The Brief

One of the world’s most high-tech indoor vertical farms is right here in Southern California, in Compton.

I headed there to find out more about what role indoor farming may play in the future of food. As increasingly extreme weather driven by human-caused pollution in the atmosphere makes it harder — if not impossible — to farm outside in formerly high-producing regions, could farming indoors be part of the solution?

I admit I’m pretty skeptical of this high-tech farming. How practical is it? What are the tradeoffs? And how much does this farm really benefit Compton?

Those were the questions I wanted to answer as I pulled into the parking lot of a clean white warehouse in north central Compton. The formerly empty warehouse is across from a neighborhood and next to a larger industrial building and yard full of big-rig trucks.

Inside, is the flagship commercial-scale farm developed by San Francisco-based startup Plenty. It officially opened last May and is the West Coast’s largest indoor vertical farm.

When I walk in I’m greeted by cool air conditioning and Erin Santy, the company’s media liaison. She walks me upstairs to the mezzanine. From there, I can see huge robot arms moving tall, thin towers of greens.

“When you say farming, this is not what I think of, but how cool that it can be?” Santy said. “Fifty years from now, what will people think of?”

The indoor vertical farm in Compton is highly automated.

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Why farm indoors? 

Within 100,000 square feet, the farm can grow some four million pounds of spinach, kale, spring mix and arugula every year. That amount adds up to about 16 million of those packages of greens we see at the grocery store. And it's produced within a much smaller area than what's need to grow the same amount outside.

They sell at Whole Foods, Bristol Farms, Gelson’s and most Walmarts in Southern California. They just launched a partnership with 7/11 to sell salads there too.

“We want to be able to deliver a locally grown fresh product and part of that is how do we get it closer to the people who are eating it?” Santy said. “Some of that is about growing in a more urban and dense area like Compton.”

An aerial view of the indoor farm in Compton.

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She said the prices are on par with organic for now, since it’s so expensive to build these farms and they’re not common. But she said the prices don’t fluctuate like conventionally grown greens because they’re not affected by weather volatility or supply chain disruptions.

One of the biggest perks of indoor farming is that it can use as much as 98% less water than conventional farming, said researcher Shamim Ahamed, who studies advanced farming techniques at UC Davis. But he said the biggest drawback is that it also uses a lot of electricity. That’s because they need to use artificial light to grow the plants as well as keep specific temperatures inside.

“That's basically the prime reason for having a high carbon footprint,” Ahamed told LAist.

He said because the power grid is getting cleaner overall, that footprint will continue to go down. And there are lots of ways these indoor farms can use energy really efficiently or generate their own cleaner energy on site, Ahamed said.

Erin Santy, media liaison for the startup Plenty.

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Erin Stone

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Santy said Plenty used solar to generate their energy on their far smaller pilot farm in Northern California, but she said they didn't go that route for their Compton site because they don't have the space for the number of panels they'd need. She said the amount of electricity generated by putting panels on their rooftop would be essentially negligible and didn't pencil out. She added the current mix they're paying for from the power grid is currently about 40% renewable sources.

And, Ahamed pointed out, conventional agriculture also has a huge carbon footprint. Mostly due to land use changes, livestock and soil depletion, large-scale farming accounts for about a quarter of human-caused global greenhouse gas emissions and about 10% of the U.S.’ total greenhouse gas emissions.

Plenty's indoor vertical farm in Compton is in a formerly empty warehouse.

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But there are limits, at least right now, to what food can be farmed indoors in this way. Ahamed said indoor vertical farming works for certain crops, such as leafy greens, strawberries and tomatoes — crops that are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, he said.

While Ahamed said indoor farming can’t completely replace farming outdoors, he said it does play a role in the future of our food.

How the farm works

Before going inside Plenty’s Compton farm, we have to get dressed in full protective gear and sanitize everything.

The greens never get touched by human hands: The environment is kept so clean they don’t need pesticides. That means they also don’t need to be washed before being eaten, so the greens don’t get that “triple wash” like many we buy at the grocery store.

Machines place seeds in a soil tray at Plenty's indoor farm in Compton.

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That, plus the fact they’re grown so much closer to the stores where they end up, means Plenty’s greens have a longer shelf life, staying fresh for as many as 21 days, Santy said.

Once we’re fully suited up, we head inside.

Seed trays getting irrigated with a precise amount of water in the seeding room.

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First stop is the seeding room. Seed trays run along a conveyor belt, where machines place a precise number of seeds into the soil, then squirt just enough water and nutrients on top.

Then we head into a brightly lit room full of colorful lights called the propagation room. I can’t take pictures — the specific combination of artificial light in here is proprietary because it’s the company’s secret sauce for helping the plants grow faster. They’re ready to harvest in around 30 days, instead of the 60 to 90 it would take outside in the field, Santy said.

