Is the hope that people are going to pay premium for vertically farmed produce because of the brand or is this actually cheaper?
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.
Still 800kW, but a lot less than you are saying.
This does all assume the end result is a higher quality product of course.
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.