Edible Garden AG Inc

Overview

Edible Garden is a controlled environment agriculture (“CEA”) farming company. We use traditional agricultural growing techniques together with technology to grow fresh, organic food, sustainably and safely while improving traceability. We use the controlled environment of traditional greenhouse structures, such as glass greenhouses, together with hydroponic and vertical greenhouses to sustainably grow organic herbs, lettuces and floral products. In our hydroponic greenhouse, we grow plants without soil. Instead of planting one row of lettuce in the ground, by using a vertical greenhouse, we can grow many towers of lettuce in the same area by planting up instead of planting across. Growing these products sustainably means that we avoid depleting natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance, such as by renewing, reusing and recycling materials in order to lower the overall one-time use of materials.

Our controlled greenhouse facilities allow us to grow consistent quality herbs and lettuces year-round, first by eliminating some of the variability of outdoor farming with our CEA techniques, and second by leveraging our proprietary software, GreenThumb. In addition to using hydroponic and vertical greenhouse systems, we use a “closed loop” system in our greenhouses. Generally, in a “closed loop” system, drain water is recollected and reused for irrigation. In our closed loop system, we also cycle water back into the system that has been collected through reverse osmosis. When compared to conventional agriculture, our closed looped systems and hydroponic methods use less land, less energy and less water (than legacy farms), thus conserving some of the planet’s limited natural resources. Our advanced systems are also designed to help mitigate contamination from harmful pathogens, including salmonella, e-coli and others.

We have also developed patented software called GreenThumb that assists in tracking plants through our supply chain. Utilizing our GreenThumb software to track the status of our plants as they grow and move throughout the greenhouse allows us to add a layer of quality control due to the frequent monitoring of the growing process, leading to improved traceability. In this context, traceability means being able to track a plant through all stages of production and distribution. In addition to improving traceability, GreenThumb helps us better manage the day-to-day operations of our business. GreenThumb is a web-based greenhouse management and demand planning system that does the following:

We also use our GreenThumb software to help monitor the quality of our products, and we have dedicated quality assurance and quality control personnel that check and monitor our products. We have customer service personnel that answer any questions the consumers of our products may have, and we regularly ask for feedback from our customers on the quality of our products. The combination of the GreenThumb software, quality assurance and control processes (including compliance with food safety standards), and feedback from consumers and purchasers holds us accountable for maintaining the quality of our herbs and lettuce.

We focus our efforts on producing our herbs and vegetables in a sustainable manner that will reduce consumption of natural resources, by recycling water in our closed loop system and using LED lights instead of conventional lightbulbs to accelerate crop growth and yield, when necessary. In addition, the inventory management component of GreenThumb allows us to manage inventory levels, order quantities and fill rates while maximizing truck loads. This means that we are better able to control shipping our products in full truck loads, thus eliminating multiple deliveries and decreasing the excess emission of greenhouse gases that would result from many partially full trucks delivering our products. Together, these elements of our production and distribution process are intended to reduce our carbon footprint, or the total amount of greenhouse gases that are generated by our actions, as compared to a legacy farm business.

We believe our focus on our brand “Edible Garden” is a significant differentiator. The brand not only lends itself to our current portfolio of products but allows us to develop other products in the “Consumer Brands” category. Our focus on sustainability, traceability, and social contribution, which we define as an ongoing effort to improve employee relations, working conditions, and local communities, presents our value proposition to our customers and supermarket partners and distributors.

We believe that Edible Garden’s facilities comply with food safety and handling standards. We have food safety certifications from Primus GFS (“Primus”), a Global Food Safety Initiative (“GFSI”) certification program, the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) for organic products, and some of our products are verified as non-genetically modified (“non-GMO”) by the non-GMO Project. We are licensed under Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (“PACA”) to operate our business. We voluntarily comply with the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (“HACCP”) principles established by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”).

Primus annually audits our growing process and entire food safety management system to ensure that our process and products meet the standards established by the GFSI. We value this certification because our customers require purchasing products from producers who are GFSI certified. When we undergo the GFSI audit, Primus audits the following:

Some of our products are verified as non-GMO by the non-GMO Project. To have a product verified by the non-GMO Project, we submit to an annual review process of the relevant products. We must source seeds and cuts from reputable and safe suppliers, not use bio-engineered products or ingredients during the growing process, and not include bio-engineered ingredients or products in the final goods sold to customers.

