When Growcer acquired the assets of container-farming company Freight Farms in July 2025, the move marked a pivotal moment for North American controlled-environment agriculture. Freight Farms left behind customers in more than 500 locations, a sizeable software and parts ecosystem, and a support model that needed rethinking.

Fifty days after closing, CEO Corey Ellis spoke with Vertical Farm Daily and shared a candid public update on what is working, what is hard, and what comes next.

© Growcer
Freight Farms now in Growcer’s inventory, from a recent trip to Boston.

Ensuring continuity for Freight Farms customers
“First things first,” Ellis says. “We’ve taken over the management of Freight Farms’ proprietary software and have migrated over every customer already, and we’ve resumed supplying the vast majority of proprietary parts.”

In a public note, he added, “When we acquired the assets, it was like Storage Wars. We had a sense of what was left behind, but our team still had to sift through, take stock, and recover everything from extra lights to hard drives to truly understand what was left. Thankfully, Freight Farms had some reserve stock of replacement parts. Not a lot, but enough to start shipping parts out to farmers who needed them to repair their farms.”

The hard realities of parts, pricing, and warranties
Ellis does not sugarcoat the constraints. “Original vendors were no longer honoring warranties to a company that ‘doesn’t exist’, so all the warranties were void after the bankruptcy. Many Freight Farms’ suppliers were located in China, so now all the parts carry a ~58% tariff on top of general price increases over and above tariffs.”

“Do we reinstate old supplier relationships or find new suppliers? Do we keep some parts in inventory in case of emergencies, or do we use what we have and reorder parts at the new, higher prices? Put simply, we would never be able to build a farm today for the same price as yesterday. Parts that once cost $100 are now over twice as expensive.”

Facing tough calls through values
“How do we make these decisions?” Ellis says. “Whenever we have hard decisions at Growcer, we always make them through our values. In practice, this has shown up in many ways. We’re communicating transparently with affected Freight Farmers, explaining the why and not just the what, and being candid with what’s causing these changes. We’re spending a lot of time working with these overseas suppliers, advocating for customers, and pushing back. At the same time, we’re accelerating our efforts to find new suppliers for some specific parts, all while balancing the trade-offs of price, warranties, and quality. It’s not perfect. But it’s a start.”

Resetting expectations on unit economics
“In the immediate term, we’re adjusting expectations for prospects to understand the true cost of production,” Ellis says. “There are many markets where the unit economics work today, but in my view, the issue has mostly come from when companies set unrealistic expectations and make promises that can’t be kept.”

“In the medium to long term, we are investing in research and products to reduce the relative kWh per kilogram, labor per kilogram, and the overall production cost per kilogram grown. This will be achieved through better energy management, labor automation where appropriate, and improving the reliability of Freight Farms equipment.”

Lowering barriers with service models
“Freight Farms and Growcer face similar challenges that I would argue most suppliers in the container farm space face, like high barriers to entry and building capacity among customers,” Ellis says.

“For example, we work with a lot of institutions, charities, and schools that wonder how they will pay for a container farm, and once they have it, wonder how they will run it successfully. We introduced the Growcer Fund to address this challenge. It’s basically a farm-as-a-service model where a school subscribes to a Growcer farm for a lower monthly price. They gain access to the farm, but they also gain access to a full suite of services and support to help them with the task of running it successfully.”

Lessons and the support model shift
“The lessons are many. In the small enterprise market, Freight Farms tended to set higher expectations than what was realistic for farm profitability. We plan to be upfront and change customer expectations during the customer journey. Just like how we’ve been doing at Growcer, we will provide expectations that are better aligned with achievable figures.”

“Freight Farms also had an unsustainable support model. There was a large support requirement from farmers, with associated costs but no associated revenue. Therefore, their support model was unsustainable. We’re going to implement a fee-for-service and subscription options for after-sales farm support. Provided you can demonstrate value to customers, we’ve seen first-hand that there is a willingness to pay for these value-added services. We will increase the quality and effectiveness of services, but will invest in them accordingly, and they will be paid. To meet growers where they’re at, we’re introducing a low-barrier initial starting fee for a basic tier of services, with options to upgrade if a grower wishes to get greater support. At the end of the day, we’re here to support growers so they can be successful.”

Role in the sector and brand future
“Everyone on our team has a personal connection to local food, whether it’s coming from farming families, working in economic development, or studying nutrition,” Ellis says. “We’ve found ourselves in the CEA sector because we see it as a tool to improve food systems. At the end of the day, that’s how we view our role here.”

“We stepped in to continue the legacy of Freight Farms because we felt we were going to be the best steward moving forward for their original mission. It’s not about getting lost in the weeds of controlled environment agriculture, but enabling people to use this technology for good and for generations to come. The Freight Farms brand is strong, and so we’re looking at all our options for its future.

For more information:
Growcer
Corey Ellis, CEO
www.linkedin.com/in/coreywellis
www.thegrowcer.ca

Stephanie Gordon, Content and Communications Manager
[email protected]
www.thegrowcer.ca