that I've had to deal with. Both companies are fantastic, but every single aspect of everything else that I've done has been not as planned. So that's [00:19:00] my advice is, don't expect it to go like it's going to be planned because it probably will not.
As far as like the marketing, start early. Getting into the restaurants has been difficult for me in this area, that I have not figured out why. But that's been one of my hurdles. Homeowner's been no problem at all. Our number growth has been fantastic with restaurants, I just can't seem to grab onto the product yet.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's start early with marketing, just, yeah.
Rory Loughran: You make a really good point there though, because I've looked at your Instagram for example, and, you mentioned you didn't get your Freight Farm until December, I think, and you weren't growing until February, but your posts are dating like back way before that.
And this is from the B3 Roots company Instagram account. So yeah, was that a very conscious choice to be promoting and letting your community know that this is coming months in advance?
Blake Bennett: Yeah, I wanted to create some kind of buzz, um, some kind of buzz about, just to get the name out there and "hey, it's on the way" and [00:20:00] to look out for it.
So yeah, definitely wanted everybody to know about it. Cause I want to hit the ground running with this thing. I've got some great aspirations for it to be more than what it is today.
Rory Loughran: Yeah, that's great to hear. What is kind of on the horizon for you and what, what's next for B3 Roots?
Blake Bennett: Definitely to grow my market. I went to Durham, North Carolina for the first time this week. So that's a market I'm excited about. The restaurant scene in Durham is extremely strong. Watson, great chefs out there. Yeah, for this year though, just to really grow that, I think I'm running it around 25% capacity, probably less than that right now. So I've got a lot of room to expand as soon as I can max out what I'm doing with the one farm. Definitely the second farm is, is coming.
Rory Loughran: Wow. Yeah, and it's pretty cool. I've seen the pictures of that on Freight Farm's website that will stack containers or have a bunch side-by-side, it's pretty cool how you can build that out and add acres to what you're growing.
Blake Bennett: It is. Yes, it was a very scalable practice, [00:21:00] cause once this thing lands, all you gotta do is put it together and put some seeds in some water and you do the exact same thing you're doing at the other farm.
Rory Loughran: Yeah. Wow. That's really cool. Well, It's been great to, to hear from you Blake and about the process that you're doing and I wish you the best of luck moving forward.
Blake Bennett: Thank you so for having me, I really, really appreciated and enjoyed it.
Rory Loughran: I want to extend my thanks to Blake for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barn2Door we're humbled to support thousands of farmers across the country, including farmers like Blake, who are implementing sustainable agricultural practices and supporting their local communities. For more on B3 Roots, you can visit B3roots.com. To learn more about Barn2Door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm, go to Barn2door.com/resources. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week.
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