After a couple weeks in this room, the baby plants are routed on a conveyor belt to a series of robots that pull them from the trays and place them into growing towers that are several stories high.

“Imagine how delicate the fingers of that robot have to be to lift it without ripping the plant or tearing the roots,” Santy said.

Robot "fingers" pluck plants from trays and place them in a growing tower, where they'll eventually be ready to harvest.

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Then, the towers full of plants are transferred by a much larger robot arm to another conveyor system that moves them into the final growing room.

“When you're able to stand in front of a 30 foot wall of lettuce, that’s when it gets really cool,” said Yatae Lewis, the farm’s site operations manager. “I tell people I work at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.”

The light in here is super powerful and also proprietary. This is where the plants stay for a couple weeks until they’re ready for harvest. Stories of lush purple and green spring mix and kale and spinach tower above me.

And it’s humid. All the water the plants in this room respirate, or essentially sweat out, is recycled. That helps the farm use about 90% less water than conventional growing, Santy said.

The final growing room. The light is proprietary, which is why LAist couldn't take its own photos. That artificial light helps the plants grow about twice as fast as they would in the field.

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Courtesy Plenty

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Leafy greens grow inside a high-tech indoor vertical farm based in Compton and developed by San Francisco-based startup Plenty.

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Courtesy Plenty

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What the farm means for Compton

Farming is actually nothing new to Compton. In the early 1900s, Compton was an agricultural hub. Compton Creek, a major tributary to the L.A. River, made for a reliable water source and rich soil. Southern California sunshine made for ideal growing conditions.

Compton’s Mayor Emma Sharif said the Plenty indoor farm is a way to bring that legacy back in a new way.

“This isn't just a nod to our past. It's a bold step into the future of farming,” she told LAist.

A robot "arm" that moves the towers of greens onto a conveyer belt that takes them to the final growing room, where they'll be ready to harvest after a couple weeks.

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And Sharif said a big reason she supported the company coming to Compton was that it brings needed jobs. Part of the city’s agreement with Plenty is that at least a third of the farm’s 70 employees have to be from Compton. As of now about 31% are, said Yatae Lewis, the farm’s site operations manager.

Lewis grew up in Long Beach and has lived in Compton for 20 years.

Yatae Lewis is the site operations manager at Plenty's indoor farm in Compton.

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“Compton is known for so many things,” Lewis said. “Indoor farming is absolutely not one of them. So being a part of changing the narrative of Compton was something that I absolutely jumped at.”

He’s worked here for three years, and watched the farm go from empty warehouse to indoor growing powerhouse. He said that while the number of jobs may not be high, the quality is.

“We want jobs, and not only jobs, we want good jobs,” Lewis said. “And not only good jobs, we have jobs that we can brag about. If we can do that for 30% of the workforce, that's amazing.”

Yatae Lewis holds leafy greens in a photo from 2022, before Plenty officially launched its flagship commercial indoor farm in Compton.

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Lewis said the jobs for Compton locals range from field techs to growers to managers. The majority of roles in the farm have no educational requirements and they offer competitive pay as well as benefits, Santy said. Lewis said one of their Compton employees was able to afford her dream of traveling to South Korea for a K-pop concert recently.

“If we have an individual that now has a passport and can see the world and bring that back to Compton because they work at Plenty, that's what we're rooting for,” Lewis said.

Lewis, who also serves as Plenty’s community liaison, said the company has partnered with the Compton Run Club to co-host events and fundraisers, and they have partnerships with seven local middle schools to highlight STEM education.

“I have a 13-year-old, and he's into robots, he's into engineering, he's into computer coding,” Lewis said. “When I bring him to a bring-your-kid-to-work day and he sees the robots and he talks to the engineers, his mind is blown. It's very humbling and encouraging that my son's dream job can be five minutes away in the city that he lives in.”

State regulators voted Thursday to stop Southern California Gas Co. from charging customers to help pay for planning miles of pipelines that would bring hydrogen gas to the L.A. Basin.

The company says the project would reduce the region’s reliance on methane gas.

Southern California Gas estimates it would cost about $266 million to study and plan the project — called Angeles Link — and asked the state Public Utilities Commission to allow it to recover those costs through customer rates. The company had proposed a monthly increase of $0.35 on the average residential customer bill over the course of three years.

The commission unanimously rejected the request, saying the company had not proved any direct benefit to customers. The decision effectively halts the project for now, and comes amid a stall in federal funding for hydrogen projects under the Trump administration.

Local environmental groups involved in the community advisory process had also grown frustrated by negotiations that they said, in a letter to state regulators, “does not prioritize genuine community engagement.”

As global pollution levels continue to climb, the commission’s decision also highlights the growing challenge of transitioning to a cleaner energy supply amid rising utility bills and open questions about the safety and true environmental cost of largely untested technology.

