Singapore Airlines is using aeroponics to upgrade in-flight meals | Hacker News Reader

Singapore Airlines is using aeroponics to upgrade in-flight meals

qz.com

89 pointsprostoalex85 comments

So 300% more efficient than farms in yield but there is criticism in costs related to electricity to run it all. how about no need for traditional pesticides plus lack of exposure to pollution or animal feces. the reduction in water usage alone should be pay back.

The 300% number is not substantiated in the linked articles and comes with typical qualifying comments. So reading about about the potential pitfalls avoided by just farming indoors has always looked amazing but now with better computers and LED lighting reducing electricity use you could play the game of having your indoor farm solar powered without direct contact of sun and plant, just cover your roof in panels.

Anyone with knowledge that besides fruits what else does not lend itself to this type of farming.

"the reduction in water usage alone should be pay back."

How?

Farmland irrigation water is cheap. Really cheap, compared to what you can get in the city.

Prices I see are something like $5,000 per acre-foot in the city vs. $40 per acre-foot for the Central Valley. (see https://news.berkeley.edu/berkeley_blog/the-cost-of-irrigati... )

If we're being forward thinking, as water scarcity kicks in over the next several decades, maybe we'll start seeing farms paying closer to the true worth of water.

You can bury your heads in the sand and downvote all you want, doesn't change reality my friends: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/federal-dollars-a...

I would hope for that future, but the electoral college and Senate rules/makeup favoring low population rural areas ( at federal level and most state senates) which turn out to be farm areas argues against farm subsidy trend overriding common sense water usage i.e. irrigating deserts to grow negative profit crops will continue until a prolonged disaster forces a reckoning.

Depends on where you live. Cape Town, for example, has been experiencing frequent and prolonged droughts recently. Parts of India like Chennai are also having serious problems. And so on.

California also isn't a great example, because it is regularly criticized for selling water rights far too cheaply at times when the state has been suffering from drought; I think "Nestle" and "almond farms" are the usual culprits.

I'm not convinced about almond farms. Yes, I've seen the claim that it takes 1.1 gallons of water to grow one almond.

But 1.1 gallons of water has about 3500 times the mass of 1 almond, so almost none of that 1.1 gallons is actually in the almond when it is exported from California.

So how much water is actually consumed to produce that one almond, and how much remains available to go on to be used to produce more almonds or other crops?

Almonds come from a tree, the tree requires the water to grow the almonds. The tree draws water from the ground, then there is transpiration where the water moves through the tree and out, like through the leaves. None remains, all the water goes into the air.

Are drip or micro-irrigation systems so precise that most of what they put into the ground ends up in the plant?

Also, what happens to that water that ends up in the air? California winds are mostly from the west or northwest. I'd expect a lot of what goes into the air to come out as rain or snow on the windward side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which is the same side the almond growing regions are on.

With the water, there is transpiration, which is the water that flows through the plant, evaporation, which is water that goes from the ground to the air directly, and then when the water goes into the water table.

With drip irrigation, you get less loss to the water table and to evaporation, but it doesn't impact transpiration.

For water that winds up the air, no idea there. I'd guess that irrigation would have no impact to down wind precipitation in a given area.

Sure. I just want to know how the cost savings from water alone can be enough to pay for switching to aeroponics.

I agree the Central Valley water price is artificially low. https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/29/california-water-desa... gives desal water prices, which sets an upper-bound: "Ocean desalination costs between $2,000 and $2,500 an acre-foot, Mills noted. Brackish desalination can range from $1,000 to $2,000."

Let's say the true price of water is $2,000 per acre-foot. The link says that 3 acre-feet are needed, so $6,000 per year.

Let's say that aeroponics is 10x more productive than farmland (pulling that number out of my ass), and that no water is needed (obviously false).

Can I buy aeroponics equipment to cover 4,300 sq.ft/400 sq.m for an amortized yearly cost of $6000?

I tried to find more concrete numbers, but failed. Hence why I'm asking how it can work out.

For the curious, an acre-foot is 325 851 US gallons or 1 233 482 liters.

To compare that to residential use, my little 1/2 HP home well, which has a steady state of 3.75 gallons/minute, would take about 60 days pumping continuously to produce an acre-foot and use about $60 worth of electricity.

