World’s largest vertical strawberry farm opens in Jersey City
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When you grow your own, you can grow berries that are "too delicate" to grow economically on big farms because too many berries don't survive transit. As a result it opens up different berries (and other produce) that you might not otherwise have access too.
That said, getting seeds can be a challenge, I'm super blessed to live within driving distance of an excellent Ag college (UC Davis) but reaching out to the heirloom seeds community is another strategy some have pursued.
1. provide ample habitat for predators of said insects 2. grow a surplus so there's enough for you and the bugs 3. use the partly-eaten produce in sauces, jams, stews and other meals where presentation doesn't matter
Not optimizing for looks, transit and spending more resources per unit of produce are the main factors I suspect for the difference but I'm curious if there are others.
Note that for many modern folks, "regularly gets you outside and exercising a bit and perhaps interacting with neighbors" is a valuable output. And you should also consider the vast processing, handling, & transportation wastes (including your or a delivery driver's time at the wheel) of the alternative.
- Peace of mind - Sense of accomplishment - Food independece - Giving the gift of veggies
If you don't (veg) garden, this is the most inspiring piece of content I've seen on the subject. I'm generally not a TED fan, but this one is seriously inspiring.
> Then the earth itself will have the tendency to come inwardly alive and become akin to the vegetative.
~ Herrman Andrä, 1962, in re: Hügelkultur; (ah, he's quoting Rudolf Steiner from a "1924 lecture on biodynamics" but it's still evocative and descriptive prose despite biodynamics being pretty "woo-woo".) https://web.archive.org/web/20190715152357/http://pubs.cahnr...
When soil is healthy plants grow vigorously with minimal pest problems and no fertilizers nor pesticides, and yield and quality go up. E.g. I have lots of slugs in my garden, but almost no slug damage. You also do things to encourage the local mini-ecosystem. For example I have these plastic panels that serve as flagstones but also function as habitat for centipedes. Every couple of weeks I lift them up and throw some cuttings under there to keep it from getting too compacted. Centipedes are apex predators at their scale, like wolves or lions, so having a healthy population of them is both a indicator of ecosystem health and a crucial factor keeping other bugs from growing out of control. They cannot regulate their own moisture levels so they need a perpetually moist environment to survive. By providing that in my otherwise pretty dry micro-climate I get free pest control.
Sweet corn, for example, starts converting sugars to starch soon after it's picked. Many people don't really understand why it's called sweet corn, as they've only ever eaten corn that was picked a few days ago. Asparagus I believe is very similar, with significant flavour changes happening rapidly after harvest.
We've enjoyed dozens of varieties of cherries straight off the trees all with wonderfully distinct flavours, but a day or two after picking, they're all merely 'cherry-flavoured'.
William Alexander wrote, somewhat humorously, about the dollar & effort costs of growing produce at home [1] but in addition to unique / superior flavours, advocates will often assert the intangible benefits (a new problem domain to engage the brain, a tighter connection with your food, the near-meditative aspects of some repetitive gardening activities).
Oh, and for seed acquisition, in AU we've got a few really good options - Green Harvest, Diggers, Edens etc - that maintain many of the heirloom varieties that found there way here, but I thought stateside you'd have way more options? Check the Seed Savers Network[2] if you haven't found them already.
With other plants, it's also easy and advisable just to let some go to seed instead of harvesting them. You'll have plenty for the next round.
1: https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/faq/can-i-grow-apple-...
I have noticed that this preference for superior produce is lacking in America. That’s mostly because there is no food culture or habit of dining together.
In Asia and even in parts of Europe, people will wait for seasonal produce and appreciate certain varieties. (White asparagus dipped in melted butter..yum. Don’t get me started about mango season in India)
The National dish of USA is the cheeseburger. And we import most of our produce. So there is no appreciation for seasonality and food is always from elsewhere. And often picked unripe and have travelled a lot of food miles. There is no anticipation or excitement for food. Everything is available in massive quantities and on demand. At some point, the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
We export commodities like nuts and fodder. We have billions of sales in worthless tasteless leafy greens like kale and lettuce. Nobody ever enjoyed a bowl of ‘yummy’ lettuce. Nobody.
As a farmer, this is very depressing to me. As a chef, I feel almost suicidal. For cooks and chefs, if there are no one enjoying or appreciating our skills, we might as well not exist.
