Look at our blog posts on vertical farms to find out more.
There is a current need to rethink our high street. With 82% of us now shopping online and physical space becoming increasingly expensive, many stores and offices are leaving the high street behind. The pandemic has influenced this, introducing us to a working at home culture with accessible 24/7 shopping with next day delivery. John Lewis, once a cornerstone of the high-street has announced that they are closing a further 8 stores across the country. The chair, Sharon White, stated that ‘there has been a decade of changes in shopping habits in one year’.
So, what next for the high street?
At District Eating, we propose to transform some of these areas into smart urban farming spaces, in particular – vertical farms. This is an amazing chance to bring new jobs into city centres, train more growers and provide sustainable locally grown food with a small carbon footprint. A high street with a reinvigorated work force would help regenerate a community of other associated businesses such as cafés and restaurants that would help to encourage people back.
The most exciting opportunity is linking vertical farms in urban centres to pre-existing or soon to be developed heat networks, so that food can be grown from waste heat, further reducing its carbon footprint. In these locations all the wider infrastructure such as accessibility, and utilities are already in place.
Many people say ‘the high street is dying’ but at District Eating we see this shift in consumer habits as an opportunity to transform them.