This is what I like about having a private well. I get about 5000 gallons of water per dollar of electricity. For all practical purposes as a residential user non-heated water is essentially free.

The downside is that if there is a power failure the well stops working. The level of annoyance of a power failure goes way up when you lose running water and flushing toilets. But since cold water is essentially free, whenever the weather forecast calls for high winds or a lot of snow (the two things that can cause widespread enough outages here in western Washington that it can take a while to get power back), I can just fill a bathtub beforehand. That provides water for toilet flushing.

I currently pay approx. $28 per 1,000 gallons of water from my municipality.

>Farmland irrigation water is cheap. Really cheap, compared to what you can get in the city.

Is that also true for Singapore though? Seems like much of the city's water is sourced from desalinated water.

90% of the country's food is imported too. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Singapore#Food_... . That link also mentions their plans to reduce that to 70% "through high-tech vegetable farms (i.e. multi-storey hydroponics farms), and through aquaculture farms."

I just want to know how the cost savings due to water alone can justify switching to aeroponics. I don't see how the numbers will work, even with desal water, if economics (and not food security) is your main concern.

I'd be wary of the effects it would have on our gut bacteria. There are tons of microorganisms in the soil that make their way into the fruits/veggies and eventually our guts. Sterilizing our food would not be good for our digestion.

We already sterilized a lot of fruits, vegetables, and meat using gamma radiation sources. It's perfectly safe and has been done with animal feed much longer than with human food.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_irradiation

and what has the result of this been?

Reduction in foodborne illness and spread of invasive species.

Food allergies have skyrocketed in the last 30-40 years and there is a direct connection with intestinal flora:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/06/190624111545.h...

There is evidence that soil influences a person's microbiome:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6780873/

Both of these studies are less than a year old, intestinal flora is something that's only recently started to get attention.

"we do it" != "it is perfectly safe"

I know almost nothing about indoor farming, aeroponics, urban farming, etc - but I get the feeling that people think its better because it appears clean. Farming and dirt is dirty, and indoor/urban farms/aeroponics are shiny and clean.

Of course being dirty has nothing to do with global warming or the environment, but that type of analysis is much more complicated than "looks clean!"

Maybe but there's other theoretical benefits too; food grown closer to it's consumption point releases less CO2 being transported and could be fresher, reduced run off from fertilizers and pesticide use, and reduced land use from building vertically. It's not just the attraction of the clean look, though that is part of the appeal, but there are real benefits.

I've understood transportation costs are less than 5% from the overall production cost/carbon footprint of vegetable production. So it really makes sense to transport veggies and fruits from far away if even minor benefits on other production steps can be achieved.

Similarly also plastic packaging has minor footprint compared to the overall production of the vegetable. So, if the food waste is reduced even a little bit with plastic packaging, it is enviromentally better to wrap the veggies in plastic.

Water management needs to be weighed against carbon footprint.

It might be better to increase the carbon footprint slightly, reduce carbon footprint elsewhere, so that water can be managed smarter.

There's a lot more to the environmental impact of our current farming than just the CO2 though. Water run off is a big pollutant as farms have to spray way more fertilizer onto the ground in order to get the plants to grow than they strictly need, in a hydroponics system for example added nitrogen that doesn't get absorbed would just continue to cycle until it is. In a similar vein current farms' usage of herbicides and pesticides have huge impacts on the environment near and downstream of farms. An indoor farm would require low to no herbicide and pesticide use because the environment is contained and controlled, plus any use would be more easily contained reducing run-off again.

This is an oversimplification of why aeroponics or any form of hydroponics is great. A few of the most notable benefits:

1) Growing density - you use a lot less square footage by growing up!

2) Can grow anywhere - you control a ton of the variables due to setup indoors away from weather conditions, indoor lights, control of water and nutrients, etc.

3) The ability to very carefully fine tune the end product due to a large number of controllable inputs into the growing process (rather than spreading nutrients and water over large acres of land)

> 1) Growing density - you use a lot less square footage by growing up!

Yes, but all of that square footage is inside the building, which cost money to construct and operate, in addition to capital costs of constructing the multi-tiered farm and wiring it with LEDs

> 2) Can grow anywhere

Yes...anywhere...inside a heated building. Even if the LEDs used provide some degree of heating, some sort of HVAC to regulate temperatures must still be employed. I'd imagine you wouldn't use an unheated warehouse in Canada during winter.

