Founder of huge indoor-agriculture startup replaced as CEO

Jonathan Webb, then CEO of AppHarvest, at its Morehead facility in 2022 (Photo: Silas Walker, Lexington Herald-Leader)

The indoor-agriculture startup AppHarvest, with four farms along the edge of the Appalachian Plateau in Kentucky, will no longer be run by the Kentucky native who foudned it in 2018. Jonathan Webb will become chief strategy officer and remain a company director.

"Tony Martin, a veteran of the controlled-environment agriculture industry, will be the new CEO. Martin first joined the company’s board in October and has been the chief operating officer since January," reports Rick Childress of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"The CEO change comes as the company faces a foreclosure complaint on its farm in Richmond and a dispute over the lease of its Berea farm. Last fall, AppHarvest — which grows large quantities of fruits and vegetables in massive, climate-controlled greenhouses and employs hundreds of people — said in public filings that it was running low on cash and disclosed “substantial doubt” about its future. The company also has farms in Morehead and Somerset."