Why hydrogen?

Hydrogen is a colorless gas that is considered "clean" because it doesn’t involve carbon, which — when burned to create energy — becomes carbon dioxide, a major planet-heating gas.

But it takes energy to produce hydrogen, and most hydrogen these days is created by burning fossil fuels. “Green” hydrogen is created by using clean energy sources like solar and wind to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.

SoCal Gas said the Angeles Link project would prioritize green hydrogen.

Most experts see green hydrogen as an important clean-burning fuel for hard-to-electrify industries, such as long-haul trucking and gas-fired power generation. The city of Los Angeles, for example, wants to retrofit its Scattergood Power Plant near El Segundo to burn hydrogen instead of methane gas to generate electricity.

There are many open questions about how safe the highly-combustible gas is for proposed uses and how much water it will require to make. At the same time, extracting and burning fossil fuels for electricity and fuel also takes water — a growing problem as climate change drives longer and hotter droughts.

Experts say, if done right, hydrogen can reduce that water intake and not have a major impact on water supplies.

Also, burning hydrogen could actually worsen local, lung-damaging nitrogen-oxide air pollution, at least with the technology as it currently stands, according to energy researchers.

Reactions to the decision

SoCal Gas will now have to turn to shareholders or other sources of funding if the company wants to proceed. The company did not directly answer LAist’s questions about whether it would.

“We continue to believe that hydrogen—including clean renewable hydrogen—can help advance California’s energy and climate goals while supporting the long‑term affordability, security and reliability of energy service for customers,” SoCal Gas spokesperson Brian Haas wrote in an email to LAist.

Environmental groups celebrated the vote, while emphasizing they see green hydrogen playing a role in the state’s future.

“Residential customers should not subsidize speculative infrastructure for large industrial users,” said Michael Colvin, director of the California Energy Program at Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.

“We look forward to working with regulators, utilities and large customers to build a credible, cost-effective strategy to cut climate pollution from sectors that are hardest to electrify,” the statement read.

Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles.

L.A. has a lot to offer, including its vast and varied portfolio of public art. It’s even been referred to as the mural capital of the world. So if you want to explore some of the city’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.

Sports 

“LA Rising” at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo celebrates the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, depicting him in his two roles — hitter and pitcher.
- Where to find it: 328 First St., Los Angeles

“Blue Heaven on Earth” is a love letter to the Dodgers, depicting both Shohei Ohtani and the late Fernando Venezuela.
- Where to find it: 1647 Blake Ave., Los Angeles

A mural honoring Winter Olympics Gold Medalist Alysa Liu in Gardena.

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California native and Olympian Alysa Liu captured the world’s attention with her figure skating in the Winter Olympics. This mural in Gardena celebrates her win.
- Where to find it: 15532 Crenshaw Blvd., Gardena

A mural of L.A. Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna can be found outside Hardcore Fitness L.A.

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“City of Angels!” pays tribute to Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi.
- Where to find it: 400 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles

Music

Whitney Houston, Rihanna, Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse and Selena are memorialized on this Hollywood mural.
- Where to find it: 7677 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 

“Jazz on the field” is an ode to Wrigley Field and the Dunbar Hotel in South L.A. and depicts jazz icons Louis Armstrong and Etta James, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.
- Where to find it: 43rd St. and Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When Kendrick Lamar featured Tam’s Burgers in his “Not Like Us” music video, the burger spot in Compton commissioned a mural highlighting the rapper’s unforgettable single.
- Where to find it: 1201 Rosecrans Ave, Compton

Historic to LA

A section of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, designed by muralist Judy Baca, that showcases pivotal moments in Los Angeles History.

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“The Great Wall of Los Angeles” is one of the largest murals in the world, and it’s supposed to get bigger. The half-mile art piece depicts California’s rich history.
- Where to find it: Along the L.A. River in the San Fernando Valley, on Coldwater Canyon Avenue between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street. 

“The Blessing of the Animals” at La Placita Olvera depicts the Catholic tradition of blessing one’s animals.
- Where to find it: 115 Paseo De La Plaza, Los Angeles

“El Grito” depicts a scene that sparked Mexican independence from Spanish rule.
- Where to find it: Placita de Dolores at 831 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles

When you take a bite of the lomo saltado burrito from Merka Saltao, a fast-casual Peruvian restaurant in Culver City, one of the first things you'll notice is the sauce.

The wok-fried chunks of steak, dressed in a soy-and-oyster sauce reduction spiked with vinegar, saturate the rice inside the tortilla, highlighting the sweet heat of ají amarillo mixed with the velvety texture of pinto beans.

It's a beautiful confluence of flavors. It is also, depending on who you ask, either a creative act of evolution or a betrayal of Peruvian culinary heritage.