> 3) The ability to very carefully fine tune the end product due to a large number of controllable inputs into the growing process

Probably the only real advantage. It also makes ramping up to demand somewhat easier, since the growth time is shorter.

However, make no mistake - so far these are low calorie greens at a luxury price.

If you built a house just for growing plants then yes. If I grow a few veggies in a green curtain at home in the kitchen window where I am not even there 90% of the daylight time, then no. Also, I am growing radish and salad in the attic right now where there is no extra heating or light so point 2 is also not necessarily true. The only thing I would agree on is that you will not cover more than 5% of your diet that way but it enough for covering the winter with some fresh stuff.

> If I grow a few veggies in a green curtain at home in the kitchen window where I am not even there 90% of the daylight time, then no.

Smaller scales make the math worse, not better.

> Also, I am growing radish and salad in the attic right now where there is no extra heating or light so point 2 is also not necessarily true.

I'm assuming the attic is attached to a heated building of some sort? Not sure why you're trying so hard to come up with arguments for this hydroponic stuff.

People are well aware of the advantages and it's mostly going to be used to grow high-value cash crops like spices (saffron?) and cannabis.

> Yes, but all of that square footage is inside the building, which cost money to construct and operate, in addition to capital costs of constructing the multi-tiered farm and wiring it with LEDs

Operating a modern western farm requires all of that too. Do you think farmland has no capital costs? What about all the farm machinery?

> Yes...anywhere...inside a heated building. Even if the LEDs used provide some degree of heating, some sort of HVAC to regulate temperatures must still be employed. I'd imagine you wouldn't use an unheated warehouse in Canada during winter.

This seems like a rather strange argument. You can grow crops indoors in antartica if it comes to that. Beind able to grow crops anywhere you like rather than having to hunt for ideal land is an incredible benfit. Considering that a lot of the fertile topsoil in the midwest is being lost, this seems like a great way to ensure that food supplies are not jeapordized.

> However, make no mistake - so far these are low calorie greens at a luxury price.

For now, because farms and farm produce is heavily subsidized. If we were to apply similar subisidies to indoor farms + continue to increase the efficiency, we could possily produce at similar costs as well.

Singapore Airlines is known for their cabin experience, so I'm guessing the vegetables taste pretty good?

I've heard the opposite of greenhouse produce from the Netherlands (Europeans complain that the tomatoes from greenhouses don't taste very tomatoey).

Now the Dutch are extremely advanced at the greenhouse game (probably best in the world), so I wonder why the difference? Is it merely a perception issue?

(would love to hear thoughts from Europeans)

Dutch tomatoes are said to be a fourth aggregate state of water.

This however applies to any vegetable that can be purchased in Germany. Almost independent of price.

> Dutch tomatoes are said to be a fourth aggregate state of water.

Actually... 'Dutch tomatoes' are the perfect example of an industrialized variety: looks and handles well, dirt cheap. There are delicious tomatoes produced in the Netherlands, but your friendly local grocer (Aldi, Lidl sounds like) doesn't actually want to sell them because they are not what the market wants, nor worth the extra handling costs.

See a local farm for tasty produce, not your local Aldi or Lidl.

The Netherlands in particular exports all it's best in class agricultural products in certain markets abroad that care and pay for quality, but most of roughly northern Europe does not. As a Dutchman this frustrates me to no end, because I can't get the good stuff produced next-door unless I go there and find a friendly farmer who is interested in selling small quantities to individuals (and due to the level of industrialization they often don't!)

Sourcing high quality vegetables is very difficult in Germany. Even with local farmers it is very hard to come by. It is quite easy to find sources for organic food but most of it tastes equally bad compared to non-organic, sometimes even worse.

> Singapore Airlines is known for their cabin experience, so I'm guessing the vegetables taste pretty good?

Their chefs love asparagus.

But it really depends on the catering company that the airline contracts with. I just had overly-salted asparagus on a flight ex-Sydney in November.

(I really like the National Geographic documentary called Mega Food [1], which showed the executive chef tasting the dishes in a low-pressure environment.)

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-airplane-food-is-made...

