Agcore’s progress a mix of old-school farming, innovation

GREEN GROWERS: From left are Dan Matuszek, chief biologist; Zachary Fleet, operations manager; Amy Dressler, administration; and Larry Dressler, founder, president and CEO of Agcore Technologies in Cranston. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
GREEN GROWERS: From left are Dan Matuszek, chief biologist; Zachary Fleet, operations manager; Amy Dressler, administration; and Larry Dressler, founder, president and CEO of Agcore Technologies in Cranston. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Sometimes, change is drastic. Other times, it comes in iterations, an evolution. Either way, it’s as necessary as it is inevitable. Such is the case in manufacturing, an industry ripe for emerging game-changers.

Agcore Technologies, which was founded in 2013 but has only been selling its product, a blue-green algae called spirulina, since summer 2015, is one such company. Using a combination of new technology in the form of efficient, deepwater tanks (with 8-foot-by-10-foot reactors used to grow the algae) and gravity, which filters the product and allows water to be returned and reused without expensive electrical pumps, the group has grown its corporate footprint while keeping a negligible carbon one.

Agcore sees itself as “modern-day sustainable farmers in both the human and animal nutrition industry,” said founder and President Larry Dressler, whose own background includes an appropriate combination of manufacturing and agriculture (he grew up observing his family’s business, Colfax, a vegetable oil manufacturer located in Pawtucket and sold in 1999). “Nowadays, everything is triple bottom line. [The bottom line] shouldn’t be just financial, but it should also be environmental and social,” he said.

By using carbon dioxide, solar energy and a reused water system to grow plants, the company is able to provide a complete protein – more than steak, the company website says – at a fraction of what it costs a business and the environment to produce for other conventional protein sources, such as soy or beef. “Even others who grow spirulina don’t grow it the way we do. They need massive amounts of land,” said Dressler. “And because of our closed, deepwater grow reactors, there’s virtually no contamination.”

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In some sectors, this has been music to Rhode Islanders’ ears, particularly at the R.I. Commerce Corp., which awarded the company $50,000 to partner with the University of Rhode Island Department of Fisheries, Animal & Veterinary Science for an innovation grant to create animal feed. “There’s not a lot of agriculture on the East Coast and in Rhode Island; there’s not a lot of arable land,” explained Dressler. “But we’re bringing in a whole new type of agriculture.”

With that influx of agriculture has come good jobs and consistent growth; Agcore has grown from two to four employees, and plans to have a second greenhouse operational in 2016, tripling capacity and adding up to three more employees. Within two years, Dressler said, the company hopes to expand to 3-5 acres, and create 20-30 new jobs.

“A year ago by this time, we had 10 grow reactors. We’re now up to 150 grow reactors, and by the end of the year we’ll be closer to 400 grow reactors,” he said.

Agcore is producing spirulina products exclusively for animal nutrition now, but Dressler hints at plans that will hopefully put product a little closer to human dinner tables. The spirulina market itself is an emerging one; Dressler estimated that 80 percent of the products within that category come in supplement powder or pill form. But Agcore is looking to capitalize on a different segment of the market – the health-conscious consumer looking for the next chia or flax seed. And move over, kale.

“We’ve developed a topping that would be for salads, hot and cold cereal, almost like granola. We have a frozen product, almost like an ice cube, for smoothies. We have a snack-food item that comes in a snack bar and cluster form,” he said, noting that one of the company’s next initiatives would be a small food-grade facility, in the second quarter of 2016.

“Consumers are looking for the next great super food,” said Dressler, who himself became more well-versed in spirulina when he saw that it might have (as yet unproven) glucose-regulating benefits for his wife, who has Type 2 diabetes. “And we believe that’s spirulina.” •

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