Translator: RUOSENG LUSHANG Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
Sometimes, it really does feel like we need a revolution
when we think about the challenges we face today:
debt crisis, political stalemates,
energy, the environment,
the food we're feeding our families.
But I don't think we should be discouraged.
And today I'm going to talk about the story of BrightFarms.
But I also want this to be an example -
an example for us as leaders, as activists and as citizens,
an example for how we can think about
how some of our generation's greatest problems, greatest challenges
can be converted into some of our greatest business opportunities.
I want to start by looking back a little bit.
I want you to raise your hand if you were working in the food industry
five years ago.
Wow! A lot - more than half.
We're going to need that experience.
Five years ago, I wasn't.
Five years ago, I was running a business
that improved the supply chains of big retailers and their suppliers.
I had a singular goal
which was to maximize the efficiencies of systems that brought goods to stores.
And let me tell you, I am programmed to live, breathe and, yes, eat efficiency.
I have a license plate that reads "Efficient."
(Laughter)
It's true. I do.
When I followed my passion and came into the food industry
and dug into the produce supply chain,
I encountered a system that was at odds with itself.
Our produce supply chain is incredibly efficient and inefficient
all at the same time.
First, here's how it's efficient.
It produces huge quantities of food at low prices.
And here's how it's inefficient.
Our fresh produce holds up to travel great,
but it can't uphold taste at all.
In fact, we grow produce for travel and not for eating.
The system breeds foodborne illness, and it's killing our environment.
Our fresh produce supply chain is industrialized and centralized
to the point that it's an enormous consumer of land, of water, of crude oil
and natural gas.
The more I learned, the more I came to realize
that for all the good intentions to feed the world,
parts of our food supply chain aren't merely inefficient -
they're toxic.
If TED is about inspiration - well, I was inspired.
I was inspired to rethink the produce supply chain.
I was more than inspired.
I was compelled to develop an alternative supply chain:
one that eliminated these inefficiencies
and that prioritized farmers, quality food, our health, the environment
and still produced large quantities of food at low prices.
I want to make a full stop here for a second.
I want to ask each one of you to visualize the best tomato
you've had in the last year.
Do you have it?
I want you to raise your hand if it came from a supermarket.
(Laughter)
I can't believe that there's really zero.
(Laughter)
Although I am not surprised that it would've at least been close to zero.
People typically visualize the tomato from farmers' markets -
probably a lot of that -
gardens and restaurants.
Virtually nobody, or perhaps in this case, literally nobody says supermarkets,
even when I asked that question of supermarket executives.
(Laughter)
I'm serious.
The tomato I visualized was produced by a six-year-old,
my beautiful daughter Emilia, in our kitchen garden.
Emilia and I like to discuss how the most important ingredient in food is love
and how you find love in the food that someone grows or prepares
for someone they care about personally.
Emilia's tomato that I'm visualizing and the tomatoes she grows in the garden
look a lot like this tomato.
And the tomato I visualized was bursting with flavor;
it was bursting with love.
And this tomato?
Sucks!
(Laughter)
I'm serious. That tomato was awful.
(Laughter)
It was organic. It was expensive.
We bought it at a fancy supermarket not far from here.
So why does it lack taste?
And nutrition too, by the way - they run together.
And what does that tell us about the supermarket tomatoes and lettuces
that we're buying and feeding to our families?
These tomatoes are international travelers.
They bounced here to New York from Mexico in a 53-foot truck.
No wonder they suck.
That's typical, by the way, for US supermarket tomatoes in the winter.
Did you know that nearly 100 percent of supermarket lettuces in the US
come from just two places?
Near Salinas, California, in the summer and Yuma, Arizona, in the winter.
These lettuces travel 3,000 miles to reach the local grocery store here.
It's no surprise that lettuce is prone to rotting before it's purchased
or right when people bring it home.
This causes huge losses for supermarkets,
and it makes my wife, who loves fresh baby spinach, unhappy,
which makes me unhappy.
(Laughter)
Produce executives, produce buyers, they don't want this.