>Europeans complain that the tomatoes from greenhouses don't taste very tomatoey

This has more to do with the varietal of tomato than the growing location. The most commercially viable tomatoes - the sort that grow fast, ripen quickly, can stand a bit of rough treatment and are hardy enough to last for a while on store shelves just generally don't taste that great. Heirloom tomatoes and other varieties that aren't optimized for industrialized food supply chains taste just fine, even grown in a greenhouse.

>Singapore Airlines is known for their cabin experience, so I'm guessing the vegetables taste pretty good?

I've flown on Singapore Airlines twice (one round-trip), in economy class, and it was easily the best flight experience I've ever had. The food was utterly fantastic for airplane food.

A disclaimer, however: I haven't had the opportunity to fly yet on other Asian airlines like ANA, JAL, Cathay, etc. so I can't compare to those. But compared to any American-operated airline, or even Lufthansa, it's light-years better in my experience.

In most supermarkets you can pick better tasting "branded" tomatoes, but they usually cost several times as much, and mostly only "cherry" or "cocktail" variety.

Larger, tasty and ripe tomatoes are soft, perishable and incompatible with supermarket supply chain. Just go to street market.

I wonder what precautions they take to avoid pests?

With no use of pesticides, I imagine an outbreak of pests could be very costly. In the images we can see gloves and what looks like a blue uniform/coat they're wearing.

I gotta give it to Signapore Airlines PR machine - they sure manage to get them some good press. Too bad the actual experience flying them is not that exceptional. And don't get me started about their food... Out of 20+ airlines I've flown in the past 5 years, SA's food was by far the worst. I really regretted paying extra to fly with them instead of Qatar (who have excellent food).

I take it you don't fly coach? There are lots of big airlines whose coach food options are pretty bad.

I was expecting the article to be about having aeroponics on the airplanes themselves. Would make the term 'aeroponics' even more apt.

lol, there's a long list of reasons why that doesn't make sense, but I admit I had the same first thought

Unlike bill g (who thinks it's energy production and storage) I think food growing and delivery would be the next big thing. Imagine if we can make kitchens redundant. Nobody has a gym in their house. Kitchens should be equally rare.

Genuine question: why ?

Seems like we're trying to optimise every single aspects of our lives to be "more productive/efficient" and we're throwing what makes life "life" with it.

Cooking is good fun and the only way to control what's going in your body.

I am not suggesting that personal cooking or kitchens be abolished. I am only fantasizing, out of selfish interest, that the infrastructure around cooking is so developed that I can buy kitchen time and raw materials in required quantities at my local public kitchen and cook whatever I need, whenever. By the time I'm done cooking, the other portion of my meal will have been prepared by chefs elsewhere.

You're free to make and clean and keep pest-free your own. Kitchen if you're so inclined.

My fantasies haven't accounted for a kid yet I should confess .

> I can buy kitchen time and raw materials in required quantities at my local public kitchen and cook whatever I need, whenever. By the time I'm done cooking, the other portion of my meal will have been prepared by chefs elsewhere

I think there are several types of restaurant like that already.

So instead of having a kitchen right in your house you'd rather pay for the privilege of having to walk, bike, or drive there? And then have half your food delivered anyway? What selfish benefit is this even supposed to provide in your own fantasy?

Having a full array of high quality appliances and utensils, without the need to invest thousands of dollars over many years?

And maybe there's staff to clean up when you're done? Doesn't sound like a terrible thing to me. People love to take cooking classes which are a similar experience.

You can cook most common meals with a few pots and pans and a hot plate, maybe a couple hundred invested, tops. An array of high end appliances and utensils makes it easier, but is by no means necessary.

The point is to make it more enjoyable and easier. I only need a few tools. However a lot of those expensive tools make it easier and more fun to cook. My kitchen lacks a springform pan which means my cheesecake isn't right, and I lack the storage space for a pan that I'd use so rarely.

What exactly is the point of using these expensive appliances and utensils to make a really nice meal, if it's going to be stone cold when you finally get it home to serve it? Or are you going to eat at the rental kitchen?

The main issue that I run into with this idea is that it would require cooking to be the only activity done at a time. I like to slowly prepare food over several hours, relaxing whenever there are steps that require waiting. Knead the bread, then do something else while it rises. Dice the tomatoes for the marinara sauce, then read a book while they simmer.

