Gordon Food Service, Square Roots Open New Indoor Kentucky Facility

Michigan-based grocery and wholesale retailer Gordon Food Service has partnered with indoor farming company Square Roots to open a new farming facility in Kentucky.

The climate-controlled indoor farm in Shepherdsville, Ky. joins farms at Gordon Food Service distribution centers in Kenosha, Wisc. and Springfield, Ohio. Produce grown at the facilities is sold wholesale to customers as well as on shelves as Square Roots’ branded SKUs. The two companies formed their partnership in 2019.

“Working with Gordon Food Service, we’ve tripled our aggregate growing capacity this year while entering three new strategic markets across America’s heartland,” said Tobias Peggs, co-founder and CEO of Square Roots. “This rapid expansion is purely driven by customer demand for our locally-grown food. And it’s been enabled by our scalable smart-farm platform - which we’ve shown can be replicated in multiple new locations, quickly and cost effectively.”

Square Roots’ indoor farms use proprietary software to produce herbs, salad mixes and microgreens using less water and space than traditional farms. The new Kentucky facility has been scaled to produce over 3 million packages of produce annually.

“Together, Gordon Food Service and Square Roots are making locally grown, fresh produce available to our customers all year round, regardless of outdoor weather conditions,” said Rich Wolowski, president and CEO of Gordon Food Service. “Each new farm we open gets us closer to our shared goal of enabling local food at a global scale.”

Founded in 1897, Gordon Food Service operates more than 170 stores in the U.S.