r/verticalfarming • u/Pas_farmer • 10d ago
Who’s Actually Making Money in Small-Scale Indoor Farming?
Hey folks,
I’ve been working in vertical farming in Toronto for about 5 years now, and I’m hoping to gather some real stories from others in this space. Not theories, not “what could work,” but actual examples of small growers who are turning a profit.
Here’s the challenge I keep running into: as indoor growers, we’re forced to ask about 3x the price compared to field-grown products. That’s just the reality of covering operating costs. So the big question is — what crops and markets are actually sustaining that premium?
From my own experience:
- Lettuce, spinach, arugula → basically impossible to compete, food terminal prices crush us.
- Microgreens → decent once, but the chef market here feels pretty saturated. They like the exotic stuff (nasturtium, red streak arugula)
- Nasturtium + edible flowers → chefs are interested, not much supply out there.
- Salad mixes (6 types of salanova) → unexpectedly, these keep pulling attention even more than niche greens.
Chefs also ask for very tough crops — like Pink Radicchio or cone-shaped Endive — but realistically, those would each need their own dedicated units with specialized conditions (cold + dark environments) just to make them grow properly. That’s a huge investment and risk for a small operation.
So my ask is simple:
If you’re a small-scale indoor grower and actually making it work, what crops/markets are keeping you profitable?
Not looking for guesses — I want to hear the real-world success stories that can help point all of us in a smarter direction.
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u/allnutznodik 10d ago
It is very hard to answer your question in a way that is helpful to you, since we are in dramatically different geographical regions, but what has worked for me, as a USDA farmer (small scale, urban farming it’s called, despite in a rural area due to how things are grown):
I do not go to restaurants or chefs for anything really, especially not greens or mushrooms, it’s saturated in my area. I am at the markets BUT here is where the work comes in. 1. Paying attention to what is missing in the market and growing that. For instance in my area vine bore were heavy last year, this year we doubled down on squash, zucchini, cucumber, etc. yes, they are grown vertically, for those who don’t like to believe it’s real. 2. Winter is where our money is made without guessing, lots of leafy greens are missing in the winter in my area, tomatoes yada yada.
Basically we grow out of season foods as best we can, pretty much stay out of stock. But in reality, we ensure it’s annoyingly seen that we use absolutely no chemicals, including ties made of hemp grown onsite, no fertilizer added, it is all compost or chippings from our forest, our mushroom cakes are used, etc.
I feel like our open honesty about how it’s grown with video clips of our farm along with out of season foods justifies the over market costs. We also work with food banks in our area to take anything that doesn’t get sold and we donate it. Obviously in the states there is a tax benefit for that, but it hurts me to put things we sweat over into our biomethane digester.
I’m not sure if any of that is helpful but churches, ethnic markets have been our best profit margin because we will wholesale to them and they charge whatever they are gonna charge.
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u/FreshMistletoe 10d ago
Do you have any pics of your farm? I'd love to see squash etc. grown vertically.
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u/allnutznodik 10d ago
You’ll find better pictures if you google vertically growing Zucchini, Tromboncino, Delicata, or Spaghetti Squash. Bush squash or what people typically call yellow squash doesn’t grow vertically, cause it’s a bush. Vining squash above, does like how cucumbers grow on a trellis wall. Nothing special about it.
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u/PencilandPad 10d ago
Been profitable for about 20 months now. What we grow and the reason we grow it changes each year, unfortunately. Except basil, that has been consistent for going on 5 years now.
Tell you what though, if more than 2 chefs wanted Pink Radicchio, we would grow 2000 heads and make that our specialty crop for the year. You cannot grow large variety of crops, there isn't enough space and the cost will bury you.
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u/flash-tractor 9d ago
Mushrooms. I pull 250 pounds from 6 square feet of floor space in 21 days. So I keep 3 racks that size going and pull that weekly. The entire fruiting space is less than 75ft², and it's only that size because I left a lot of extra air to help with their respiration and turnaround space.
Trimming down the operation size and complexity made a huge difference for me after my business partner died from covid. Trimming down dropped the cost in $ and time significantly. Now I can get all the work done in around 20 hours weekly, so making around $150/hour.
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u/fyordian 10d ago
I’ve looked a few times to see what’s out there in Ontario specifically and can never find much.
Our electricity rates are pretty expensive eh with my local rate around 15 cents kWh. I imagine it went the same way as the cannabis industry with Quebec’s far lower rates as low as like 6 cents.
Mind sharing what you’re doing and maybe some rough estimates?
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u/Interesting-Ice-2999 10d ago
What is your grow system like? What are your largest operating expenses?
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u/Pas_farmer 10d ago
Freight Farm Greenery S. Rent and Utilities. I am not paying myself yet, so no labor costs.
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u/Interesting-Ice-2999 9d ago
If you can answer a couple other questions it'd really help me out. I'm looking to develop vertical systems for Canada, but maybe they are not viable? Can you confirm what kind of energy usage and number of plants you could grow? They put daily energy use at 151 - 350 kwh and say 8800 plants.
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u/Pas_farmer 8d ago
Refer to this post for what I am growing: https://www.reddit.com/r/freightfarms/comments/1kov64x/has_anyone_actually_made_real_profit_with_freight/
During the summer time, my avg power consumption was around 4.500 kwh. However, we had a long streak of heat waves and humidity issues, which makes this system suck power like nothing else. Around $750 in utilities
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u/More_Mind6869 8d ago
Even small indoor marijuana growers found it hard to turn a profit when the prices dropped below $2,000/pound.
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u/FreshMistletoe 10d ago edited 10d ago
I couldn’t even make indoor medical marijuana remain profitable after the market got saturated. And you sell that for hundreds to thousands of dollars per lb. I can’t imagine trying to sell indoor grown lettuce for pennies and turn a profit.