As an immigrant who grew up in a food culture before America, it’s wretchedly depressing. The grocery stores here are designed like warehouses and farms are like factories. The goods are standardized and optimized for efficient supply chain. All the joy of food shopping is sucked dry from these sterile environments.
As a small acreage farmer who wants to automate and improve tech, the options are minimal to nil. There are some companies that try to help small farmers but I am not sure how it will pan out. Time will tell. Everything in America has to scale. Economies of scale is the killer. Must scale is the mantra.
While Europe has at least close to a dozen small acreage ag bots in the work, you don’t even hear about the handful that is working to help us small acreage farmer out..many have died out even before they can get started because of lack of funding. But that’s another topic for another day.
California is better than most places, tbh with varieties. The weather is the saving grace.
Also: There is California rare fruits association and scion exchange.
I might be in a bubble, but I would have thought this to have been common knowledge for ages?
I got gut feeling that it is even bit outdated info at this point, and the trend is swinging back towards improving flavor instead of so solely focused on yields and transportability (etc).
Now I’ve seen the vegetable farms in Europe that are equipped with plastic greenhouses to extend the growing season. Which is lacking in the US. Farmers prefer GMO, hardier fruit that can stand the cold rather than expensive bubbles.
There's even an FAQ entry that sounds like borderline satire: "How were you able to bring the price down from $50 to $20?"
There is a high-end market for utmost-quality, expensive food in small quantities.
Remember how Tesla started as a ridiculously expensive muscle electric car. Now they have much more affordable models, and it's increasingly hard to walk down a street a in NYC and not spot at least one Tesla. Entering a market from its most premium segment is a common strategy, before you can polish your processes, achieve economies of scale, and lower the prices.
"Making the berries more affordable was “the whole purpose” of expanding operations and focusing on efficiencies, Oishii co-founder and CEO Hiroki Koga said."
More affordable? Rather "less expensive". Affordable they are not.
I’ve not had any strawberries in the US supermarkets that were truly ripe and sweet.
Unlike most of Europe and Asia, we’re cursed with interstate agriculture and produce optimized for shipping cross-country for long distances.
To get somewhat close means going strawberry picking.
And about 2000km north of you they are even cheaper.
That said...they are also extremely expensive.
For a slightly cheaper alternative, you can find strawberries imported from Japan that are probably 95% as good, albeit not as pretty looking. I've seen these going for about $30 for 10.
For a slightly more cheaper alternative, you can find strawberries imported from Korea that are probably about 90% as good, albeit not as pretty looking. These seem to go for about $15-20 for 10.
They're all significantly more expensive than the North American berries you find at the local supermarket, but they're also significantly better IMHO.
I'm very skeptical that they're worth $2 per strawberry.
The Japanese and Korean berries are much better. I wouldn't buy them at whim without any thought. They're definitely a treat to indulge in.
Edit: One thing to bear in mind - the main characteristics of these Asian berries is sweetness. They're incredibly sweet, with a hint of tartness. I have not encountered this level of sweet in any North American berry, though I have once in the UK. The Korean berries are also slightly less sweet and slightly more tart than the Japanese ones.
If your preferred strawberry taste note is tart/sour, not sweet, then you might not like them. My wife's cousin prefers her berries tart, so she prefers the cheap berries you can find at any grocery over these Asian ones.
But then there are also some that just have an actual strawberry flavor. It's like an explosion of flavor in your mouth. Like the smell of a bucket full of strawberries but you can actually taste that when biting into the strawberry. I could stay there all day and just pick those and eat them right away. But then I wouldn't ever be able to make strawberry jam from them.
> The Jersey City facility consumes 60% less energy and 40% less water than the first-gen technology created and used at Oishii’s R&D facility in Kearny.
So, how much more energy than growing the fruit in a traditional way ?
I don't understand where do they take the electricity, but I suppose it could come completely from solar panels on the roof. Let's suppose they buy it locally. If my own electric bill (about 10 miles from them in Brooklyn) is any indication, the energy is > 50% renewable (hydro, nuclear, wind).
Traditionally-grown berries would need to be transported, likely hundreds of miles. These berries apparently go to NYC area within 20 miles. This saves on transportation and refrigeration.
