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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

Im speculating, but I would think that getting lettuce of that quality and freshness would be far too big a challenge for typical US fast food chain distribution. Fluctuations in demand and short shelf life would make it very difficult for most fast food restaurants to avoid wasting a good percentage of the lettuce, I would think.

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As a farmer, I would replace "be too big a challenge" with "hurt their bottom line". It is surprisingly easy to find quality food if you're willing to pay a little more. It's just hard to undersell a "5lb bag of lettuce" for ~$3.88[0]

[0] http://www2.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=10179296&w...

I suspect you're right, and generally what I figured. But then when I see street meat vendors with fresh onions and pickles every day, I question if that's really the reason.

The funny part about this is they could easily grow lettuce on the roofs of their restaurants. In fact, you can take a head of lettuce, use it, put the remaining stalk in water, and it may grow new roots. If it does, you can replant it and grow your own lettuce.

I have 2 friends who have done this in their kitchens before having to move the plant back into dirt. When I move to an apartment with a south-facing window, I'll definitely join them.

"they could easily grow lettuce"

There is a constant stream of cars going through some McDonalds drive-thrus. I would worry a bit about the car exhausts somehow getting to the lettuce, soil etc in sufficient concentration to be an issue. I don't know if this would be a problem or not but as a consumer (who doesn't go to McDonalds) it's something that comes to my mind and I'm sure others (regardless of the type of, um, food they are eating) might also be skived by it.

> they could easily grow lettuce on the roofs of their restaurants.

In some parts of the year in some regions. Otherwise it's down to greenhouses and irrigation. Not to mention relying on minimum wage employees to farm successfully enough to build a business around.

Not to mention some restaurants – pretty much every non-standalone location, such as those inside Wal-Marts, malls, even commercial development rows – don't have their own roofs per se, or if they do, employees would not necessarily be permitted access. Plus, can you imagine the time involved in having location employees deal with harvesting produce?

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