The Japanese industrial group Toshiba, known for its electronic devices and its nuclear reactors, announced on Thursday a new activity: selling vegetables to a factory.
"We will give a new dimension to our health care industry," Toshiba explained in a statement.
The group is preparing to proceed with the production of vegetables without pesticides or other chemicals in a completely closed and sterile factory, which will operate thanks to an impressive electronic mechanism.
Toshiba Group, which also specializes in medical equipment and runs its own hospital in Tokyo, says it wants to contribute to the good health of the people. This means, according to him, the consumption of healthy food, which can be manufactured in factories under certain technological conditions.
So the Japanese company is preparing to equip a disused factory in a suburb of Tokyo and equip it "with special fluorescent lighting, optimized for plant growth, with air conditioning that always maintains the same temperaturewinea and constant humidity, as well as with a device for monitoring the physical condition of the plants and with sterilization equipment for the packaging of the products".
Sensitive management of the whole will be based on instruments similar to those developed at semiconductor plants, another specialty of the group.
"By minimizing the contact of molecules with the products, it is possible to significantly increase their maintenance in good condition," Toshiba points out.
On a surface of nearly 2.000 sq., The group will produce three million salads a year and supply with lettuce, spinach and other supermarket vegetables, shops and restaurants.
Toshiba also plans to grow vegetables according to demand, with specific characteristics such as higher vitamin C content.
The company says it is also studying the construction of a large vegetable factory except of Japan, as well as the sale of equipment dedicated to this type of facilities.
Toshiba is not the first Japanese electronics group to be interested in "vegetable factories". Panasonic and Fujitsu also have each of these farms of this type, which have recently begun production in the Fukushima prefecture, where some of the population prefer vegetables grown indoors because they fear that these fields may be radioactive.