To maintain our PACA license, we submit to an annual review of our business, including our history and principles, to ensure we are meeting our contractual obligations under the law. This includes abiding by fair trading practices, meeting our contractual agreements and specifications, promptly paying all contracts, and maintaining trust assets.

The HACCP principles require that we submit to USDA audits annually. We must also identify the various chemical, physical, and biological hazards that exist in crop production and manage and control those hazards so that they do not contaminate our products or packaging. We must also implement and document critical control points and implement and document corrective actions taken when those critical control points do not adequately control a hazard.

We have a history of operating losses since inception and expect to incur additional near-term losses. As discussed further in “Management’s Discussion and Analysis - Liquidity and Capital Resources,” our auditors have issued an opinion that there is a substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.

We believe that the power of our brand together with the quality, innovative packaging and traceability of our products allow all of our customers to associate Edible Garden with locally grown and sustainably sourced packaged herbs and vegetables. Our tag line “Simply Local, Simply Fresh” is intended to describe our business plan: growing herbs and lettuce in local farms in the regional communities where our customers sell our products so that the products stay fresher for longer. We believe this strategy allows us to drive local grass roots brand awareness while we grow our business to support our plan to become a national brand.

Acquisitions

Our strategy for growth includes acquisitions. Our acquisition strategy includes expanding our greenhouse capacity in order to reduce our dependence on contract growers which we believe will benefit our earnings power. Greenhouse expansion also supports our effort to grow local which reduces transportation costs. We also expect to make acquisitions that expand our consumer product offerings that leverage our channels to market.

On August 30, 2022, through our wholly owned subsidiary, 2900 Madison Ave Holdings, LLC (the “Michigan Subsidiary”), we acquired a five-acre greenhouse facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan for $2,886,000. The greenhouse facility is operating as Edible Garden Heartland. During the year ended December 31, 2023, Edible Garden Heartland fully transitioned to growing our herbs and lettuce products, adding approximately five acres of directly controlled growing capacity to our operations. Additionally, in September 2023 we began shipping fall ornamental products grown in our Edible Garden Heartland facility. We believe the addition of Edible Garden Heartland will contribute to higher gross margin over time. We expect lower cost of sales by growing, picking and shipping our products instead of working with a contract grower to grow those products. In addition to serving customers in the Midwest, the facility will house a research and development center focused on improving existing products, developing new products, innovations in plant-based protein and nutraceuticals, and applying advanced agricultural technologies.

In November 2022, we acquired the assets of Pulp, including its line of sustainable gourmet sauces and chili-based products. Pulp’s product lines are certified organic, all-natural, Non-GMO and preservative free. The products include Hungarian wax hot sauce, poblano serrano jalapeno hot sauce, Fresno chili hot sauce, Habanero carrot hot sauce, salsa macha, chili crisp, and chili oil. In addition to selling these products through traditional retail channels, we sell some of these products directly to consumers in the United States through an e-commerce platform.

Products

We currently offer more than 79 stock keeping units (“SKUs”) and expect to further cross sell products across our supermarket partners to meet their demand. These products include:

The packaging we use for our produce leverages the latest technology to reduce plastics, extend the shelf life of our products, and reduce retail shrink - all leading to a reduced carbon footprint by reducing waste. The packaging we use for our produce features bio-based (sugar cane) sleeves. Using this material, we are able to reduce our use of plastic in our business. Generally, retail shrink is a loss of inventory. For our supermarket customers, one source of this shrinkage is spoiled product, such as herbs that have been in packaging for so long that they become poor quality. We use herb bags that have micro-perforations that allow ethylene gas to escape from the product packaging. Ethylene gas accelerates spoilage of herbs and lettuce. By allowing this gas to escape, we are able to extend the shelf life of the product while reducing the likelihood that our customers experience retail shrink because they have to throw our products in the garbage. Using this technology, cilantro, for example, is in good quality after 11 days, while it would be in poor quality after seven days in other packaging, according to the developer 1 of this bag material. The CO2 laser perforation creates well-defined holes which allow for a controllable and consistent environment in the bag, while other typical bagged herbs are perforated with a cold needle, which produce inconsistent holes and, therefore, an uncontrollable atmosphere. Less product spoilage means less waste, and less shrinkage means that we will not have to produce as many lettuce and herbs to achieve the same level of retail sales. Altogether, we should be able to produce less carbon and minimize the size of our carbon footprint by using these packaging innovations.

