Dutch retailer Albert Heijn has announced that it has introduced six varieties of water-grown lettuce.
These include Botersla, Frisee, Lollo Rossa and Batavia varieties, as well as red and green oak leaf lettuce.
The retailer embarked on the project in association with vegetable supplier Koninklijke Vezet, and lettuce grower B-Four Agro.
The benefits of growing lettuce on water include year-long availability, lower carbon footprint, consistent quality and the limited use of pesticides.
The Process
The seeds are planted in a growing cell, after which the seedlings are transferred to a greenhouse.
The plants, which take about six to eight weeks to grow, receive abundant sunlight and feed on nutrients from the water in the greenhouse.
In winter, the greenhouse is lit up and heated with gas and electricity generated by B-four Agro's own biogas plant and solar panels.
Every week, Vezet processes the harvest into more than one million products, including bags of mixed lettuce and meal salads.
© 2019 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
