Vertical Farming Podcast

#1 Ranked! Inspiring conversations with CEOs, Founders & Visionaries of Vertical Farming. Hosted by @IAMHarryDuran. Guest & Sponsor inquiries👇

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1. 🧐 What if I told you mushrooms could change your life? Meet John James Staniszewski, a man whose journey from nightclubs to fungi is nothing short of transformative. 🍄✨ #MushroomMystery @TheFungitarian

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[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

"That's when we built a prototype and we purchased a wine cooler and stripped it out, just used the insulated box with the door and put a couple of thousand dollars worth of controls on it..." - David Sandelman #VerticalFarmPod https://t.co/qrpNJVWgDF

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

"We are a process system that's designed for the process of getting your proper product to the right water activity for shelf stability versus applying conventional comfort cooling equipment to accomplish it." - David Sandelman #VerticalFarmPod https://t.co/qrpNJVWgDF

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

10/ New clues emerged: Could this tech change hops? Tea? Anything with trichomes and precious aromas? David Sandelman is just getting started. The secret: Control isn’t about rigidity—it’s about precision. Letting nature express itself, perfectly preserved.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

9/ The biggest mystery: Why did it take so long? Because agriculture runs on tradition, on gut feel, on “the way Grandpa did it.” David Sandelman saw the pattern—just like steakhouse chefs, just like master sommeliers. But what if you could make that mastery replicable?

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

8/ What about shelf life, yield, and consistency? With the new method, no more panicked weekends moving product. No more guessing games. No more flavor roulette. Quality went up, labor went down, profits grew.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

7/ But why? Microscopes told the tale. Conventional drying ruptured 25–30% of trichome heads—the very glands holding terpenes and cannabinoids. David Sandelman’s stable environment? Only 1–2% ruptured. The magic was in the preservation.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

6/ Enter the “Vapor Pressure Troll” prototype: a wine cooler, repurposed with $2,000 worth of sensors. The test grower scoffed—until he tasted the flower. “This is the best I've ever grown." Mystery deepened.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

5/ What if this same quiet science could unlock secrets in other industries? Cheese led to charcuterie. Then… to cannabis. “Why are people drying cannabis like this?” David Sandelman wondered. The evidence didn’t add up.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

4/ Here’s the twist: David Sandelman wasn’t just a cheese nerd. He was the inventor of the digital clock thermostat in the late '70s—the kind that revolutionized every Home Depot in America. He knew “control” like few others.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

3/ But you can’t dig a cave in Vermont's granite. So David Sandelman built the cave above ground… and cheesemakers started winning awards. They even said they could sleep through the night. The first clues, cracked.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

2/ The culprit? It wasn’t just temperature. It wasn’t just humidity. It was something much subtler—stable vapor pressure, the hidden force inside those ancient cheese caves. David Sandelman turned detective, tracing the environmental fingerprints of every legendary cheese.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

🧵1/ In a quiet corner of Vermont, a problem was festering among local cheesemakers. Cheese was going bad, ribbons were lost, sleep was lost. But no one knew why. Enter David Sandelman, a restauranteur with a knack for control… and a taste for solving mysteries.

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

"Dynamic lighting was something that I was vaguely familiar with. I knew there were a lot of changes in LEDs, and the one thing I knew I didn't want to do is just be a box pusher." - Andrew Volpetti #VerticalFarmPod https://t.co/Xy1ipzRXrI

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

"I think a lot of the hype bubble, which did pop, and everyone using that trough of disillusionment graph ad nauseam, I think it was good to see. And I think everyone is appreciating it more." - Andrew Volpetti #VerticalFarmPod https://t.co/Xy1ipzRXrI

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

10/ All of it leads to bigger questions: How do we bring food to deserts? How do we empower growers to be caretakers of their land and their communities? Should everyone stash a packet of organic seeds, just in case?
#VerticalFarming #IndoorAg #SustainableFarming #CEA

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

1/ Harry Duran welcomes Andrew Volpetti, Business Development Director for North America at Red Horticulture, fresh from the energy of Indoor Ag Con. But this year, something’s in the air. The hype? Deflated. The mood? Somber, yet… hopeful.
#VerticalFarming

[Vertical Farming Podcast @VerticalFarmPod]

9/ The plot thickens with rebates—a labyrinth where knowledge is power. Navigating state-by-state, provider-by-provider mazes can make lights nearly free (with labor and downtime factored in), if you know the tricks.