More recently we have expanded our product line to include nutraceuticals and other food products as well as vitamins, plant and whey proteins, and other products utilizing next-generation plant ingredients grown and sourced using sustainable methods. Our protein powder is sold under the Vitamin Way brand and is available in chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and cookies n’ crème flavors, while our Vitamin Way collagen powder is available in chocolate and vanilla. Our Vitamin Way shake product is organic & vegan plant-based, dairy-free and contains 20g of non-GMO, gluten-free, organic pea, brown rice & pumpkin proteins.

In September 2023, we began shipping fall ornamentals grown in our Edible Garden Heartland facility. Our offerings include mums, marigolds and other floral products. These plants were delivered to big-box stores throughout our distribution network.

Customers

Our products are currently sold at over 5,000 supermarket stores and food distributors across the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country. Some of the supermarkets that sell our products include Walmart, Target, Meijer, Wakefern Food Corporation/ShopRite, King Kullen, D’Agostino’s, Tops Friendly Markets, and H-Mart. We also service a large number of food distributors. This market segment allows us greater penetration with smaller local and regional supermarkets and the food services business.

1 “Shelf Life Studies: Herbs,” Windham Packaging, LLC.

In February 2024, we entered into agreements with Meijer to supply and sell products to Meijer until December 2026 (the “Supply Agreements”). Under the Supply Agreements, we will sell (i) fresh cut herbs, including basil, bay leaves, chives, cilantro, dill, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, thyme; (ii) hydroponic basil; and (iii) potted herbs, including basil, chives, cilantro, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, wheatgrass; in quantities and delivery schedule requested by Meijer at prices per unit set in advance. Under the Supply Agreements, we and Meijer will renegotiate the prices for each unit annually, provided that the price per unit will not increase or decrease at a rate greater than the change in the relevant Consumer Price Index in that year. Once set, the pricing terms will remain fixed for the remainder of the year. Any price increases will take affect after sixty days and any price decrease will be effective immediately. If the we and Meijer are unable to mutually agree on price increases, we will have the power to terminate the Supply Agreements immediately. Under the Supply Agreements, we agreed to fund the installation of fixtures in each of Meijer’s stores to display potted herbs in an aggregate amount estimated to be approximately $800,000. These payments will be made as a weekly deduction from our receivables from Meijer. The Supply Agreements will expire on December 31, 2026. The Supply Agreements may be renewed for an additional two-year term upon the mutual agreement but may be terminated by Meijer without cause upon sixty days’ prior notice.

Other than the Supply Agreements, we sell products to our customers on a purchase order basis, with no spend or purchase commitments, in the ordinary course of business. We and our customers enter into purchase orders on a daily basis. Other than purchase orders relating to the Supply Agreements, no purchase order has exceeded 2.0% of our revenue for the particular quarter in which the products were delivered to the customer.

Since inception, a few of our customers constitute a majority of our total revenue. For example, during the year ended December 31, 2023, we earned approximately 83.1% of our revenue from five customers (44.4% of which was attributed to sales made to one customer), and at December 31, 2023 approximately 80.4% of our gross outstanding trade receivables were attributed to four customers (41.1% of which was due from one customer). While we value our strong relationship with these major customers, we face the risk of losing a significant source of revenue if our major customers do not continue to purchase our products. If that were to occur and we were unable to replace the revenue by selling our products to additional customers, our ability to earn revenue would be significantly negatively impacted. Part of our growth strategy is to reduce this customer concentration by expanding our production capacity, which would allow us to sell our products to more supermarket partners.

Production and Properties

We utilize prime greenhouse locations in the Northeast, Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country, allowing us to provide local fresh and organic products to these local communities. Our locally grown and delivered products using a network of sustainable greenhouse farms provide local communities, retailers and consumers the quality they demand with the food safety they expect. The communities, retailers and consumers benefit from this as this allows us to get our products to market in the shortest time without compromising the plant’s quality and nutritional value. The growing locations are chosen to be near key trucking lanes within hours of major cities to cut down on “food miles” and fuel costs. We believe our strategy enhances our products’ appeal to major consumer constituencies that desire products grown and delivered locally.

