> Not breeding for transport could be big. But it's not entirely new at all, certain cooking herbs like basil are often entering the kitchen alive in the pot they are grown in or even cultivated right there on the window sill.

What actual experience do you have with such models?

This is actually incredibly rare, specifically growing on-site, especially now as COVID has ravaged the culinary Industry irreparably in the US.

I've been a cook, ran kitchens (with in an emphasis in farm to table and agro-tourism), and did/do supply chain and have a focus on food-tech. I can tell you that anything closely resembling the model you described was very short lived at Michelin Star restaurants in the E. Coast, or a few with actual farms in addition to their brick an mortar operation: think French Laundry in NorCal or Blue Hill in NY.

This is actually a very good model for all involved, that may not have had much viability ~10 years ago when I first got really involved, but with COVID making people aware of how weak the food supply chain is this may do well. People are dining out less and lower overall food costs are likely to make this viable, despite not being all encompassing upon deployment.

I really hope last year's shortages were a wake up call, and want to see more of this take off. This entire system is in dire need of repair, now that the disruption has taken its toll.

> A more industrial scale might replace refrigerators for certain greens with a vertical farm "life support system" where larger batches from the supplier can be plugged in, delivered once a week or once a month at a spectrum of growth stages.

Could be, but you have to understand most of the Industry, specifically the affluent ones that would even try this in CA or NY let alone middle America that operates on the thinnest of margins, are beyond life support. These places are not coming back.

What you suggest is interesting, and I had a similar idea before which could help curb some of the baked in pershibaility in the food supply but this will just translate to longer times for ROI which as I said is already stretched super thin due to high overhead and operational costs and think margins.

But, its definitely worth exploring if the travel times are less than 30 mins and would have to be limited in scope: greens, herbs and other fast-growing crops. Proper fruit trees, grains etc... are out of the question.

My model was simple: ship in starter plants to unused land in cities that incorporate Ag into the Education system and have them participate in wide scale farm and smaller scale green house operations (this already exists in Denver) and have them supply the restaurants. What ever they don't sell they could help feed the community. Help create secondary and tertiary business models with local entrepreneurs and philanthropists--I thought of someone like Chamath would be super interested to be honest.

I actually wanted to pitch this to my former boss, Kimbal Musk, as an adjunct of an already existing model with Big Green and Squared Roots learning gardens and the container garden models respectively. I had devised a whole system with to-do things after I came back from a stint at SpaceX after having worked at his Flagship in Boulder.

Unfortunately, COVID ruined that, but the plan makes sense none the less and I would gladly make efforts to volunteer even though I'm retired from both Ag and Culinary now.