I really don't understand this. But I really don't understand. Isn't a kitchen inside your house more convenient? I mean, then you can eat the food at home, which is much nicer than eating out.

Maybe if I'm trying to make something fancy, a fancy kitchen which is equipped with stuff I don't have would be useful? Paired with cooking lessons?

But if I want to make pancakes on the weekend before I put on my coat and boots, I need a kitchen at home.

The rental kitchen for fancy meals is still pretty useless unless either 1) you live in a high-rise condo and it's in your building, a short elevator ride away from your home, or 2) you're going to eat at the rental kitchen.

Otherwise, you're going to make some really fancy meal, then pack it up, bring it home, and by the time you get home and unpack it and plate it, it'll be stone cold. What's the point of making fancy food if it's going to be cold when you eat it, or you have to microwave it?

> My fantasies haven't accounted for a kid yet I should confess.

Most fantasies don't.

I think this is a great idea. Similarly, we should stop putting bathrooms in our residences, and just have businesses where you can go to buy bathroom time. That way, you don't have to keep it clean on your own, or pay for it in your home (which would make the home cheaper). We can use smartphone apps to set up appointments to use these rented bathrooms. I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to adopt this.

This would just be obnoxious and impractical, like not having your own washer and dryer.

Which was the case for literally everyone barely 60 years ago.

Yes, and it was obnoxious.

It wasn't too long ago that nobody had running hot water in their homes either, and that also sucked.

Not so sure about that. Having your laundry done for you and delivered is now a luxury service...

Sorry, doesn't make sense. Removing kitchens is just an odd idea. Food preparation is so varied who would want to pass the duty off to others. For many it is as much artistic expression as need.

If anything what technology like this offers is growing food closer to the areas where it is currently transported which in turn would remove those costs from the process plus lots of related effects on traffic and pollution.

Removing kitchens is already happening:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/24/homes-withou...

Plenty of people in major cities no longer cook.

> Food preparation is so varied who would want to pass the duty off to others.

Are you joking? You don't see why people would want to spend the time they use to prepare food to do other things just because it's varied?

There are over 700 restaurants on doordash delivering to my location right now, by dinner I've seen that number go as high as 1,500.

How many lifetimes would it take to be able to recreate even 10% of those menus?

I can cook, but to me it's like changing my oil or cleaning my apartment. Some people love to make a face and go "you don't cook?!?!?!"

Yeah... not everyone considers cooking "artistic expression", imagine not understanding that.

This is very much a cultural thing. I only know one person who doesn't cook, and that's an American. All of my European friends/family/acquaintances can't imagine not cooking. Even I had ask a few times if what my American friend was saying, was for real.

The trend is clearly moving in one direction, and that direction is not towards more time spent cooking at home.

For what it's worth, plenty of Americans (myself and wife both included) really enjoy cooking.

There's two other benefits - get out of tipping culture and being able source ingredients for moral/ethical/health reasons (lots prepackaged food have many questionable ingredients/packaging and prepackaged/restaurant food has more sugar/salt/grease)

>There's two other benefits - get out of tipping culture

This is only a real problem in America.

Culture influenced by local conditions. I work with people who moved to the US from India. They often miss back home where servants to cook for you were cheap enough that you only cooked if you wanted to. Now they can't afford servants, nor can they afford to eat out for every meal - despite making 2-3x as much money. (there aren't a lot of great Indian restaurants, but the cost is the largest factor in their choice to cook themselves)

Either this is non sequitur or you actually think only Americans are capable of seeing cooking as a utilitarian task.

I'm from Ghana, fast food is exploding there, look at India, look at Asia.

Look at Europe... https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/05/21/183326...

>I can cook, but to me it's like changing my oil or cleaning my apartment. Some people love to make a face and go "you don't cook?!?!?!"

It's a tradeoff of time and money in most cases.

For oil changes, for instance, if I live in a place with a garage and I have my own tools, it's faster for me to do it myself than to pay someone else to do it: for the latter, I have to schedule an appointment, take time off from work (using PTO, or coming in late/leaving early), drive to the place, sit and wait around while they do it, and then worry that they screwed it up (which is pretty common). Plus the prices are much, much cheaper if I buy the supplies myself instead of paying inflated prices at a shop. Of course, if I live in a place without a garage or other place to do it myself, then I might not have much choice.