Potential Growing Capacity

Consistent year round growing that adheres to our stringent sustainability protocols occurs in greenhouse locations in Indiana, New Jersey, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The combination of: (1) our 5-acre, 200,000 square ft., flagship greenhouse location in Belvidere, NJ (“Flagship Facility”); (2) our 5-acre, 200,000 square ft., Heartland Facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan (“Edible Garden Heartland”); and (3) over 480,000 square feet of available growing capacity in contracted greenhouse space from contract growers, enables us to use standardized methods and a suite of proprietary technology innovations to operate these hydroponic greenhouses and deliver consistent, fresh produce. Although we have access to this growing capacity at our contracted greenhouses, we do not use all of this capacity at any one time. We work with the contract growers to have products grown in locations that are near our customers, and because of changes in customer demand or the ability of the contract grower to meet the terms of our purchase orders, the locations where our products are grown change over time. We believe we have sufficient potential growing capacity with contract growers, at Edible Garden Heartland and at our Flagship Facility to supply products to our existing customers.

Since January 1, 2023, we have grown or purchased products grown in the following locations and with the following potential growing capacity:

Order Process

We rely on long-term relationships with contract growers to grow our herbs and produce but have no formal long-term contracts with these growers. We classify our relationships with growers as “long term” because of the length of the personal working relationship between members of our management team and the growers. In some cases, these relationships began more than five years ago. While the personal relationships are long term, we typically do not have formal written contracts with these growers. Instead, we and the growers use purchase orders to transact business. Our growing relationships require our produce to be grown in strict accordance with our proprietary growing process and to our specifications, but otherwise leaves control over the growing process to the contract growers.

We use our GreenThumb software to analyze year-over-year and trending sales data to develop customer-specific and aggregate product-specific forecasts. Each week, we provide our contract growers an estimated forecast that the grower can use to determine the quantity of herbs or produce it will sow. We use the same forecasts to determine what products to grow in the facility in Belvidere, New Jersey and the Heartland Facility. The quantity of products sown will later be used to fill a purchase order. The forecast precedes any purchase order from us or the customer because the products take time to grow and customers in the industry adjust their orders frequently to attempt to meet demand without taking on excess perishable inventory.

We typically receive purchase orders from our customers one to two weeks prior to harvest of the products. If we are using a contract grower, we then submit a purchase order to the grower to fulfill the order and choose the grower based on the proximity of the contract grower to the specific customer and the grower’s ability to fulfill the order. The contract grower is not obligated to accept any orders, or any certain minimum order, that we submit to the grower. The contract grower bears the inventory risk and risk of loss during the growing process. We take title of the produce after inspection has been made in accordance with the specifications agreed to by both parties. However, the contract grower is responsible for any customer rejections of products upon final delivery, and we do not pay the contract grower for products that are rejected by our customers. We pay the contract growers based on the number of products grown and accepted by the customer, and we are not otherwise financially obligated to the contract grower. Although it is not our practice to do so, we can terminate the purchase orders we submit to contract growers at any time and for any reason.

If the contract grower has not grown enough of a specific product to fulfill a purchase order, we attempt to supplement the order with products from other growers, Edible Garden Heartland or the Flagship Facility to meet the customer’s order. We only pay the contract grower for the number of products we purchase from them. If we are unable to meet the customer’s order, the customer typically finds another source of the product, which may harm our reputation with the customer but does not result in us incurring costs for the order.

If the contract grower has grown more of a specific product than is needed to fulfill a purchase order, we attempt to supplement other purchase orders that may need more of that product. Ultimately, if the contract grower sows too much of one crop than is needed to fill the purchase order, the contract grower must absorb those costs.

Flagship Facility in Belvidere, New Jersey

In addition to our contract growers, we operate a 5-acre Flagship Facility in Belvidere, New Jersey, which began commercial operations in 2015. Our facility incorporates a hydroponic gutter system developed in Holland for the exclusive production of herbs. The Flagship Facility also includes a cold storage freezer which allows us to package herbs for our distribution partners and a 20,000 sq. ft packhouse, which is under construction. Because we control the growing and shipping processes at this facility, we bear inventory risk, risk of loss, and other risks for the produce grown at this facility.

