While traditional field-grown commodities navigate an increasingly volatile landscape of shifting weather patterns and supply chain pressures, the indoor agriculture sector is carving out a high-tech path of its own.
For 2026 Packer 25 honorees Hiroki Koga, co-founder and CEO of Oishii, and Julia Weber, vice president of marketing for Pure Flavor, redefining consistency in the produce aisle isn't just about escaping the elements — it's about fundamentally changing how consumers experience quality, flavor and trust.
Breaking the Mold: Why Oishii Bet on Strawberries
As the vertical farming sector faced a severe reality check with capital growing tight and investors demanding strict unit economics, Hiroki Koga, co-founder and CEO of Oishii, charted a radically different path. Instead of chasing quick scale with low-margin leafy greens, Koga leaned into one of the most notoriously difficult indoor crops: strawberries. By introducing tiered pricing structures — such as the accessible Nikko Berry — and systematically expanding its retail door count, Oishii has challenged conventional wisdom about what indoor agriculture can achieve.
“The current way we farm our food isn't sustainable — not just environmentally, but from a production cost and affordability standpoint,” Koga says. “As the population grows faster than available farming resources, the cost of growing food the traditional way is only going to keep rising. That means growers need to be thinking about fundamentally new ways to grow — either producing something valuable enough to command a higher price point or investing in technology that changes the underlying cost structure of growing food altogether.”
As Oishii looks toward the future, the company's long-term vision is rooted in pioneering technology that fundamentally lowers the cost of growing high-quality food at scale. Recognizing that this kind of systemic shift cannot happen overnight, Oishii has forged a strategic bridge by developing premium varieties that deliver exceptional value today, funding the ongoing research and development needed to achieve true mass-market affordability by 2030.
Reflecting on the broader vertical farming industry consolidation, Koga notes that many early failures stemmed from choosing operational convenience over true product differentiation.
“The consolidation we've seen largely traces back to companies choosing leafy greens because they were easy to grow, not because the business model worked,” he says. “We made the opposite bet from the start: strawberries are harder to grow, but it's a crop consumers can immediately taste differences in quality, so we could charge a premium while working on technology advancement and cost reduction in the background.”
Unlocking Vertical Farming's Unique Levers
Koga also emphasizes that true economic viability comes from capturing unique biological advantages inside the facility.
“While we work hard on reducing cost on every front — electricity, automation, yield, etc. — the single most important lever has been perfecting the growing environment itself and identifying hidden levers in strawberry production that simply don't exist in conventional farming,” he says.
Koga credits this indoor-first approach with driving the company's success.
“That's the fundamental approach that sets Oishii apart from most other vertical farms — we're not just automating conventional farming indoors, we're building levers that only exist because we're indoors,” he says.
Koga says the company's Nikko berry is where that strategy shows up clearest.
“It's a varietal we selected specifically to thrive in a vertical farm, and as we've optimized and continued to automate our growing environment for it, we've been able to increase the package size and bring the price down to $7.99,” he explains.
The Road to Price Parity
For Koga, this philosophy isn't just about operational efficiency — it's the catalyst for a broader market transformation.
“My honest belief is that price parity with field-grown berries is coming, sooner than people expect,” says Koga. “Smart farming has structural advantages field-grown never will — no seasonality, no weather risk, no pesticides, and yield that keeps improving through automation and breeding. Field-grown can't compound that way. Once we close the remaining cost gap, there's no reason for a quality-conscious consumer to choose field-grown over indoor, and that's when premium strawberries stop being a category and just become the standard.”
Elevating the Brand: A Purpose-Driven Shift for Greenhouse Produce
For greenhouse grower Pure Flavor, standing out on supermarket shelves requires more than just high-quality produce — it demands a brand that resonates with modern shoppers. Vice President of Marketing Julia Weber recently spearheaded a major brand refresh centered around the company's “Simply Good” positioning and redesigned packaging. By pairing creative strategy with data-driven insights into consumer motivations and category friction, Weber is helping elevate greenhouse-grown produce into a purpose-driven, brand-centric category.
The market response has validated this strategic shift.
“We've received so much positive feedback on our new branding, and I believe that's because the change is grounded in a deep understanding of the consumer — what motivates them, what they value, and what their pain points are within the category,” says Weber. As a category, we still have a ways to go to catch up with more brand-centric areas of the store, but we've also made significant progress in recent years. Brand impact, awareness, consideration and penetration can all be measured quantitatively, and ultimately, we can use that data to understand how that translates into purchase and category growth.”
She emphasizes that tracking key metrics, such as brand awareness, consideration and penetration, allows Pure Flavor to directly measure how brand sentiment converts into consumer purchases and overall growth.
“To continue advancing as a category, we need to embrace everything that makes produce unique and different, while putting the consumer at the heart of our decisions,” she explains. “That's how we create brands that mean something beyond price and shelf placement.”
That strategy becomes especially critical as Pure Flavor rolls out new specialty items, such as award-winning snacking varieties and medley packs. Educating shoppers about these premium products without cluttering the package requires a careful balancing act — one that relies heavily on keeping on-pack design clean while letting a multi-channel ecosystem do the heavy lifting.
“This is definitely a combined effort. We typically take a multi-channel approach to our marketing, and with our new branding, we're being very deliberate about keeping information simple and easy to consume,” Weber explains.
While the package remains uncluttered, the brand uses social media, digital marketing, on-pack messaging, point-of-sale vehicles, and retail marketing programs to tell a deeper story.
“The key is to be consistent across all of them,” she adds, “while tailoring the message and execution to what will be most effective in each channel.”
Bridging the Seasonal Gap Through Consistent Education
With greenhouse growing, escaping the volatility of traditional agriculture is only half the battle. While year-round production frees Pure Flavor from the whims of seasonal weather, consumer eating habits remain tied to the calendar — posing a potential challenge when field-grown products flood the market.
To smooth out that demand, Weber emphasizes that consistency and long-term education must go hand in hand.
“Consistency is key for greenhouse suppliers. First, we need to deliver on what we're promising — consistent quality and supply,” Weber says. “Second, we need to recognize that educating consumers about greenhouse-grown produce is a long-term journey that is worthy of investment.”
Rather than viewing the market as a zero-sum game, Weber thinks the category still has immense room to grow.
“We are nowhere near the ceiling of penetration within the category,” she says. “There is room for both field-grown and greenhouse produce, serving different consumers, needs and motivations. Truly understanding who we should be targeting, what matters to them, and how best to reach them will continue to be important in shifting consumer knowledge and driving demand.”
