Challenge Accepted: The Lure of CEA Strawberries
April 21, 2025 While profitability remains elusive for so many in the CEA strawberry business, growers remain determined to give it a go. Ophelia Sarakinis, founder and co-CEO of vertical farm Gush (Montreal), is one such grower. We talked to Sarakinis to get her insights on the specific challenges of strawberry farming indoors, unit economics, and why she still thinks the headaches are worth it.
CEAg World: How long have you been in this industry?
Ophelia Sarakinis: I’ve been growing CEA strawberries for a very long time – the first time I grew a strawberry plant in a vertical farm was in 2017. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’m proud of growing strawberries that are fresher, safer for people to eat, and more delicious. I think it’s amazing that we can give Canadians the opportunity to eat better strawberries every day.
We built a proof-of-concept, 8,000-square-foot vertical farm. But we’ve experienced challenges since we started growing, and we need to overcome a lot of challenges to make this a sustainable reality. People in industry unit economics are trying to find ways to make these “better” berries accessible to everybody, not just people who have the funds to spend on CEA strawberries.
What are some bright spots you’ve seen in your vertical farming journey?
The fact that [our berries] really do taste better. People say they taste like their childhood, and I almost tear up when I hear that. When you take a bite of one of our strawberries, it’s red throughout, which tends to shock people. We’ve become so used to eating white, crunchy strawberries that having a soft, red strawberry is unusual today. But it used to be the status quo.
I think building something is also a big highlight–being able to build a functional farm with an awesome team.
I’ve heard you say that research and development questions still need answers when it comes to CEA berry production. Can you elaborate on that?
One of our biggest challenges is that we can’t start CEA strawberries from seed just yet. We’re working on it, but we’re a long way out, and we struggle to get a clean plant supply. People are starting to grow clean plants, so we test them and give them feedback. Every cycle is a minimum of 100 days, so it takes time to collect the data and move the research forward.
Cultivar trials are another big one. Whether we’re buying plants from field growers or indoor growers, there are millions of cultivars that don’t behave the same outside as they do inside. We have to test all of them which, again, takes time and effort.
Another thing is systems modifications. We grow in nutrient film technique (NFT) systems, but we’re system-agnostic, and we want to grow in the best system possible. So we have to think about having a continuous NFT versus switching it on and off. We also have to determine whether there are reusable substrates we can use. These are just some things we think about.
Because we have a completely controlled environment, our environmental parameters are limitless. So, we can do anything in terms of temperature, humidity, and CO2. And we’ve only played with a very narrow set of these parameters. There are so many environmental things we could play with that might have a huge effect.
What role does lighting play with strawberries grown in vertical farms?
We’ve tried so many different lights, and we’ve found that uniformity (the evenness of light distribution) is so important. We tried to get away with less at the beginning, but as soon as we added more uniformity, we doubled our yield. From a spectrum standpoint, we’ve found that lighting can affect the flavor, color, shape, and physiology of strawberry plants.
An extreme example of this was when we tried to increase the height of our plants, because our plants were always really compact. This is usually good for vertical farming, but our berries were getting too close to the crown of the plant, which made them too moist. We ended up increasing far-red light, because there’s a lot of research that shows it increases the height and elongation of the plant. Well, our plants ended up getting too tall, which became a different problem. So, another big R&D question is finding the right balance of colors in the spectrum.
There are a lot of different effects from lighting and it’s still a black box. I mean, we know far-red light causes elongation, but there are so many colors and percentages.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our audience about CEA strawberries or your experience in the industry?
Despite how dark the [vertical farming] industry seems right now, I think we need to remind ourselves that consumers want what we’re doing. If we can continue to innovate and find ways to make it work, we should keep at it.