About Us

In 2010, the town of Jackson, WY issued an open call for ideas on how to best use a sliver of land. The plot was small, awkward, and mostly overlooked until one proposal emerged to solve two local challenges at once: the importation of over 90% of the community’s fresh produce and meaningful employment for local residents with disabilities, who often face high unemployment rates and limited access to opportunity.

Vertical Harvest was born from the radical idea that we could grow food and futures, too. And through an innovative public-private partnership, we were able to build North America’s first vertical greenhouse, capable of growing fresh produce year-round and creating customized employment for people with disabilities.

Since opening our doors in 2016, we’ve become a beloved part of the Jackson community, with 40% percent of our farm team identifying with a disability. More importantly, we’ve proved that producing great food alongside real social impact can inspire incredible customer loyalty and love. Along the way we’ve worked with world class chefs in both Jackson Hole & Portland to develop greens with flavor profiles that pop, blends that boldly stand up to getting dressed down and lettuce that lasts in your fridge well past the weekly grocery run.

Since then, we’ve completed our Series A in 2022, opened our new farm in Westbrook, Maine, and seeded a pipeline of future farms that promise to grow this local idea into a national network of community-based, social enterprises.

Grow Well is the program we created to optimize our employees’ human potential. It’s how we’re able to customize employment so we can run a truly integrated workplace environment.

It has 3 main components:

Work Well – Professional Development that leverages the tenents of human potential to create an ecosystem of accessible opportunity and support to help individuals grow into new skillsets, roles and professional disciplines.

Be Well – Personal Effectiveness uses the seven dimensions of wellness to ground the employee experience in setting and accomplishing meaningful goals in context of overall well-being, values, and priorities.​

Do Well – Community Building reorients the individual from “me” (self-actualization) to “we” (engaged citizenship) and encourages collective action to create, strengthen, and improve the communities where we live and work.

Grow Well is emblematic of Competitive Integrated Employment or CIE and is smart business. Companies that embrace inclusive hiring gain access to a highly motivated, untapped talent pool—people who bring problem-solving skills, dedication, and fresh perspectives. It starts with meeting people where they are—working with local disability organizations, workforce development agencies, and vocational programs to ensure that job seekers with disabilities know about and have access to our opportunities. So instead of fitting people into rigid job descriptions, we design roles around people’s strengths – which results in higher engagement and retention. We also ensure that the application process is accessible, removing barriers that often keep people from even getting in the door.

The result? Our workforce is tight-knit, collaborative, and highly engaged. Many employees say working at Vertical Harvest has helped them become better teammates and leaders. And together, we believe we’re reinventing the future of work.