Freight Farms Announces New CMO and VP of Software Engineering
Left: Ed Barrett, CMO. Right: Steve Struebing, VP of Software Engineering.
March 30, 2023 — Freight Farms is excited to announce the addition of two senior leadership members to their Boston-based team: Ed Barrett, who is joining as Chief Marketing Officer to lead Sales and Marketing; and Steve Struebing, joining as Vice President of Software Engineering. This talent acquisition marks Freight Farms’ latest step to strategically grow its team using funds from its recent Series B3 funding round.
Barrett is an experienced Chief Marketing Officer and has spent 25 years leading growth companies. He joins Freight Farms from Zuppler, a SaaS e-commerce platform in the food tech industry, where he served as the company’s Chief Growth Officer. Before that, he also led teams in the telecommunications, mobile computing, medical device, pharmaceutical, and business travel industries. He is skilled at leading high-performing teams while instituting defined processes around go-to-market strategies and customer success.
“At its core, Freight Farms is about changing lives and improving the climate while increasing accessibility of fresh food in underserved communities. Helping to expand access to the benefits that Freight Farms delivers was what drew me to the company,” says Barrett. He brings his passion for client-centric businesses to Freight Farms, with an intention to create business strategies that will accelerate the growth and success of clients and make adoption of Freight Farms technology accessible. Simultaneously, he aims to increase the company’s global brand awareness.
“Infusing client focus will help us expand brand awareness in a way that resonates with current clients and prospects and inspires them to deepen and expand their relationship with Freight Farms.”
Struebing comes from a history of AgTech: as Head of Technology Products at Fifth Season, an AI-operated, industrial-scale vertical farming facility, he led a 15-person team to architect the warehouse’s systems from concept to launch. He has spent his career in diverse industries and roles, and brings a broad skillset to Freight Farms as a result.
Just like Barrett, Struebing joins Freight Farms with a focus on mission and customers. He strives to grow the efficiency, resilience, and capability of Freight Farms’ software team to “deliver an exceptional Freight Farmer experience through valuable features and actionable data.”
“Ultimately, our goal is to be a business that enables successful businesses, so we are instantly aligned with our customers.”
As a manager, growing the next generation of leaders is also important to Struebing, who learned the value of a company culture that inspires teams to collaborate, challenge one another, and celebrate successes early in his career.
“We welcome Ed and Steve to Freight Farms as leaders who will support our growth and our customers’ success. It is great to see that we continue to attract exceptional talent committed to our mission of democratizing access to fresh food.”
At a less secure time in the AgTech industry, Struebing echoes the sentiments of Freight Farms’ CEO, Rick Vanzura: “CEA will play a critical role in a holistic agricultural solution as we move forward. No one sector of agriculture can solve all of the problems we face, so each is a vital interlocking piece of the future puzzle of food supply. Freight Farms’ modular solutions provide our customers with the ability to scale capabilities for the solution that is right for them,” Struebing says. Both he and Barrett are excited to be a part of growing that solution for future Freight Farms customers.
The two are joining Freight Farms at an exciting time of growth for the company. Following Freight Farms’ Series B3 funding round, the company restructured its Customer Experience team to provide better technical assistance and success support for Freight Farmers worldwide. Additional recent hires include a software product designer, a purchasing manager, and multiple sales representatives. Over the next year, Freight Farms plans additional growth in the business development, HR, and marketing areas of the company, as well as continued growth in Customer Experience.
About Freight Farms
Founded in 2012, Freight Farms debuted the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food. Since its inception, Freight Farms has refined its product offering to arrive at the Greenery™ S container farm. With global customers ranging from small business farmers to the corporate, hospitality, retail, education, and nonprofit sectors, Freight Farmers make up the largest network of connected farms in the world. AgTech Breakthrough named Freight Farms the 2022 “IoT Monitoring Solution of the Year” for its farmhand® IoT automation software.
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