We are currently party to an ongoing, informal arrangement with our predecessor company, Edible Garden Corp., whereby we made lease payments of approximately $21,860 and $21,860 per month during the years ended December 31, 2023 and 2022, respectively, to the lessor of the land on which our Flagship Facility is built, Whitetown Realty, LLC (the “Landlord”), and for which our predecessor company is the lessee. We effectively rent the property on a month-to-month basis with no set term. We do not have a lease in place directly with the lessor of the property that gives us the right to operate the property, and there is no written agreement between us and our predecessor company or us and the Landlord describing this arrangement. We have not entered into a sub-lease or assignment of the agreement between our predecessor company and the Landlord, and we are not a party to or a beneficiary of the original lease between our predecessor company and the Landlord. We have been operating under this arrangement with the lessor for more than one year and do not expect to lose access to the property. We believe we will be able to continue operating the property because our operations and monthly payments benefit the current lessee, our predecessor company, and Landlord. Our predecessor company benefits from our effective assumption of the lease, because we are making lease payments that the predecessor company would otherwise be obligated to pay. From the Landlord’s perspective, it has been receiving consistent lease payments from an operator of the property since at least 2015 and from us for over three years, and some of the same individuals that worked for our predecessor company at the New Jersey facility continue to work at the facility as Edible Garden employees. If the Landlord did not assign the current lease or renegotiate a new lease with us, the Landlord would have to find another suitable tenant for the facility, which could result in additional costs to the Landlord or the risk of holding a vacant property.

Construction began on the packhouse at the New Jersey facility prior to our inception. Under the terms of the lease between our predecessor company and the Landlord, our predecessor company paid to build a foundation and construct the prefabricated building for the packhouse. Although the packhouse building is standing, it requires utilities and other improvements before we can use the building for our business. We anticipate investing approximately $1.1 million in capital expenditures to add paving and utilities such as HVAC, electrical service, septic system, and a well to complete the packhouse. To date, we have paid $272 thousand towards the construction of the packhouse. The Landlord is aware of the construction of the packhouse. We do not anticipate construction on the packhouse will impact our ability to operate the property.

We source the raw materials for production from multiple suppliers, including Ball Horticulture, Brandt Box and Paper, Griffin Supplies, Summit Plastics and Sun Gro Horticulture, and expect that those supplies will continue to be available for our use.

Heartland Facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan

On August 30, 2022, through the Michigan Subsidiary, we acquired a five-acre greenhouse facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which operates as Edible Garden Heartland. During the year ended December 31, 2023, Edible Garden Heartland transitioned to growing our herbs and lettuce products, adding five acres of directly controlled growing capacity to our operations. In addition to these products, in September 2023 we began shipping fall ornamental floral products grown at Edible Garden Heartland through our existing distribution network. We believe the addition of Edible Garden Heartland will contribute to higher gross margin over time. We expect lower cost of sales by growing, picking and shipping our products instead of working with a contract grower to grow those products. In addition to serving customers in the Midwest, the facility will house a research and development center focused on improving existing products, developing new products, innovations in plant-based protein and nutraceuticals, and applying advanced agricultural technologies.

Distribution

Edible Garden utilizes advanced, sustainable, environmentally controlled indoor agriculture to grow and process organic herbs and lettuces. Through our extensive distribution platform and proprietary predictive modeling, we pick, pack and ship to big box retailer’s distribution centers in our network. We distribute our products through more than 50 retail partners including national big box retailers, regional grocery stores, distributors, restaurants and local purveyors.

Our growing and distribution plans are designed to get our locally grown products to our retail partners and consumers as soon as possible after harvest. We want to make sure that our products arrive as fresh, undegraded and nutrient rich as when they were harvested. In order for us to meet this objective we strive to deliver our products to market in no less than 24 hours from when they are picked. We currently rely on our own fleet delivery vehicles, as well as other independent shipping operators. We continue to assess our footprint and optimize our logistics and shipping fleet. We plan on shifting our mix of vehicles towards more energy efficient vehicles. In addition, we are working with key customers to minimize our exposure to shipping costs by leveraging backhaul opportunities. Our greenhouse farms have to be strategically located in order for us to deliver on this objective.

We hold our transportation-related assets and manage the distribution of our products through our wholly-owned subsidiary, EG Transportation, LLC. This entity owns and leases the delivery vehicles we use to distribute products and holds the liability insurance needed for the transportation aspects of our business. As of December 31, 2023, we have 14 delivery vehicles and less than 10 drivers.

