Japan to open fully automated lettuce factory in 2017

Japanese factory operator SPREAD Co. has announced it will develop the world's first large-scale vegetable factory that is fully automated from seeding to harvest and capable of producing 30,000 heads of lettuce per day.

Credit: SPREAD Co.

SPREAD Co. was founded in 2006 and operates the world's largest vegetable factory using artificial lighting in Kameoka, Kyoto Prefecture. Four types of lettuce are currently produced, totalling 21,000 heads per day that are shipped to around 2,000 stores throughout the year.

As the company embarks on global expansion, it is now focussing on environmentally-friendly measures to be featured in the construction of a major next-generation vegetable factory. This new facility will be a vertical farm with total automation of the cultivation process from start to finish. It will cut labour costs by 50 percent, while energy costs will be reduced by 30 percent per head of lettuce through the use of artificial LED lighting specifically created for SPREAD, as well as the development of a unique air conditioning system. Up to 98 percent of water will be recycled onsite.

Thanks to indoor operations, this highly controlled environment will be unaffected by pests, temperature or weather conditions and will not require any chemical pesticides. Productivity per unit volume will be doubled in comparison to the company's existing factory in Kameoka, as a result of innovative efforts to save space in the cultivation area. Stacker machines will carry seedlings and hand them over to robots that will take care of transplanting them. Once fully grown, they will be harvested and delivered automatically to the packaging line.

The project will require up to 2 billion yen (US$16.7 million) of investment, which includes onsite R&D and testing facilities. The factory will have a total area of 4,400 square metres (47,400 sq ft) and be capable of producing 30,000 heads of lettuce per day. Construction is expected to start in spring 2016 with commercial operations beginning from summer 2017. The company is predicting annual sales of approximately 1 billion yen (US$8.4 million).

SPREAD Co. has plans for major expansion. They intend to increase the scale of production to 500,000 heads of lettuce per day within five years and will continue expanding their franchise both domestically and internationally.