Little Leaf Farms to Build New CEA Facility in Manchester, Tennessee
Little Leaf Farms will expand its production capabilities, building a new controlled environment agriculture (CEA) facility in Manchester, Tenn., to produce its “indoor-grown” salads for more consumers across the Midwest, Southeast and Texas.
The new, 215-acre site, initially will hold 40 acres of greenhouse space with an option to expand to 80 acres. Construction is expected to start this summer with completion anticipated in Fall 2026. The Tennessee facility is expected to create several hundred jobs over five years.
Little Leaf Farms announces the new facility as it celebrates a decade of growth, serving more than 7,000 grocery stores and more than half the U.S. population with CEA-grown leafy greens products from its existing complexes in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania facility, in fact, has been the site of a couple expansions in the last year.
Little Leaf Farms is capable of growing fresh lettuce 365 days a year in its CEA greenhouses, using captured rainwater, natural sunlight (shining through high-transmission glass) and solar-powered energy in its soil-less hydroponic farming setups. Little Leaf’s baby greens are harvested without ever being touched by human hands and grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides or fungicides.
