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Factory-grown greens catch on in Japan

Vegetables grown in factories are finding their way onto more dining tables in Japan, as retailers take advantage of the stable prices offered by produce grown indoors. Customers, meanwhile, like their taste and texture.

At a Maruetsu supermarket in central Tokyo, customers examine packages of palm-sized lettuce leaves in the "factory-grown vegetables" section of the produce department. The vegetables are grown by Spread, a Kyoto startup.

"Ordinary lettuce is very expensive these days, so I bought it," said a 37-year-old housewife. "I like it because it's clean."

"It's soft and easy to chew," a 78-year-old woman said. Another shopper, a 21-year-old university student, said she was "not especially turned off by the image of vegetables grown in a factory."

Read more at Nikkei Asian Review (Tadanori Yoshida)