This Macon greenhouse’s approach to farming ‘pays off in your fridge.’ See it.
A new high-tech greenhouse in Macon grows lettuce without human hands ever touching it – and without the use of pesticides or GMOs, either.
BrightFarms, a Cox Enterprises company and a national leader in indoor farming, has opened its new 8-acre greenhouse in Macon that is bringing in new agriculture jobs. The company delivers locally grown leafy greens at peak freshness to grocery stores across the Southeast.
“The facility represents a major commitment to Georgia’s agricultural industry — creating over 250 new jobs once fully completed, supporting workforce development across the state, and improving access to fresh, locally grown food throughout the Southeast,” BrightFarms said in a press release.
The greenhouse had a grand opening in Macon Thursday, but its first harvest was in December. The company has harvested at the facility every single day since, according to Abby Prior, chief commercial officer of BrightFarms.
Once fully built out, the Macon greenhouse could produce up to 350 million pounds of lettuce a year, according to Steven Bradley, president of Cox Farms, which is part of Cox Enterprises.
Cox Enterprises is a family-owned company based in Atlanta that runs major businesses in internet, automotive services, and now, sustainable farming. The company first invested in BrightFarms in 2018 and fully acquired it in 2021. In 2024, Cox launched a new division called Cox Farms to bring BrightFarms and other indoor agriculture ventures into a single platform focused on growing fresh, local produce year-round.
BrightFarms has committed to donating 3 million pounds of fresh produce this year, including a recent donation that made 24,000 salads for underserved communities in Macon through a partnership with Feeding America, according to Bradley.
BrightFarms and its parent company, Cox Farms, aim to make fresh, healthy produce more accessible and sustainable. Their goal is to build a better future for the next generation by rethinking how food is grown, distributed and consumed, Bradley said.
The greenhouse mechanically seeds, grows, harvests and packages in one location, resulting in optimal freshness for the consumer by minimizing transportation miles and eliminating the processing plant where cross-contamination can happen.
There’s no chemicals used in the process either, and by being grown in a greenhouse, the greens are sheltered from the unpredictability of uncontrollable natural occurrences.
“An outdoor crop has to go through heat and wind and drought and all the things that can make it susceptible and weaker to decay,” said Prior. “Because we can control the environment here entirely, we enable a plant to thrive to its best and most rigorous self, which ultimately pays off in your fridge.”
BrightFarms’ hydroponic indoor farms are sustainable too, yielding 10 times more leafy greens per acre than growing in an outdoor field and using 80% less water, 90% less land and 95% less shipping fuel than long-distance field grown produce, according to the company’s website.
How it works
The life of BrightFarms’ leafy green begins in the germination room, where seeds are mechanically planted into a plastic gutter. In this dark, temperature-controlled room, the seeds sprout under conditions designed to mimic what would happen underground in traditional soil.
The seeded gutters are later transferred to the greenhouse, where the seedlings are exposed to light and a carefully controlled environment.
Environmental conditions such as temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide levels are controlled using LED lights and retractable shades. Beneath the gutters a microclimate is created through tubes of air and nutrient-rich water.
The greens grow for about 21 days, depending on the variety of lettuce. As the plants mature, the growers monitor everything to ensure consistent quality and yield. When it’s time to harvest, the gutters are moved to a cooled harvest room where a blade clips the leafy tops.
The leaves then travel up a conveyor belt for washing and packaging, while the gutters, which are now empty, are cleaned and reused in a circular system that keeps waste to a minimum.
The packaged greens are then cooled quickly to below 40 degrees to preserve shelf life and freshness. Because everything happens under one roof, BrightFarms can ship its greens to regional grocery stores within 24 hours of harvest, and often even quicker than that, according to Prior.
This story was originally published June 9, 2025 at 3:21 PM.