Competition

The U.S. fruits and vegetable markets are highly competitive. Our main competitors are Gotham Greens, Bright Farms, Bowery Farms and Plenty. Many of these companies may have significantly greater financial, technical, marketing and distribution resources, as well as greater experience in the industry than we have. Our services may not be competitive with their services. In addition, our current and potential competitors may establish cooperative relationships with larger companies, to gain access to greater development or marketing resources. Competition may result in price reductions, reduced gross margins and loss of market share. However, we believe the following elements will give us a competitive advantage in the rapidly growing CEA category:

Customer Relationships and Brand. Our herbs and lettuce product portfolio is sold through our supermarket partners including Walmart, Target, Meijer, Wakefern Food Corporation/ShopRite King Kullen, D’Agostino’s, Tops, H-Mart, and food distributors. These key partners make up the majority of our revenue. We believe that we will continue capture more opportunities with these partners as we expand our business and product offering. We also utilize an efficient marketing mix of social media, in-store signage and premium shelf positioning to drive consumer awareness and reinforce purchases. In addition, we utilize our patented Self-Watering Displays to drive awareness and deliver superior products to our customers consistent with our Zero-Waste Inspired® mission.

Value Proposition. We are part of repositioning the way food is grown, packaged and distributed. We believe this is the next generation of farming that is good for people and our planet. We believe scaling our grow operations in a fully controlled environment will result in a higher optimization on yields together with freshness, taste and texture. In addition, our proposition focuses on intelligent, common-sense approach to growing more with less resources. Our Zero Waste Inspired approach is in everything we do - from innovative recyclable packaging across our product portfolio and enterprise, using less water, electricity and land, integrated pest management and less road miles. Simply Local Simply Fresh delivers all of this together with our local farming partners with an accessible, traceable, organic product at a competitive price.

Technology Platform. Technology and data are competitive differentiators for Edible Garden. Rather than relying on “off-the-shelf” systems, we have created a data-driven technology platform to power traceability and integration across plant production, operations, data analytics and demand planning. Our proprietary platform allows us to consistently monitor and control plant production inputs across our Flagship Facility as well as integrate with all of our contract growers. This allows us to scale throughput with disruption and capture data analytics for better yield and predictability.

Industry Overview

Traditional Outdoor Agriculture.* *The traditional agriculture industry in the United States consists primarily of field crop farms. According to the USDA, the United States had more than 255 million planted acres of farmland in December of 2023. Over the last few decades the acreage has shifted and consolidated to larger and larger farms. Today, large-scale family farms make up just 3 percent of farms in the United States and 42 percent of overall production. Production of produce is also regionalized. The American Farm Bureau Foundation reports that Monterey County in California, home of Salinas Valley, supplies 61% of all leaf lettuce and 56% of head lettuce in the United States.

This regional dependency contributes to long, complex distribution chains, with some produce traveling thousands of miles over several days before reaching store shelves. With the environmental and social macrotrends mentioned herein, we believe traditional field farming is also less prepared to support a growing world population, due to its reliance on large amounts of land and water, both of which are becoming scarcer and less available for food production. We also believe consumer trends continue to want to know where their food comes from together with traceability and food safety (food pathogens - listeria and salmonella) are becoming more important to all business partners and consumers.

Traditional Greenhouse Operators and Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). CEA has gained market share in recent decades as an alternative source of food production. This consists of both greenhouse operating companies and more high-tech greenhouses selling to retailers and grocery stores throughout the country. Despite growth in select crops, greenhouses have not been able to take meaningful market share from traditional field farms in the United States or in the leafy greens market until now. This is a function of shifting consumer trends together with the realization that the planet has finite natural resources. Overall consumer behavior is shifting away from commoditized produce as they associate consumer branded produce as sustainable, safe, and organic all year long that is good for them and the social fabric of our planet. That’s why we believe as a market innovator we can continue to capture market share and brand awareness.

Growth Strategy

We are at an important point as we are operating at a commercially viable scale and ready for the next level of growth with additional greenhouses, processing and finished goods capabilities. Our business plan is to develop, own and operate commercial greenhouses across North America through a combination of organic and acquisitive growth. Presently and in the near term our greenhouse operations will continue to grow herbs and lettuces in conjunction with developing finished goods/consumer products that communicate our brand promise. This combination of growing know-how to inform finished goods with more shelf stability should lead us to additional market penetration while benefiting from expected margin expansion. Additionally, we expect to scale our business by building or acquiring a portfolio of new, fully scaled commercial greenhouses across the Northeast, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, South and Southwest. We plan to locate farms with easy access to distribution centers and major population demographic centers and to sell products into established supermarkets partners and distributors. We expect these full-scale commercial greenhouses to have more production capacity than our current facilities and contract growers and to benefit from economies of scale. We believe this fledgling industry is at an early stage of consolidation and we have the opportunity with our strong channels to market, retailing expertise and technology in CEA to be a leader in this space.

