
Small Vegetable Plant to Debut for Use in Restaurants - ph0rque
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20100614/183423/
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WillyF
I think that they may want to change their terminology. By plant they mean
factory, not... er... plant.

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nodata
I didn't even get the meaning of "plant" as meaning "factory" until I read
your comment AND looked at the article.

"Heavy plant crossing" also used to confuse me.

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petervandijck
An automated mini lettuce factory. Very cool. 90,000 US$. Not so cool anymore.
"Recoup the investment in about five years." Way too long.

Opportunity for a hardware startup? I'd say yes.

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jules
Not to mention that during the summer you'll be competing with good old
gardens. Growing lettuce is as easy as throwing a handful of seeds on a patch
of land and harvesting a couple of weeks later.

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KC8ZKF
Except for the birds and the rabbits and the weeds and the insects and the
mold and the soil and the rain...

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jules
Hasn't been a problem for me. Yes, the birds eat some of the seeds, but plenty
remain. Slugs can be a problem though.

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burgerbrain
(12 _40) watts_ (24 * 365) hours * 10 cents per kilowatt hour

That comes out to about 420USD per year just to run this thing. And that's at
10 cents per kilowatt hour. In areas which I suspect this sort of thing would
be more popular (California, the new england area, New York, etc) it's going
to cost you nearly twice as much.

Sure at 90000USD you might break even after 5 years, but you'll still actually
be more than 2000USD in the hole at that point that's to power consumption.

That's not even starting to take into consideration the amount of money you'll
pay in wages having your employees waste time with this thing.

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rjett
Am I missing something, or is this nothing more than fluorescent lighting and
an irrigation system neatly packaged?

Do plants grow faster in this environment? Do the shelves adjust for different
plant heights? Does the payback change if you're growing anything but lettuce?

Also, it seems to me that this vegetable factory would only be suitable for a
restaurant that had a very predictable and very specific amount of traffic
coming in the doors; otherwise, you're growing too much or not enough of what
you need.

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maxharris
_Am I missing something, or is this nothing more than fluorescent lighting and
an irrigation system neatly packaged?_

Try growing your own vegetables for commercial use and then comment on how
"trivial" this is. What they're doing provides a lot of value. With their
system, a restaurant can reliably provide _fresh_ vegetables to its customers
without waste. You just grab up what you need, as you need it, without
transport, storage, etc. Do you know what it's like to have a fridge full of
rotting lettuce because you've had a slow week?

I hope this makes it big - fresh vegetables with less waste means cheaper and
more appetizing vegetables. If this works out, it will make people healthier.
Hooray for capitalism and the innovation it enables!

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rjett
I was asking this question because if it is just fluorescent lighting and a
built in irrigation system, I think it would be much cheaper than $90,000 to
roll your own.

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Dylanlacey
The daily maintenance takes an hour. An HOUR. Most kitchens don't have a spare
5 minutes, let alone an hour.

Maybe this will be popular in places with gadged crazy chefs/customers, but I
can't imagine it being a raging success. I'd rather get my lettuce from a
producer who knows what he's doing and just charges me per head.

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xal
This looks related to prop 19 :-)

