Plenty exited Chapter 11 by betting everything on indoor strawberries

Plenty built some of the world's largest indoor vertical farms but the economics of growing cheap leafy greens indoors could not cover the power and construction cost. Filings said it would streamline operations and focus its go-forward business.

It filed Chapter 11 in March 2025 and had a plan confirmed by the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. On May 29, 2025 Plenty said it had emerged, with interim and exit financing from One Madison and SoftBank Vision Fund 2.

The pivot was to strawberries, which command a high enough price to justify the electricity. Plenty said it was laser-focused on strawberries, expanding growing capacity at its Richmond farm, preparing a second planting, and offering its vertical strawberry technology to new locations through farm sales.

Focused on strawberries, resumed construction to expand the Richmond growing space, and is selling the farm technology to new sites.

Premium berries have a price point that covers vertical-farm cost, while lettuce does not.

Plenty's proprietary indoor platform is a defensible asset, so selling technology to new farms monetizes the know-how instead of carrying it alone.

A smaller, focused operation with target capital was more fundable than the broad, capital-hungry green-grower it had been.

For a capital-hungry farm, narrowing to a high-value crop and selling the technology beats trying to grow everything cheaply.

Plenty emerged in mid-2025 focused on strawberries, with the first planting cycle producing fruit it called among the sweetest on the market and a second planting and farm expansion underway. It is still a venture-backed farm navigating a brutal category, but the strawberry focus and technology sales give it a narrower path than the greens strategy it replaced.