USC Stack

About us

Stack is a trojan-based urban farming initiative based at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. We are building a team of architects, designers agritech specialists, civil engineers, businessmen, data analysts, and urban farmers to compete in this years rendition of the Urban Greenhouse Challenge. Follow stack @uscstack on Instagram Apply here! linktr.ee/uscstack

Artist impression of the site & indoor production structure

One-liner that describes the essence of your project

Farm Smarter. Farm On!

Total concept pitch

In addressing food insecurity and promoting wellness in both Ward 7 and beyond, it’s not about building more grocery stores and growing more produce, rather it’s about building a smarter network for food distribution and positively redefining the relationship that consumers maintain with their food supplier–this is the Stack vision. In many neighborhoods, obtaining fresh and healthy produce is disproportionately more expensive and difficult due to poor transportation infrastructure compared to other regions. This is especially true in food deserts. Thus, in order to truly combat the root issue, the solution must address not just food production, but also distribution, education, and encourage active engagement and investment from the community and its stakeholders. Stack is holistically designed with supply chain self-sufficiency and environmentally circularity in mind whilst maximizing the three following verticals: 1) Total distribution capacity of our produce 2) Creation of empowering employment opportunities 3) Capture of high-value produce markets. To accomplish this, Stack introduces the “Mobile Market Model”--a new paradigm for scalable food distribution and community engagement. Instead of burdening customers with traveling to us, we bring the grocery store directly to them in the form of a dynamic, electric mobile market bus. Freed from the need to build expensive, low-efficacy physical stores, Stack passes these savings to the community, along with increased accessibility and a far more enjoyable shopping process. Being a “grocery store on wheels”, our model is designed to scale far beyond our allotted three-acre site. On site, we allocate far more acreage to growing plants and increasing our yield and stand-alone profitability. We create countless jobs with long-term career opportunities centered around food production, agritech operations, green-energy collection, and a full-scale mobile grocery store business. Integrating AI and machine learning agents, we combine smart farming with a streamlined market and supply chain ecosystem. Utilizing the proven scalability of our produce delivery business models and leveraging our triple-bottom-line approach, Stack ensures the creation of first-layer distributional infrastructure in Ward 7 and a platform for the development of a healthier food supply chain while maximizing opportunity for community engagement, empowerment, and long-term growth. Farm On!

Social Media Pitch