Dive Brief:
- Toshiba has opened a vegetable-growing facility in the Yokosuka, Kanagawa prefecture in Japan.
- The company, best-known for making televisions and laptop computers, is using technology from the clean rooms used to manufacture computer chips to grow vegetables in a near-sterile environment.
- The electronics producer has fairly modest plans for the facility itself -- hoping to generate about $3 million in revenue. But the technology being developed there may prove far more valuable.
Dive Insight:
Toshiba expects to ship lettuce, spinach, and other greens by the second half of the year. More interestingly, the electronics company said it may begin selling its clean-room plant equipment within that same time period.
We have no idea how big the market for "germ-free" produce may be. Nor is it clear what it costs to produce vegetables indoors without sun or dirt. Nor, for that matter, do we have any idea what sterile lettuce might taste like.
But we wouldn't bet against Toshiba. Japan's famously crowded cities provide a clue as to what much of the world will look like in the not-too-distant future. And indoor, germ-free greenhouses might be quite a hit in a world like that.