UK | Marks & Spencer has brought three vertically farmed salad products to stores as part of its ongoing work to find innovative ways to produce food that tastes exceptional and stays fresh for longer.
The salads are grown indoors using vertical farming, where temperature, light and water are carefully optimised to create consistent growing conditions year‑round.
Advanced robotics is used to plant the seeds, which are grown with a growing substrate instead of soil, to direct the exact nutrients needed to grow the perfect leaf. UV lights in the vertical farm maintain ideal conditions for leaf growth.
This approach not only enhances product quality and customer convenience (since the salads require no washing before consumption), but also supports more sustainable agriculture by using 96 percent less water and eliminating the need for pesticides. Fertiliser use is also reduced by around 97 percent, and crops are grown without pesticides.
The three salad varieties grown in this innovative way include Citrus Sorrel Baby Leaves, Spicy Baby Leaves and Baby Garlic Kale , which are unique flavours exclusive to M&S Food stores.
As the leaves are grown in a controlled environment and harvested without soil, they can be picked at the optimal moment for consistent quality and flavour, and packed within 60 seconds of harvest.
This results in salads that stay fresher for up to five days longer than an average bag of salad, helping customers prolong the life of their food and reduce household waste.
“The future of food is about finding new and innovative methods which put less pressure on the environment while delivering the best in market flavour and quality,” said Andrew Clappen, Director of Technical for M&S Food.
“These Collection salads are vertically grown exclusively for M&S and bring new flavours to our customers with a dramatically reduced water consumption, supporting our Plan A goal to reach net zero by 2040 across our supply chain.”
The vertical farming products sit alongside M&S’s Plan A for Farming, a five‑year commitment launched last year to help deliver a more sustainable future for food.
Improving traditional farming practices and investing in new growing systems will be essential to meeting environmental challenges while continuing to supply fresh food year‑round.
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