This follows Ocado setting up two JVs and investing in a UK startup in June.
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Very interesting. Thereās a great piece in the last issue of WIRED about indoor farming, and how much more water and energy efficient it can be to grow vegetables in purpose built vertical structures.
Worth a read 
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Good article.
I have always been interested in this concept and good on the stores for jumping at it, the less they spend on importing will hopefully pass savings on to the customer too.
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I love Wired @Freetrade_Team
Also seen a segment somewhere on YouTube about growing 
in containers 
.
I canāt find the article you mentioned, must be behind a paywall for now.
This is one of the much older Wired articles on the topic after a few seconds of googling:
Next - a protein 
farm Ć la Blade Runner 2049 
:
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Definitely want to get in on the indoor/vertical farming. Saw something a while back about mushrooms and leafy vegetables thriving in that environmentā¦ Must have been on BBC Click
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Are there any listed companies that are heavily involved with vertical/indoor farming?
As far as I know its only Ocado and Softbank that are to any significant extent.
Iām looking more where the majority of their business is related to it. Weāre probably too early in the adoption of it.
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I mean one option is to invest in the lighting specialists, like Philipsā recently divested arm. Other than that youāll have to wait.
Very interesting to see this thread.
My pixel threw up this article in the news feed: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/homes-and-gardens/houseplants-uk/
The main take away is the Dutch are very efficient at indoor agriculture.
Best parts:
In the past year, the RHS has reported a 50 per cent rise in houseplant sales, with an 80 per cent increase in fern sales and 150 per cent rise in sales of the monstera
vast automated greenhouses across Holland (ā¦) the future houseplants are fed and watered by hi-tech machines and heated at programmed intervals, with artificial lighting
Companies mentioned:
- Double H. Largest houseplant grower in the UK. Based in Hampshire. Images on the site look indoor to me.
- Cactusland. the UKās largest cactus nursery. Based in Lincolnshire.
- Patch. London based houseplant delivery service. I have not heard about it before, but according to my wife, her colleagues love it. Sounds like a dropshipping business to me.
I think people often get very excited by technology like vertical farming, but it is essentially hyper-automated indoor farming of anything that we should be excited about?
I did not find any related public companies yet.
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+1 to all this, apart from the farms.
I donāt care how much protein they contain, that aināt happening!
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If you are vegan for animal care reasons or creeped out by bugs, do not read onā¦
I went with a few friends to Archipelago (https://www.archipelago-restaurant.co.uk/) back in March, we got a wide selection of stuffā¦ Crocodile, alpaca (so tasty!), kangaroo (yes it is more springy than beef), Snake carpaccio (which oddly tasted a bit fishy)ā¦ We had to also try the bugsā¦ the crickets werenāt done well, they were too gooey and if I ever get a chance to try them cooked a different way, I will. But my favourite were the antsā¦ Crispy and flavoursome
Pictures (open):
At the end of it, I definitely came away thinking that maybe it is possible to have it as foodā¦ People of the future might look back at us now and think we are gross by eating sugary doughnuts. All a matter of perspective
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@Freetrade_Team do you like 
flavoured smoothies 
, yoghurts or frappuccinos 
? 
What about flavoured cake 
? 
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I would wager that most of the non-vegetarians/vegans here eat shrimp, prawn and lobster. I donāt think expanding our diets to other arthropods is that far fetched.
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I was just thinking it would be nice if Patch was crowdfunding and here. we. go.
Anyone fancying it?
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Not for me. Canāt stand this hipster stuff, disrupting Ā£22B of garden centresā¦
Maybe Iām just sour
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then itās a 
. https://harvestlondon.seedrs.com/
Unsure if this has/had been shared but Harvest London is crowdfunding soon.
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