Following merger, former Soli Organic location in Harrisonburg to close

Ohio-based indoor vertical farming company 80 Acres Farms plans to close the former Soli Organic packing facility in Harrisonburg by July 21, following a merger between the two companies last August.

Eighty people will be out of work, according to a letter informing the state of the facility’s closure.

Based in Ohio, 80 Acres Farms merged with Soli Organic in August 2025, with the combined company known as 80 Acres Farms. The company’s leaders anticipated first-year revenues approaching $200 million. Soli cut 128 jobs in Georgia a few days before announcing the merger.

Following the merger, the company’s leaders have been working “on integrating the two businesses to position the combined company for long-term success,” Jed Portman, senior manager of public affairs for 80 Acres Farms, wrote in an email to Virginia Business on Wednesday.

“As part of that effort, we recently made the difficult decision to close the Harrisonburg facility and move some operations to other locations within our network,” Portman wrote.

Nearly 40 of the affected positions are packers, according to a letter sent to the state under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act.

“We recognize the impact this will have on employees and the local community, and we are committed to supporting impacted employees through the transition,” Portman added.

Nationally, 80 Acres Farms employs more than 1,200 people.

Before changing its name to Soli Organic in 2021, the Harrisonburg company was known as Shenandoah Growers. Mike Sarko and Ken Koehn launched the fresh-herbs business around 1990. After Koehn’s death in 1996, Tim Heydon, an MBA student at nearby James Madison University, worked with the company as part of his studies. After graduation, he stepped into the CEO role.

By 2019, the company had 1,200 employees, 11 indoor growing facilities and was expecting to make $120 million a year, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

“The challenge is always managing growth successfully,” Heydon told Virginia Business in 2015. “I think as it gets bigger … certainly the problems are different, but it’s still the need to manage growth and to maintain vision.”

In 2021, former Starbucks Chief Marketing Officer Matthew Ryan took over as CEO, and in 2023, Ryan told Virginia Business the company held a 50% market share nationally in potted herbs and was selling organic herbs and greens in more than 20,000 grocery stores nationally. At that time, about 300 of the company’s 750 employees were located in Virginia.

Under the merger, 80 Acres Farms co-founder Mike Zelkind became CEO of the combined company.

Heydon, now CEO of Waynesboro biotech firm Lytos Technologies, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

“We will always be grateful to the Harrisonburg team for their contributions and for the role the facility has played in the company’s history,” Portman said in the email.