It might come as a surprise that in the middle of Atlanta, plants are currently being grown inside shipping containers and hidden from public view on Ponce.
The culprit is PodPonics, an urban farm. Opening in July at 563 Ponce de Leon avenue, PodPonics will operate like any other farm, growing produce; organically.
Matt Liotta, a high-tech entrepreneur who attended Emory University, founded PodPonics in March of this year when he realized that organic produce sold in Atlanta was being shipped from overseas.
“There was an opportunity to use new high technology to produce local organic food,” Liotta said. “We decided as part of that we would go aggressively local and put it right in the heart of the city.”
PodPonics will be using an approach called “controlled environment agriculture,” something that has been done in labs, according to Liotta.
“You build a space where you can control every aspect of the environment to perfectly grow a particular kind of crop,” Liotta said as he explained how using controlled environment agriculture actually creates healthier produce.
Growing in a controlled environment ensures plants get exactly what they need and nothing else. Utilizing shipping containers to grow the organic food keeps all environmental toxin’s, insects and pesticides from ever contaminating the product.
Each shipping container or “ISO” will grow a specific crop. The first crop will be lettuce.
Targeting wholesale business to grocery stores, Liotta plans on growing organic produce in large volumes to get it into the hands of consumers.
“We plan on having a retail presence here on location so that consumers can buy the produce as well as learn more about local organics,” Liotta said.
Initially, PodPonics won’t have enough variety or supply to provide a proper experience for consumers. Liotta says they will be working with other local growers to retail their product until they do.
Not at liberty to say, Liotta left us with affirmation that a National grocery chain has extreme interest in carrying produce from PodPonics.
Now that we’ve shed some light on PodPonics, tell us what you think!
4 Responses
Congratulations, Matt! Good luck with a great idea!
Aren’t these the people that dropped the shipping container on that man a few weeks ago?
Hi Matt! My name is Patricia and I am from Cleveland, Ohio. I would like to know more about your great idea. Would you ever consider bringing your idea to other places? I, too, think PodPonics is the future of organic farming. I am trying to buy local and organic whenever I can. Please write back when you get a chance.
Thank you.
Patricia