Latest news with #lettuce
Fast Company
a day ago
- Business
- Fast Company
Fresh, local, and predictable: How 'indoor' farms are solving food's biggest problems
Inside an eight-acre greenhouse on the outskirts of Macon, Georgia, more than eight million pounds of lettuce are harvested annually, untouched by external weather conditions, pesticides, or even human hands. The produce picked and packaged here is then shipped directly to regional retailers and food banks, skipping multiple links in the typical salad's supply chain. This facility joins a network of a half-dozen other greenhouses strategically placed around the country by BrightFarms, a pioneer in 'controlled environment agriculture.' Together, they offer a blueprint for a more resilient, nutritious, and delicious food chain that looks more like just-in-time manufacturing than traditional farming. That's because the average American's food pyramid has never felt more wobbly. Farmers lost $20.3 billion to weather disasters last year, nearly half of which was uninsured. With fresh produce concentrated in California and buttressed by foreign imports during the winters, the nation's stomach travels on long-haul trucks consuming fuel, belching emissions, and stretching the time between harvest and consumption, which in turn leads to lettuce with a shorter shelf life. BrightFarms' localized greenhouses, once dismissed as a niche product for affluent urbanites, have spent the past decade refining their techniques and scaling production to close the cost gap with conventional farming. Now they're starting to pull ahead. 'Indoor-grown salads represent 6% of an $8 billion category, but account for 100% of the growth,' notes Abby Prior, chief commercial officer of Cox Farms, BrightFarms' parent company. Most produce is at its highest nutritional value the moment it's harvested. The faster we get it to consumers, the healthier it is for them.' Abby Prior, Cox Farms This switch delivers produce that is fresher, safer, and more reliable—traits that are especially meaningful to cash-strapped consumers. The unstoppable rise in food prices during the past few years has caused many to re-evaluate their household and caloric budgets. Fresh produce needs flavor, visual appeal, and importantly, the shelf life to compete with hyper-processed foods that busy consumers often choose for convenience. If produce can last longer, the likelihood increases that it will be used and not go to waste. Combined with the added ease of not needing to be washed, greenhouse-grown produce provides much-needed value and convenience. Only 1 in 10 Americans regularly eats the recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables—a shocking statistic skewed further by income and demographics. To that end, BrightFarms has partnered with Feeding America to donate millions of pounds of excess product to their network of more than 200 food banks, including the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank, which the Macon facility serves. 'It's probably the only fresh greens we have right now,' says Kathy McCollum, the organization's president and CEO. This is how you transform American diets: one salad at a time. AUTOMATION FROM SEED TO STORE BrightFarms' regional greenhouse model represents a radical departure from transcontinental supply chains. Acquired by Cox Enterprises in 2021, the firm harnessed its parent's resources to open new hubs in Illinois, Texas, and Georgia last year, with additional expansion plans that will eventually triple its annual production to 150 million pounds of leafy greens and bring two-thirds of the country within reach. This not only produces steady, year-round harvests, but also deliveries in as little as 24 hours, cutting more than a week from typical farm-to-fork timetables while significantly lowering transportation time and emissions. These vertically-integrated facilities also leverage automation from seed to store, all but eliminating contamination risks inherent in today's agriculture. When foodborne illnesses strike conventional farms, 'you see entire shelves—all brands, all locations—being pulled because it's impossible to tell where the problem came from,' Prior explains. By contrast, BrightFarms' closed-loop system offers complete traceability while ensuring delivery at the height of freshness. 'Most produce is at its highest nutritional value the moment it's harvested,' Prior adds. 'The faster we get it to consumers, the healthier it is for them.' This means its donations to the Middle Georgia Community Food Bank arrive in peak condition rather than wilted remnants. And instead of being packaged as bulk shipments, BrightFarms' lettuce lands in the food bank's warehouse as ready-to-eat individual portions, helping to nudge families toward choosing greens for dinner. 'If we have that available so it becomes a regular part of their children's diets, that generation could be much healthier than they would have otherwise been,' McCollum says. RESTORING AG TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES Beyond feeding the communities it serves, BrightFarms' greenhouses are also catalyzing revitalization. The Macon facility will employ 250 workers at full capacity, offering technical and engineering career paths unimaginable to previous generations of local farmers. 'We're able to bring agriculture back to the communities that lost it,' Prior says. Rather than relying on low-wage laborers a continent or two away, the greenhouse model promises new pathways to participate in local production and recirculate dollars as well as nutrients. BrightFarms' lettuce is just the beginning of a greenhouse-led restocking of America's produce sections. Prior envisions a future in which tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers—crops already 80% greenhouse-grown globally—join leafy greens in regional growing facilities, creating a distributed network of agricultural infrastructure as reliable as the electrical grid. This evolution promises to fundamentally alter both what appears on American plates and who grows it. Shorter supply chains mean fresher, longer-lasting produce that retains more vitamins. Predictable harvests enable health and wellness programs to prescribe vegetables as preventative medicine. Stable pricing makes healthy eating more accessible across income levels. As the time from farm-to-fork shrinks from days to hours, it's worth noting that the healthiest communities are those that feed themselves.
Daily Mail
6 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
Is an expensive high street lunch ever worth it? From Pret's £12.95 salmon box to Sainsbury's £4.50 green salad, SARAH RAINEY tries the 'healthy' top offerings... and has a surprising verdict
As summer lunch plans go, there are few more convenient options than buying a salad box from your favourite sandwich shop or supermarket. But forget wilted lettuce, squashed tomatoes and soggy croutons; today's healthy lunches truly are a cut above your average home-chopped salad.
Bloomberg
20-07-2025
- Climate
- Bloomberg
How Climate Change Is Raising Your Grocery Bill
A 300% spike in Australian lettuce prices. A 50% rise for European olive oil and 80% for US vegetables. Researchers from the Barcelona Supercomputing Center and the European Central Bank have traced back those price jumps to extreme weather they say is linked to climate change. The group analyzed 16 weather events around the world between 2022 and 2024. Many were so unusual that a given region had experienced nothing like it prior to 2020, according to the analysis, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters on Monday in Europe.
Wall Street Journal
18-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
McDonald's Snack Wrap Rollout Leads to Lettuce Crunch
The return of McDonald's MCD -1.14%decrease; red down pointing triangle Snack Wraps has been a hit with customers—and a hit to the Golden Arches' lettuce supplies. Some McDonald's locations have run short of lettuce and other toppings after the chain this month brought back the fried chicken strips rolled in tortillas, according to restaurant operators and a company message viewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Daily Mail
14-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Are 'ready to eat' salads really good for you? Experts reveal the startling truth - and what you must do to avoid a nasty surprise
Bagged salad has become a staple in modern fridges. But are these ready-prepared leaves any good nutrition-wise – and what about the food poisoning risks? The potential harms were highlighted last summer when more than 280 people were struck down by a virulent form of linked to contaminated lettuce grown in the UK. Here, experts offer their advice... Does it count as five-a-day?
