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Target has decided to embrace vertical farming in its retail locations in order to provide even fresher produce to its consumers and it's going to move forward with a plan to integrate these growing methods into its store locations. To start with, they are going to test the approach with select stores located in the U.S. and use those locations to gather further research on the initiative. 

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To be specific, its Target's Food + Future CoLab that is behind the new plan, and it's in collaboration with MIT Media Lab and Ideo. They seek to explore research and development in areas of urban farming, food innovation, and food transparency. And their plan to begin testing the vertical farms could start as early as spring of next year. If all goes well, we might see the program expanded and then we could end-up seeing the growing first-hand for ourselves at our own local Target; the next time that we go in to shop.

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The Chief strategy and innovation officer for Target has said that one day we could possibly see a portion of their food supply coming from food that they have grown for themselves on their own property, using methods like this vertical farming initiative. Vertical farming popularity has drastically increased in recent years and there are a number of large-scale vertical growing operations that are going on presently around the world. It's exciting to see a large chain like Target embrace this farming trend in order to try and bring better products to its consumers. 

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Vertical farming offers a number of benefits like less pests with the ability to grow inside, grow more using less space, and the growing method uses less water. It's no surprise that a number of people have looked into getting more out of their space by utilizing vertical growing methods in order to do so. This initiative from Target is going to only better enable them to compete for those consumers in the market who are looking for fresh, natural, and local produce. 


Pics:
Inhabitat
Ark Labs
Retail Insider
sources:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/retailwire/2016/10/19/will-targets-in-store-farms-be-sustainable/#51e84a646311 
http://www.businessinsider.com/target-debut-vertical-farms-2016-9