Cleaning my apartment: I'm not sure how this is helpful to outsource. Perhaps if you hire a small crew, it'll be done quite a bit faster than you can do it yourself, but you still have to take time off from work (or your weekend), then sit there and oversee these people to make sure they're not stealing your stuff (very common), while they do the cleaning. And having strangers walking around your home is, to me at least, very uncomfortable.

With cooking, you have to consider the time needed for you to go to the restaurant and pick up the order (probably waiting when you're there, unless the food is sitting and getting cold) and drive home. Or, you can pay for delivery, but this costs extra. Now, if you live in a very dense city where the restaurant is right around the corner, or delivery is super-cheap (because it's right across the street), then this might not be much of a factor, but in much of America it is. It takes me about 15 minutes or so to cook dinner usually; it would take me much more time than that to go someplace else to get take-out, and by the time I get home it'll be cold, and it'll cost 5-10x as much as making it myself. Plus you have to worry about getting sick due to cooks not washing their hands or not storing or preparing food properly, which is very very common in America. If I lived in someplace like Singapore (as referenced in a sister comment here), I'd probably get food on the way home frequently, but not in America.

If you have a good relationship with the people who clean your house, you do not oversee them. It actually defeats the whole point (as you figured out using common sense) ... rich people aren’t being hilariously inefficient by hiring cleaning people.

Honestly it can be one on the smallest investments a person/household can make with such amazing returns.

Just never think about cleaning ever again? It’s (sorta) possible.

Ok, so where exactly do you find these super-trustworthy cleaning people who work for near-minimum wage but can be trusted not to steal your stuff? That's much easier said than done. And what do you do when these people you thought you had a "good relationship with" steal your stuff? It ends up being he-said-she-said because you just notice stuff missing one day, long after it's gone. I went through this when I was married and my wife insisted on hiring cleaning people; never again.

I change my own oil 9 times out of 10, my point is its not noteworthy whether I do it or a dealer does it.

It's just a task that has to be done.

Some dealers will do a better job than me and some will do a worse job, but for the most part at the end of the day the task is usually done.

Likewise with cooking.

Some experiences will be worse, it might cost more it might take a while, but at the end of the day on average I will have food that is enjoyable.

And if eating out is 2x eating in, it doesn't matter to most people if they can afford both.

>And if eating out is 2x eating in, it doesn't matter to most people if they can afford both.

Huh? Maybe in your country it's like that, but here in America it's more like 5x, unless you're eating fast-food garbage (and even that's probably 3x). It's expensive to eat out in this country, once you count the 20% for the stupid tip.

I live in New York City.

2x, 3x, 5x, it's all the same order of magnitude. If it's not prohibitively expensive people will do it.

In Singapore, everyone eats out in the hawker centers so most housing doesn't have a full blown kitchen. Of course Singapore has the population density to make this feasible and buying food is pretty cheap.

I don't see Singapore's public housing system coming to the Western world any time soon

This likely only works because Singapore is so dense that the food vendors are a very short walk from your home, on average. So you can just go walk around the corner and grab something, or grab something on your walk home from work. This isn't the case in many other places, and certainly not in America where everyone drives everyplace. (It is, however, frequently the case in Manhattan, which does have that density in places.)

If also lump the convince store meals that is super common in Japan with this. Same situation where density and cost makes this feasible.

Kitchens were out of the homes a few centuries back due to fire codes back then (from what I learned in the plantation tours in Louisiana,US). Today there is no reason for kitchen not be in the house. With all the news about pollution, potential pandemics, it is good to have a controlled environment where the food you ingest is prepared (even though ingredients are not 100% controlled).

Personally, I find cooking meditative and relaxing after a long day in my cubicle and I enjoy eating what I make myself sans excess oils, food colors, etc.

Or, instead of moving the kitchen out of the house, what if food growing/delivery evolved in the direction where you have the farm in your house? Companies like AeroGrow already make big consumner hydroponic indoor grow systems.

If the goal is fresh that might work out. However over the whole lifecycle big farms are generally cheaper and better for the environment.

There's nothing new under the sun, as they say - what you're suggesting was fairly common for poorer households back in ancient Greece and Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermopolium

That was actually the case before the industrial revolution. Having a kitchen was either a wild luxury or a workplace (cooking for hire), the majority of the population ate foods cooked in batch.

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