About this episode
Clayton Farms Airing 7/24/23 John Deere Pre-Roll Today’s episode is brought to you by Pattern Ag, predicting pest and pathogen risk in your fields. Don’t gamble with your yields, go to www.pattern.ag today! Around the Room – why do you need a Farm4Profit conversation today? As hosts what are you most looking forward to with this guest today? Remind people to hit SUBSCRIBE – REMEMBER TO LEAVE REVIEWS Especially on YouTube Thank the listeners and launch into the introduction! Guest: Clayton Mooney Before becoming a co-founder of Clayton Farms, Mooney was a professional poker player in Ireland before returning to the state looking for opportunities to work for or found a start-up. He was a founder of KinoSol, which made solar food dehydrators, then connected with Pool to found Nebullam, now Clayton Farms. He now serves as an entrepreneur in residence with Start Something College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) Guest: Huey Boelen - Huey B Cool Immigrant from the Netherlands, former cricket and dairy farmer, lover of social media and great stories, and a great friend of Farm4Profit. Who is Clayton Farms? History, Mission, Vision “Bring you the freshest, locally grown food” Greens grown/harvested in an driven indoor farm Founded in 2017 - by Clayton Mooney and Danen pool Original concept of designing, building, and selling a new generation of indoor farming equipment, then licensing the software to run indoor farms to buyers to run themselves Built demonstration farm at Iowa State University Research Park Selling lettuce and microgreens to local restaurants when COVID-19 hit How did you survive during the pandemic? How did you receive business from other restaurants? Did this lead to doorstep delivery? Background Food harvest/grown in neighborhood No pesticides Harvested and delivered same day all year around What they’re growing Lettuce, radish, sunflower, beet, bok choy, pea, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, arugula, chard How the subscription works: Choose items → get delivery times → delivered to door-step→ reusable packaging Locations: Ames, IA and Twin Cities Twin Cities location Received keys to building to harvest plants in 8 weeks What made you come to the idea of your company? Did you grow up with an ag background? Where did your interest grow in ag? Did you have a greenhouse beforehand? Why Iowa? Agriculture state - accessibility to ISU researches and ability to hire ISU alumni Iowa’s startup ecosystem - Iowa State CyStarters and ISU Startup Factory Ag StartupEngine invested in Clayton Farms in 2017 - follow-on investment in 2019 What other demographics would fit his company? Have there been challenges to selling people to subscribe? What promotions have you used? The Grow Room Launched in October 2022 A space for founders to not only work, but collaborate and connect at the ISU Research Park Where do you see the impacting the community? What students are you seeing interested in it? The Restaurant at North Grand Mall What are you most excited for in the future? What did we miss? Summary and Challenge If you could go back to talk to yourself at age 18, what would you say? Want Farm4Profit Merch? Custom order your favorite items today! https://farmfocused.com/farm-4profit/ Don’t forget to like the podcast on all platforms and leave a review where ever you listen! Website: www.Farm4Profit.com Shareable episode link: https://intro-to-farm4profit.simplecast.com Email address: Farm4profitllc@gmail.com Call/Text: 515.207.9640 Subscribe to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSR8c1BrCjNDDI_Acku5Xqw Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@farm4profitllc Connect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Farm4ProfitLLC/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.