When is a farm not a farm? When it's really a 139K SF warehouse.

Harvest London, a B-Corp specialising in herbs and salad crops, has signed up for a unit at Prologis Park Beddington, in Croydon, south London.

It plans to turn the warehouse into a high-tech indoor "vertical farm," Insider reported.

The aim is a shorter supply chain, and 1,000 tonnes annually of fresher food to restaurant and shops.

The project is also intended to cut water and cut pollution from runoff.

Vertical farms have been sprouting across the U.S. since the middle of the last decade.

Last month Realty Income Corp., a publicly traded REIT with a market capitalization of more than $40B, revealed that it was expanding into agriculture development with a new $1B partnership with indoor vertical farming company Plenty to acquire sites and develop them to be leased back to the south San Francisco-based startup.

In the UK the scale is smaller, and the idea is newer.

Since 2020 Harvest London has operated from a 1.6K SF unit in Leyton, East London.

Foresight Group is providing the capital for the new farm, which depends on sophisticated racking systems along with a harvesting room and production management area.

The investment has a historical precedent: Salad crops have short shelf lives, and do not travel well. Growing vegetables close to the place of consumption has always been a part of London life. Until the mid-20th century the city was circled by market gardens. Most have now been redeveloped for housing.