They've actually got families of their own that they're feeding with produce,
and they're good people.
But they're not just good people - they're business people.
They want to bring you quality produce,
but they need to buy large quantities of produce at low prices.
And right now, there's only one option for that,
which is our industrialized and centralized food system.
Incrementalism isn't going to do it.
Moving food faster or better through this system
isn't going to solve these problems.
It's time for a revolution in the produce supply chain.
Can you imagine a revolutionary new system that had fewer miles, fewer trucks,
fewer tasteless tomatoes,
that had less foodborne illness, less crude oil and less rotting lettuces?
Can you imagine a revolutionary supply chain
where we went back to our roots
and grew and sold produce in the same community
by a farmer who, like Emilia, grew for taste instead of for travel?
And maybe even with a little bit of love.
You think that'll be better?
Do you think that'll be better?
(Audience) Yes.
We think so at BrightFarms too.
And you know who else does?
Produce buyers at supermarkets, they do too.
In fact, nearly 20 percent of the top 50 US supermarkets
are already working with BrightFarms
to try to make this revolutionary new system a reality.
The industry is reacting with huge enthusiasm.
Produce buyers sincerely want to bring great food at great prices
to their customers.
They just need a better option.
So, how is BrightFarms going to do this? What are we doing?
How are we going to bring large quantities of food at low prices
that's better quality and better for the environment?
It sounds hard, but the answer is surprisingly simple.
We're building greenhouse farms,
but it's how we're building them and where we're building that matters.
We're building them at supermarkets,
on their roofs, at their distribution centers
and always in their communities.
BrightFarms provides a turnkey solution.
We finance it, we build it, we manage it for our supermarket clients
in a way that cuts time, distance and costs from the produce supply chain.
We're building hydroponic, recirculating greenhouses
and recruiting farmers across the country to bring better produce to everybody.
Here's how the deal works.
We put up the money, we build the facility,
we find, we nurture, we support, we train the local farmer.
The supermarket is required to put up zero investment.
They merely commit to buying produce that's better.
That's not enough, by the way.
Zero investment and better produce on their own
doesn't satisfy their requirements.
There's another factor, which is the price.
If we can't meet or beat current market pricing,
this is going to remain a fringe initiative.
And I'm not interested in the fringe.
I am interested in making a difference.
But we can meet or beat existing prices.
We do it by having a shorter and simpler supply chain.
More than half the cost of this lettuce isn't the lettuce -
it's the long and complex supply chain that gets it to your local grocery store.
We simply operate without that long and complex supply chain,
so we have lower operating costs than the traditional industry.
We can sell at low enough prices to meet or beat current market prices.
This is a case where less is truly more.
So, is our business model working?
It is.
We actually just recently announced
the industry's first long-term produce agreement.
It's with a great supermarket called McCaffrey's.
We're building them a greenhouse at their store in Yardley, Pennsylvania.
And I want all of you to go there and check it out.
Jim McCaffrey, like many supermarket executives,
cares deeply about his customers.
He's not just a great businessman.
He's a visionary as well.
And he had a vision to commit to a revolutionary new system
that's bringing better tomatoes and consistent, fantastic lettuces
to his store shelves on the day that they're picked.
And by the way, we care about McCaffrey's customers
as much as Jim does.
We're not going to be anonymous, 3,000 miles away.
Our farmer won't be 3,000 miles away.
He'll be three blocks away from the store.
He'll be living,
sending his kids to school, creating jobs and growing produce
in the same community as McCaffrey's customers
and shopping in the same produce aisles right there with them.
When we started - earlier, I said that TED Talks were about inspiration.
I've been inspired by many of you here today, and I thank you for it.
And I hope I've had the chance to inspire some of you as well,
inspire you to not be discouraged by the problems you're facing
with the supply chains in which you feel like you're stuck,
but instead, to think about these challenges
as opportunities to start your own revolutions.
And in our case,
a revolutionary opportunity to bring our society produce
that's safer, healthier, tastier, better for the environment
and bursting with the most important ingredient of all: love.
(Applause)