Over 100 jobs on the chopping block at Bowery Farming in Bethlehem, notice says

Manhattan-based Bowery Farming, Inc. plans to cut more than 100 jobs at its 15,000-square-foot Bethlehem site , according to Pennsylvania's Department of Labor and Industry .

The 104 cuts were supposed to go into effect Nov. 1 at the vertical farming business, 1025 Feather Way.

The confirmed amount of employees was announced this week in a Department of Labor in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act Notice. The notice is mandated by U.S. labor law and requires companies with 100 or more employees to provide 60 days' advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs.

The regional Bowering Farming site is located at VIP VII, a 1,000-acre component of the Bethlehem Commerce Center along Route 412 that Lehigh Valley Industrial Park Inc. It opened in May 2022 on former Bethlehem Steel Corp. land.

The nation's largest vertical farm company broke ground in December 2020 in Bethlehem on what Bowery then touted as its most technologically advanced project.

The site became its third and largest facility across its Mid-Atlantic footprint. Bowery Farming additionally then operated three research-and-development facilities, plus two other commercial farms in Kearny, New Jersey, and Nottingham, Maryland, outside Baltimore. There were plans for future commercial farms in Arlington, Texas, and Atlanta, Georgia.

Bowery officials haven't returned repeated requests for more information. The Bethlehem site currently is listed on google maps as being "permanently closed."

A report on verticalfarmdaily , however, states Bowery is shutting down all of its farms. Since its foundation in 2015, the company has secured over $700 million and employed over 500 employees, the report states.

Bowery Farming's former headquarters in the center of Manhattan was up until recently available for rent, according to a listing on LoopNet . The Bethlehem site is no longer up for lease, according to verticalfarmdaily and LoopNet.

Bowery's former R&D facility in Kearny at 10 Basin Drive has been available for lease since March 31, 2023. Bowery Farming Kearny Farm at 1 Eastern Road has been available for lease since Oct. 22. The Nottingham facility in Maryland has been available for lease since June 7, the report states.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and local dignitaries were on hand in May 2022 to celebrate and tour the Bethlehem facility. Wolf said at the time that Pennsylvania agriculture was a $132.5 billion industry, supporting nearly 600,000 statewide jobs.

Bowery invested at least $32 million in the project. State Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Lehigh/Northampton, previously said the project would not have come to fruition without a collective public-private effort backed by the federal, state and local governments.

The Bethlehem farm was touted as Bowery's "smartest farm yet." It was built on 8.7 acres, powered with 100% renewable energy and featured 15% more efficient LED lighting.

Bowery's Bethlehem Farm specifically was poised to bring fresh produce to a population of 50 million people within a 200-mile radius through regional retail customers. Working with local distributors, including Four Seasons Produce, Bowery produce also was to be available to specialty and independent grocery partners throughout the region.