Site selection for future facilities is based on a detailed methodology that weighs factors we believe to be indicative of farm unit economics, operational reliability and market accessibility, among other criteria. Examples include customer access and market depth within a 300-mile radius; the availability, reliability and cost of electricity; construction costs, speed to build, site infrastructure and permitting; and the availability of local labor.

Intellectual Property

We rely on a combination of trademark laws, trade secrets, confidentiality provisions, and other contractual provisions to protect our proprietary rights, which are primarily our inventions, brand names, marks, and proprietary pods and seeds. Edible Garden owns trademarks, has two pending patent applications, and three issued patents in the United States. The issued patents include claims related to greenhouse management software and systems (GreenThumb) and are expected to remain in force until November 2040, provided that all required maintenance fees are paid. One of the two pending patent applications is a recently filed continuation patent application related to greenhouse management software and systems. If this pending patent is granted, it would remain in force until at least November 2040, provided that all required maintenance fees are paid. The other pending patent application is related to automatically watering display stands for herbs and other vegetation. Should this pending patent application be granted, the design patent will remain in force until February 2035, provided that all required maintenance fees are paid for the utility patent.

Research and Product Development

Edible Garden recognizes the consumer acceptance and growth opportunities associated with plant-based derivatives of the products/plants it currently grows. As a leader in sustainability, research and development is a key focus for us moving forward. We sell plant-based nutraceuticals under the Vitamin Way brand. These products are produced by a co-manufacturer according to our specifications. We expect to grow our nutraceuticals product suite with additional products by working with Nutracom, an established developer and contract manufacturer of nutritional products, on new formulations. We believe that expanding into multiple product lines and diversifying from fresh produce to shelf-stable products will increase revenue opportunities.

Our Sustainability Plan - Renew, Reuse, Recycle & Innovate

We adhere to an Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) criteria and set of standards for our operations that is socially conscious. Our Environmental criteria considers how our company performs as a steward of nature. The Social criteria examines how we manage relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the communities where we operate. Our Governance deals with the company’s leadership, executive pay, audits, internal controls and stockholder rights.

Environment: We operate our CEA greenhouse facilities with the goal of being a good steward of nature. With our closed loop systems, we recapture and recycle water into our growing process. We use integrated pest management instead of traditional pesticides in our Flagship Facility, Edible Garden Heartland and all contracted grow facilities. In vertical greenhouses, we are able to grow more herbs and lettuce per square foot than legacy farms. Our GreenThumb software allows us to be more efficient in our packing and shipping process with the goal of reducing excess emission of greenhouse gases and carbon that would result from more trucks transporting our products. The packaging we use is intended to reduce food spoilage and food waste while utilizing bio-based materials, leading to a reduction of plastics in the packaging. In the future, we intend for our greenhouses to take advantage of areas with renewable energy alternatives such as solar, wind, and hydro together with suppliers that support greenhouse gas-free electricity generation, when available. We plan to continue to deliver innovation in the products we use for our packaging and potting, further eliminating plastics from our products with recycled, biodegradable packaging. We continually try to find partners who share our vision and commitment to sustainability. Although we ultimately rely on our partners to maximize their efficiencies, we drive reductions in overall carbon emissions and food miles by growing and delivering from facilities that are as close to our supermarket partners’ distribution centers as possible. We are working to help those partners who are not currently pursuing sustainability goals to move in that direction by raising awareness and providing information and guidance.

Social - Employees: Being local and producing year-round not only allows for competitive produce prices and the opportunity for more consumers to access high quality produce, it also allows our facilities to offer full time, indoor jobs to members of the community, offsetting the seasonal work offered by more traditional agriculture businesses. We are also committed to paying at a living wage, hiring locally, and promoting internally by investing in internal and community training programs to train employees with a skill set that will allow them to be part of the 21st-century workforce in the next generation of farming. We are committed to work with all of our employees to help us understand any issues and to develop and enhance our indoor agriculture training and internal development opportunities, and to advance this commitment, created a committee of employees that provides direct feedback to our management team about potential improvements for our employees.

