Spread is one of the leading vertical farming companies in Asia, located in Japan. Japan is a unique market across the globe because the market in Japan is considered to be the closest to mature, with over 200 vertical farming companies in Japan and vertically farmed crops accepted in the domestic market. Spread is also unique in the sense that it is one of the few vertical farms to achieve profitability. Their original Kameoka facility became profitable almost ten years ago in 2013.
Spread was founded in 2006, which makes it among the first founded vertical farms globally. Shinji Inada, the CEO of Spread, is also the companies founder.
As a private company, stock in Spread is currently not available on the public market.
Spread is a market leader in Japan, servicing over 2500 retail locations across the country. Retail is not all of Spread's business however. It consists of about 70% of the companies business. The other 30% goes to food service and ready to eat packaged meals. A report from 2015 suggested revenue of spread of approximately 1 billion yen, equivalent to about $9M US dollars. With expansion into a second facility in 2020 and increased production efficiency, the estimated revenue of the company is currently $100M.
Spread's website currently discusses a yield per day of 4 tons of lettuce, which would suggest a sales figure well into the $100M+ range. The website also services over 4,000 customers in total.
Spread has two farms, each with the capability of producing approximately 2 tons of lettuce per day. Their first plant, named the Kemeoka plant, was built in 2007. This plant is capable of producing over 21,000 heads of lettuce per day.
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