Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, July 23 (Xinhua)-- Square Roots, a high-tech agricultural company co-founded by Elon Musk's younger brothers Kimbask and Tobias Peggs, was founded in 2016, rapidly expanded to five locations, and announced a partnership with Gordon Food Service in 2019. The company uses containers and artificial light sources to grow vanilla and salad vegetables in order to localize food production and make agricultural production non-stop all year round. However, the company abruptly announced on Tuesday that it would close most of its bases and lay off most of its employees.

Peggs informed employees at a Zoom meeting on Tuesday that the company would stop production in Springfield, Ohio, Shepherdville, Kentucky and Kenosha, Wisconsin, according to two former employees who were laid off. Among them, the Kenosha base is the largest of the company, which only opened in August this year, and the Shepardville base has been in operation for less than three months.

Another former employee who works at the Grand Rapids, Michigan base, said they were told that one of the two farms in the area had been closed and that the other would continue to operate to support the company's new business model. It is reported that the company retained only about 10 employees at the Grand Rapids base, while all on-site employees at other locations were fired. CTOnews.com noted that the company closed its initial farm in Brooklyn, New York, in January and laid off about 50 people at the time.

The exact number of layoffs is not known. As of June, the company estimated that it had about 198 employees, according to PitchBook.

Peggs told employees at the meeting that the company would shift its focus from its own packaging to more support for business partners, such as Gordon Food Services. The company told local media that Square Roots was changing its business model to focus on "agriculture as a service". "We now operate our temperature-controlled farms only for our strategic partners-whether to immediately ensure the supply of high-quality crops or to explore new ways to grow high-calorie food indoors for profit," the company said. As a result of this shift, we have had to suspend the commercial production of some facilities and reconfigure them to make them more suitable for serving customers in the 'agriculture as a service' mode. and we look forward to restarting these facilities in the future. "

Employees learned via email shortly after the Zoom meeting whether their positions had been affected, and former employees at the Grand Rapids base said their work mailboxes were suddenly locked after they learned that they had been fired. " It's very sudden and a blow to these good employees, "the former employee said." many of us feel like we have to start from scratch. There aren't many hydroponic agricultural startups in Michigan, so it's hard for everyone. "

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