Social - Community: We will prioritize underserved communities whether urban or rural where our facilities are located. As a company we will continue to develop our corporate mission of giving back to these communities. For example, we give back to our local communities by making charitable contributions to food banks, school systems, community anti-hunger and social reintegration programs. We also partner with Abilities of Northwest Jersey Inc. to offer training in production and manufacturing at our Belvidere, New Jersey, greenhouse for individuals with disabilities, and we were named the Employer of the Year for 2020 by Abilities of Northwest Jersey. These initiatives aim to provide better economic and social results for these underserved communities. Our strategy will be to partner with both local, state and federal programs to help identify investment zones or redevelopment areas that would benefit from one of our greenhouse facilities in their community because of the expected local economic development and employment that would be associated with a new facility. We expect that each of our facilities will employ approximately 35-40 employees in these communities. We plan to consider underserved communities in all our future site selection process.

Governance: Edible Garden looks at diversity as a competitive advantage and strives to be fully supportive of diversity endeavors at all levels of the company. This alignment and focus will aid us in steering our long-term corporate actions in the right direction. Our goal is to build diversity across the whole enterprise with specific focus on the management team and Board of Directors (the “Board”). Our nominating and governance committee is responsible for overseeing these fundamental areas.

2023 Sustainability, Waste Reduction and Carbon Emission Avoidance

The following measures demonstrate Edible Garden’s ongoing commitment to sustainability, waste reduction and carbon neutrality for 2023:

Total estimated emissions avoided in 2023: 115,574 metric tons of CO 2.

Regulatory Compliance

As a producer and distributor of food products, we are subject to the laws and regulations in the jurisdictions where our facilities are located and where are products are distributed. In particular we are subject to the FSM Act, which is enforced by the FDA. The FDA has the authority to regulate the growing, harvesting manufacture, including composition and ingredients, processing, labeling, packaging import, distribution and marketing and safety of food in the United States. The FSM Act significantly enhances the FDA's authority over various aspects of food regulation. For example, the FSM Act granted the FDA mandatory recall authority when the FDA determines there is a reasonable probability that a food is adulterated or misbranded and that the use of, or exposure to, the food will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. While the FDA has been active in implementing the requirements of the FSM Act through issuance of regulations designed to result in a reduction of the risk of contamination in food manufacturing, the full impact of the FSM Act is not yet known, and we cannot assure you that it will not materially impact our business. Regulatory agencies in other jurisdictions have similar authority to address the risk of contamination or adulteration, and to require that contaminated products be removed from the market. The failure to comply with these laws and regulations in any jurisdiction, or to obtain required approvals, could result in a ban or temporary suspension on the production of our products or limit or bar their distribution, and affect our development of new products, and thus could materially adversely affect our business and operating results. In addition, the USDA regulates the import and export of certain fruits and vegetables into and from the United States, and the USDA also imposes growing, manufacturing and certification requirements for certain products labeled with organic claims. Failure to obtain necessary permits or otherwise comply with USDA regulations and requirements could result in a ban or temporary suspension of our ability to grow, manufacture or market our products as organic, and thus could materially adversely affect our business.

Corporate History and Structure

Our business is a successor business of a subsidiary of Terra Tech Corp. (previously known as Unrivaled Brands, Inc., now known as Blum Holdings, Inc.) (“Terra Tech”). We purchased substantially all of the assets of Edible Garden Corp., a subsidiary of Terra Tech, from Terra Tech as of March 30, 2020. Our company was incorporated on March 28, 2020 in the State of Wyoming as Edible Garden Inc. We subsequently changed our name to Edible Garden AG Incorporated on July 20, 2020, and we effected a stock split of 20 for 1 as of October 14, 2020. Effective July 7, 2021, our parent company, Edible Garden Holdings Inc., merged with and into us with us as the surviving entity. We converted into a Delaware corporation effective July 12, 2021. On September 8, 2021, we effected an additional forward stock split of 20 for 1. On January 26, 2023, we effected a reverse stock split of 1 for 30. As of December 31, 2023, we had 124 employees, of which 116 were full-time employees.

Our principal address is 283 County Road 519, Belvidere, NJ 07823. Our telephone number is (908) 750-3953. We maintain a website atediblegardenag.com. The information contained on our website is not, and should not be interpreted to be, incorporated into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The SEC maintains a website atwww.sec.gov that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC.