WORCESTER

Worcester’s Rydro Farming extends growing season for indoor tomatoes

Peter S. Cohan

The parents of a Worcester native moved to Holden when he was 4, and now, he’s leading a company — out of Startup Worcester — that’s developing lights aimed at extending the growing season for tomatoes grown indoors.

The local farmer is Nolan Ryan, a Bryant University graduate, who founded Rydro Farming and is also vice president of a commercial real estate brokerage in Worcester called NAI Glickman Kovago & Jacobs.

Before launching Rydro Farming, he tried out other career options. As Mr. Ryan explained in a July 15 interview, “I started working when I was 15  years old. I would shovel snow in the winter and clean apartments during the summer for Real Living Barbera Associates. My first internship was with a biomedical consulting company called Navin, Haffty & Associates after my freshman year of college. It was there I got an understanding of how to conduct myself in a professional environment and got experience working on real corporate projects. I spent two summers there — one in the accounting department and one in the quality control department.”

Mr. Ryan then tried his hand at finance before starting his position at NAI Glickman Kovago & Jacobs. “After that, I had an internship with a French investment company based out of Aix-en-Provence. I worked there for four months and laid the groundwork to set up a pension scheme in Malta for their French expat clients. That was a fantastic experience as I was able to work directly with a founding partner and gain insight into how to form and set up business partnerships. From there I worked at Unum as a scholar in their rating department for 10 months,” he said.

These experiences have given Mr. Ryan insights into his strengths — which he sees as his ability to work with people; to communicate his thoughts and ideas; to build and maintain professional relationships; and to improve his knowledge. He says he is “working to improve his time management and organization.”

Rydro Farming got started in 2016 and began growing and selling tomatoes in June 2018. As Mr. Ryan said, “It took two years for me to put all the pieces together to create a workable grow facility. I renovated a barn and built the greenhouse on my own.”

He sees a big opportunity for the company to create economic value for its customers. “People are demanding healthier options for produce and want their food to be grown locally. By designing a 365 harvestable operation, Rydro Farming can provide local produce to the Northeast, even during the dead of winter. In addition to this, Rydro Farming is developing specific lighting recipes for tomatoes and plans to expand into other nightshade fruit.”

The key to tapping this opportunity is to manage the transition from one type of lighting to another. “Traditionally, greenhouses have used [high pressure sodium vapor] HPS lighting to supplement low light levels during the winter months in order to give the plants the energy they require to produce fruits or vegetables. Within the next five to 10 years, most greenhouses will shift from HPS lighting to [light-emitting diode] LED for energy savings. With this shift comes the ability to control [the specific color of] light the plant receives. Different light spectrums promote certain growth within plants,” he said.

Rydro Farming has two sources of revenue. The first is selling the tomatoes it grows to supermarkets — some of which are looking to cut costs by growing produce onsite — and restaurants. The second sounds to me like it could be more of a challenge — “[licensing or consulting to] other grow operations on exactly what types of light spectrums they should use for each individual variety of plants they are growing,” noted Mr. Ryan.

Rydro Farming’s rivals include “grow operations experimenting with LED lighting, such as Backyard Farms in Madison, Maine. Competitors would choose Rydro because we produce locally, which translates into better taste and quality produce,” he said.

The advantages of being in Startup Worcester for Rydro Farming are “the exposure and connections.” As Mr. Ryan explained, “I am able to make on behalf of my business. Many people do not view agriculture as a profitable investment and so making them aware of the opportunities can be challenging. A challenge for my business is that I need to prepare and really narrow down on how I want to proceed with executing my expansion plan. I wholeheartedly believe in the concept and feel others will as well, but like many other great ideas, execution is everything.”

Peter Cohan of Marlboro heads a management consulting and venture capital firm, and teaches business strategy and entrepreneurship at Babson College. His email address is peter@petercohan.com.