Kentucky greenhouse company AppHarvest goes public on Nasdaq as it prepares to grow

Mega-greenhouse company AppHarvest started February with its logo displayed in New York City’s Times Square to celebrate the agriculture technology company’s public listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

The transaction to join Nasdaq provides AppHarvest with more than $435 million of unrestricted cash to fund operations, such as building additional high-tech indoor farms. Founder and CEO Jonathan Webb said it “marks a major milestone in being able to achieve our overall mission to sustainably grow fruits and vegetables at an affordable price for every American.”

AppHarvest is one of fewer than 20 publicly traded companies in Kentucky, joining health insurance company Humana and Papa John’s Pizza.

AppHarvest has estimated it will generate net revenue of $21 million in 2021.

The company is expected to produce 45 million pounds of tomatoes annually. AppHarvest employs 300 Eastern Kentuckians.

David Wicks, Nasdaq’s vice president of new listings, said he was “incredibly proud to be your partner and look forward to support your innovation as a NASDAQ listing company” in a video message Monday.

Two weeks ago, AppHarvest shipped its first bundle of tomatoes from its flagship location in Morehead.

“All this noise that is happening around us — listing on the Nasdaq and being shown in Times Square, selling our tomatoes to the largest grocers in the U.S. — all that is resonating back on the ground inside of our facility where our employees are feeling the positive impact of the work we’re all doing together,” Webb said.

The beefsteak tomatoes are selling out at grocers around the country.

“We can’t grow fast enough,” he said. “Our tomatoes are hitting store shelves and flying off the store shelves. It’s not just Kentucky, it’s everywhere from Indiana, all the way down to Florida.”

Webb said the company’s job now is to build faster and grow more vegetables to get on store shelves.

The company continues to look throughout Eastern Kentucky for building sites, Webb said, but there are challenges.

“We just have to find a place to build,” he said. “We have the capital. We want to build there, but building on these reclaimed coal mine sites are incredibly challenging and very expensive to try to make work. We would love to be there.”

The first greenhouse was originally planned for Pikeville, but AppHarvest said the site, a reclaimed strip mine, was not feasible for construction. After about two years of delays, AppHarvest announced its decision to relocate to a 350-acre parcel about two miles off I-64 near the Sharkey community of Rowan County.

Webb said they continue to invest in Pike County with a container farm at Shelby Valley High School. AppHarvest has two other farms at schools in Rowan and Breathitt counties.

The company aims to have 12 facilities growing and supplying fruits and vegetables by 2025. AppHarvest already announced a Berea facility to grow leafy greens and a Richmond facility to grow vine crops.

“One massive impact of 12 facilities is we’re going to have hundreds of millions of pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables pouring out of our region,” Webb said. “Not only the economic benefits of that, but the health benefits are tremendous. We’re in a situation where not many companies can say they feel incredible proud of the product they produce and we do that.”