Standing on business

The lomo saltado burrito at Merka Saltao wasn't exactly a calculated move. Lifelong friends Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios — who met in high school in Lima — came to Los Angeles to bring Peruvian food to the masses, first through a ghost kitchen concept they ran from 2021 to 2023. The burrito happened almost by accident: a member of their kitchen team brought in a tortilla one day, someone suggested wrapping the lomo saltado in it, they ate it, and within three days, it was on the menu.

Merka Saltao co-founders Ignacio Barrios, left, and Alonso Franco, right, inside their Culver City restaurant. The two lifelong friends from Lima opened the fast-casual brick-and-mortar location for their Peruvian concept in August 2025.

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The data from the ghost kitchen made the case for keeping it there. Franco and Barrios had launched with around 140 dishes — lomo saltado, ceviche, chicken dishes, the works. But the numbers kept pointing to the same thing: wherever lomo saltado appeared on the menu, in whatever form, burrito, bowl, salad, it was the winner.

(Ceviche, for all its cultural cachet, is raw fish with raw onion — a harder sell for a weekday lunch. Lomo saltado, Franco noted, is steak and fries — basically a hamburger.)

The backlash

The two friends made the leap to brick-and-mortar in August 2025, opening Merka Saltao in downtown Culver City. It's one of the more competitive dining corridors in L.A., the kind of block that can support a $16 wellness bowl and a craft beer bar in the same stretch, populated by Amazon employees on lunch breaks, families on weekend outings, and food-literate regulars who will absolutely have opinions about what goes in a burrito.

Those opinions arrived faster than Franco expected. Within the first week of opening, an influencer came in and posted about the restaurant — but instead of showing the full menu, the bowls, the chicha morada, the flexibility of the concept, they showed the burrito. Just the burrito.

Franco working the wok at Merka Saltao. The high-heat wok technique at the heart of lomo saltado traces its roots to Chinese immigrants in Peru

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Christopher Mortenson

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The comments turned quickly. "No! Peruvians don't eat burritos. ¿Qué car—o es eso?" — roughly, "what the hell is this?" — wrote one commenter. Another said "Burritos? We don't eat burritos in 🇵🇪”. Franco describes sitting at his computer reading the pile-on, feeling something between anger and devastation. "There was a moment where I probably even cried," he said, "thinking, I've made a mistake." But then he looked at the numbers. 30,000 had seen the post…. And half the comments were in his defense.

He took the conversation to Reddit, posting to r/FoodLosAngeles asking the community directly: am I wrong for this? The response was overwhelming — hundreds of comments, almost entirely in his favor, and a surge of new customers walking through the door shortly after.

Fusion by default

This is Los Angeles, where many of the dishes that define the Southern California diet were born precisely from cultures colliding. Roy Choi built an empire on Korean tacos. Al pastor traces its technique to Lebanese immigrants who brought the vertical spit. The California roll, invented by Japanese chefs in Los Angeles in the 1960s, introduced an entire country to sushi. None of these dishes destroyed the traditions they borrowed from. If anything, they expanded their audience. And the lomo saltado burrito isn't exactly a novel concept in Southern California to begin with — everyone from Pablitos Tacos in North Hollywood to Le Hut in Santa Ana, run by 2025 James Beard Award-nominated chef Daniel Castillo, has featured their own version. Even Disney's California Adventure got in on it, serving a lomo saltado burrito out of the Studio Catering Co. food truck as recently as last year.

The lomo saltado bowl and burrito at Merka Saltao in Culver City — two versions of the same dish that sparked an unlikely online debate about Peruvian culinary identity.

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Franco would also point out that lomo saltado itself — the dish the purists are so eager to protect — is a product of Chinese immigrants bringing the wok and soy sauce to Peru roughly 300 years ago. "Peruvian is by default fusion," he told me. "So we have all the right to wrap it up in a burrito." What the online critics were really doing, whether they knew it or not, was defending a dish that was itself once considered inauthentic — and doing so in the name of authenticity.

Where things stand

Since the backlash, Franco says business has been mostly steady — breaking even, which for a concept that requires high volume at a low price point, he considers a good sign. The controversy changed things in ways he didn't expect: people started coming in specifically because of the story, not just the food. He began putting himself front and center in the brand, regularly making videos on social media about what it's like to run the business, occasionally poking fun at himself and the whole debate. When we visited during the weekday lunch rush, there was a steady line of people waiting to order, many stopping to talk with Franco directly.

In a way, he's answered the authenticity question not with an argument but with a presence — showing up, telling the story, letting the food speak. "Honoring my food, if that requires pairing lomo saltado with a salad or wrapping it in a tortilla, I have no problem," he said. "I'm not being less authentic. We are evolving in Peru anytime. I have to be authentic on the individual flavor and then be flexible to reach more people to discover our flavors."

The burrito, it turns out, was never the point. It was just the door.