Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

just-food.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 236 posts

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#161

Post by hosh »

neild wrote: post #144
hosh wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food is thrown away because grocery stores want to sell uniform looking produce with no blemishes, and consumers came to expect that. That is the largest reason they get sent to the landfill, with growers have been sending it there before they get shipped. There is a lot of waste going on here because: - Consumers turn their noses on perfectly edible food that looks ugly. (There are volunteer organizations that inter…

Blemished, non-uniform product is turned into more processed food products or animal feed. Tomato soup isn’t made from the prettiest tomatoes. Blemished apples become applesauce. Tropicana puts a picture of a beautiful orange on the bottle, but they don’t care about what the ones going into the juicer look like. Consumer preferences for nice looking fruits and vegetables have little to no impact on overall food waste…

That is presuming that the supply of blemished foods gets completely used up by food processors, and that’s not true.

https://www.usda.gov/foodlossandwaste/faqs

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#162

Post by hombre_fatal »

piva00 wrote: post #49
narrator wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about retooling to specialize in crops that don't need sun, like mushrooms?

Mushrooms are very very poor in calories per volume/weight.

What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoprotein (fungal protein)?

I don't know much about it but it's intrigued me for a while. Apparently the only commercial product ("Quorn") is made in a fermentation vat with glucose syrup and Fusarium venenatum spores.

But the nutrition content is interesting: 42% protein by mass yet still has fiber and other nutrients. It's also supposed to be highly satiating.

Unfortunately, Quorn is shipped from the UK and they don't let me buy just one $10 box of it where I live.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#163

Post by jabradoodle »

pessimizer wrote: post #128
barney54 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Strangled by fascism?” Care to elaborate what you mean?

[flagged]

In that case, care to elaborate what terrorism is used as a euphemism for, and by who?

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#164

Post by scythe »

hosh wrote: post #161
neild wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blemished, non-uniform product is turned into more processed food products or animal feed. Tomato soup isn’t made from the prettiest tomatoes. Blemished apples become applesauce. Tropicana puts a picture of a beautiful orange on the bottle, but they don’t care about what the ones going into the juicer look like. Consumer preferences for nice looking fruits and vegetables have little to no impact on overall food waste…

That is presuming that the supply of blemished foods gets completely used up by food processors, and that’s not true. https://www.usda.gov/foodlossandwaste/faqs

>Food loss occurs for many reasons, with some types of loss—such as spoilage—occurring at every stage of the production and supply chain. Between the farm gate and retail stages, food loss can arise from problems during drying, milling, transporting, or processing that expose food to damage by insects, rodents, birds, molds, and bacteria. At the retail level, equipment malfunction (such as faulty cold storage), over-ordering, and culling of blemished produce can result in food loss. Consumers also contribute to food loss when they buy or cook more than they need and choose to throw out the extras (See Buzby et al (2014)).

This mentions a lot of different causes of food waste, and appearance ranks as a small factor. It certainly doesn't support your assertion that the appearance of produce is a primary cause of food waste.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#165

Post by esafak »

Alupis wrote: post #158
abakker wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because fixing things costs money. Even when it saves money. Money is the catalyst that allows anything to happen, and not enough people have enough of it to turn good ideas into good designs into good products.

And flying to another planet that happens to be completely inhospitable is somehow cheaper or easier? When you realize there are no hospitable planets, besides earth, within our solar system - you will realize there is no escaping the problems we have created here on earth. No, they must be solved, not avoided. There is no future where any of us alive today, or for many, many generations (dozens, maybe hundreds or th…

Besides, how could terraforming Mars be easier than fixing our problems?

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#166

Post by hosh »

kdmccormick wrote: post #156
hosh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think nothing will work without some kind of change to the way of life. Urban living has taken people away from the land, so there is this illusion that we don’t have to participate in the ecology. Like water infrastructure, people growing up in cities expect food-on-demand … if you have the money for it. The idea that if you want to eat an apple means going into the back yard and picking one off the tree is an ali…

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I don't like how you're going after urban living. I can rewrite what you've written, but from an urbanist perspective regarding transportation sustainability: Rural living has taken people away from one another, so there is an illusion that we don't have to pay the true costs of travel. People growing up in towns expect cars and on-demand access to roads and gasoline and…

People get attached to things, including urban living.

I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish with rewriting it from the perspective of travel. That is pretty much how I feel about travel and transport infrastructure too.

Some cultures attach a lot of importance on travel, associating it with freedom, or mobility (both in the literal sense, and as a metaphor for class mobility). Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel, to explore, to hike the wildernesses or enjoy different urban locale and take full advantage of the transport infrastructure. That doesn’t mean it isn’t an illusion.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#168

Post by kiba »

Alupis wrote: post #158
abakker wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because fixing things costs money. Even when it saves money. Money is the catalyst that allows anything to happen, and not enough people have enough of it to turn good ideas into good designs into good products.

And flying to another planet that happens to be completely inhospitable is somehow cheaper or easier? When you realize there are no hospitable planets, besides earth, within our solar system - you will realize there is no escaping the problems we have created here on earth. No, they must be solved, not avoided. There is no future where any of us alive today, or for many, many generations (dozens, maybe hundreds or th…

Too many people make it a dichotomy between staying here and colonizing. Why not both?

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#169

Post by clearcarbon »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #162
piva00 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mushrooms are very very poor in calories per volume/weight.

What about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoprotein (fungal protein)? I don't know much about it but it's intrigued me for a while. Apparently the only commercial product ("Quorn") is made in a fermentation vat with glucose syrup and Fusarium venenatum spores. But the nutrition content is interesting: 42% protein by mass yet still has fiber and other nutrients. It's also supposed to be highly satiating. Unfortunatel…

As someone in the UK this is kinda strange to read someone wanting to try quorn like I've been wanting to try the impossible burger.

Honestly Quorn is not a great meat replacement for anything other than mince, or maybe foods that are so processed all you can taste are the additives.

Re: Upward Farms throws in towel ten years after founding vertical-farming business

#170

Post by justincormack »

tfourb wrote: post #141
qqqwerty wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Traditional greenhouses (which the one at that landing site appears to be) are extremely energy intensive. Uhh, I am not seeing anything in that article that supports that claim, other than the first sentence, which does not cite any sources. That article appears to be discussing ways to maximize greenhouse performance in winter, on the premise that glass is a poor insulator. But no where does it discuss energy con…

Climate control is only one aspect of energy usage. Another is light. Flying over the Netherlands at night is spectacular, in some parts it looks like they've just flooded entire regions with grow lights. I think I've read that many use heating as well, though I have no data on that and I don't think it is very common outside the Netherlands.

Netherlands uses gas heating often, to heat and increase co2 levels.
Post reply on HN