The U.S. firm CropKing Inc was founded in 1982to help growers set themselves up in commercial vegetable crop production usinghydroponics in controlled environments. “The company’s strategy has always beento sell complete packages, which include the greenhouse structures, theheating, cooling, environmental control, growing system, etc., teaching how touse them and providing ongoing technical support,” explains Paul Brentlinger,president and co-owner.
Max Salinger and Paul Brentlinger of CropKing
In addition to being a one-stop shop,CropKing also offers solutions to greenhouse growers in need of particularequipment, supplies, and growing systems. “With the expansion and change in theindustry, we are actually seeing more of this today; a large part of the business isretrofitting existing structures. We are selling more greenhouse growingsystems now than ever before,” affirms Paul.
In this sense, there is a move from growersswitching from flowers to hydroponic vegetables, as they see the potential gaininvolved. Paul explains that “from a local food production standpoint, they seelocal grocers putting out big marketing campaigns and focusing on buying local,and they feel they should experiment with edibles and see what the market islike.”
There is also a switch in the productsgrown by the company’s customers. Paul states that tomatoes and vine crops are notas popular as 10 years ago, when they represented about 70% of the market.“Today, 50-55% is NFT lettuce, as hydroponics has become more common amongstthe big guys growing vine crops and our wheelhouse has traditionally been thesmaller family farms.”
Paul affirms that, for people whounderstand hydroponics, NFT is the Ferrari of systems when it comes to lettuce.“If you want the absolute top quality, you need NFT. It’s not as worry-free asa pond system, but from a quality standpoint, you can produce a prettier, largercrop in an NFT system.”
CropKing regularly holds workshops acrossthe United States at locations of existing customers; these are aimed not onlyat promotion, but also at showcasing the results achieved with their systems.“This allows potential clients to talk with real growers and see an operatingcommercial facility, not just a research / test greenhouse. It also allows potential growers to get anidea of what “a day in the life of a grower” looks like.” states Paul.
CropKing has clients in all 50 states inthe U.S. and has sold growing systems in some 20 countries around the world,including Japan, the UAE, Philippines or Mexico.
Check their website at www.cropking.com or call CropKing at 330-302-4203 for additional information.
For more information
CropKing Inc.
Karen Burke - Sales & Marketing
134 West Dr. Lodi, OH 44254
T: (330) 302-4203
F: (330) 302-4204
kburke@cropking.com
www.cropking.com