With vertical farming, energy is a an important cost component; along with water, some nutrients, etc. You might even argue it's probably the biggest cost component next to perhaps manual labor. However, havesting produce in a vertical farm is probably a bit easier and efficient than in a field. So that leaves energy as the main cost difference. Water is quite easy to source, and effectively just takes more energy to clean and pump around and recycle. So, energy cost is really the key thing. Saving water saves energy. Because of the better yields per area you can farm in areas where it previously would have been too expensive and much closer to where the produce is consumed. Which means a lot of energy savings in transport, tilling, etc.
So, it's probably more energy efficient overall. Whether it is cost effective depends mainly on the price of energy and how efficient you are with that. The cheaper and more efficient that gets the better it is. And of course the environmental impact is pretty minimal if you use clean renewable energy. Very unlike traditional farming which is comparatively dirty. So, 60% efficiency gain sounds like pretty nice cost optimization. Further cost reductions are going to come from lower cost per kwh. There probably is a cross over point where growing strawberries in a field becomes an expensive hobby.
This is perhaps a good real world example of the marshmallow test.
While I suspect you're being snarky about strawberries not being trees, there actually is a strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo. I'm growing one, as it happens. They're a good looking tree, dark leaves, good canopy, lovely white bell-shaped flowers, but the fruit being reminiscent of strawberries more in the visuals than the flavour. This species appears on Madrid's coat of arms.
Anyway, there's a couple of probably unintended running jokes in that book -- the phrases 'highly variable' and 'good for jams' are frequently used when it feels like he's trying to be polite about good, but often far from great, fruit.
I recall he used both phrases for this species.
I think with a lot of these kinds of fruit trees that haven't been carefully selected over centuries, you don't have lots of named varieties, and consequently they're usually grown from seed rather than grafted, so in turn, combined with climate and soil variations, it's a bit of a pot-luck on whether you have great, or merely edible, fruit.
So, yes, you're right, we could start breeding better varieties, but this is an expensive pursuit for tree crops, and few are engaged in it these days.
Apples get a bit of attention (look at the Cosmic Crisp f.e.) and citrus too, but realistically most of humanity's diet today is based around species selected by hunter-gatherers ~11k years ago.
[1] https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-complete-book-of-fruit-grow...
Lots of things don't taste as you'd expect from their names -- monkfish is the first that springs to mind. I mean, sure, they're fish-flavoured, but ...
Mangosteens (my favourite fruit) are not at all like mangoes, kiwifruit taste more like a gooseberry than a chicken, dragonfruits are pleasantly delicate but way more bland than the fiery name suggests, and so on.
If you don't like the surprise of the fruit from strawberry tree not tasting like a strawberry, then the tree tomato (tamarillo) will really annoy you. : )
I snack on the fruits when ripe, but haven’t made anything out of them yet. Hummingbirds seem to love them and they’re evergreen, so they’re nice to have around aside from them fruit.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Hydroponics/comments/t8wx66/strawbe...
Also that price is for "11 medium berries or eight large berries", and has now dropped to $20. That's still a bit ridiculous, though it's not clear to me what fraction of their harvest is actually saleable at the high price.
Granted some of the trees are actually on our neighbor's property (with their blessing), but still.
Is the hope that people are going to pay premium for vertically farmed produce because of the brand or is this actually cheaper?
On a more societal level, I think it is a skill we are going to need as time goes on, as things get denser, more populated, less arible and more insecure. So it's a worthwhile investment in technology, and I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't some government grants and research grants funding a portion of the endeavor.
This does all assume the end result is a higher quality product of course.
Still 800kW, but a lot less than you are saying.
If you grow the produce at point-of-sale and don’t transport it, you can make it feasible to sell more heirloom varieties (and many species like huckleberries) that just don’t travel/scale well in modern mechanized agriculture.
You’re not going to compete on price, but you can potentially get a far superior product.
Most things people claim can’t be transported can be transported just fine. Maybe not on a six week boat trip from Panama, but certainly on a refrigerated truck from an extra hour upstate.
When people say that something can’t be stored, they usually mean that it only keeps for a few weeks, rather than over a year like commercial apples.
Even if you have lower standards, strawberries rot quickly. Even refrigerated, they don't last more than a week or so.
While I don't think the berries are worth the price tag, I'd definitely be interested in trying some of the new products they mention in the article (tomatoes, melons).
That said, we're all looking at the retail price, but the actual cost could be much lower. But it's more profitable to sprinkle some magic marketing dust on it and go higher end.
Glad to see they scaled up.