Customer Acceptance of Vertical Farming: Unveiling Insights for the Future of Sustainable Agriculture

Vertical farming is a modern growing method that keeps agricultural productivity while significantly lowering land uses, which makes it suitable for urban farming. However, it is facing challenges such as high energy consumption, economic affordability problems, public resistance and customers’ doubts in the perceived usefulness of this growing method, which have a great impact on customers’ acceptance of vertical farming products. This article discusses customers’ perspective on vertical farming products and systems by exploring customers’ awareness of vertical farming systems, their purchasing habits and factors influencing customer acceptance of vertical farming products. 

The most common classification method divides vertical farming systems into three according to their scale,  i.e. the vertical home farm, the in-store vertical farm, and the macro indoor vertical farm. According to Ayamany and Azizan, in Malaysia, produce from a medium-scale vertical farming system has the highest perceived value among the three different scales of the system, which indicates that consumers are more inclined to buy products grown in-store such local supermarkets or small stores (2023). However, the situation in Germany is different. The result of an online survey shows that consumers in Germany are more likely to purchase produce from a larger system since they perceive “ecologies of scale” (Jürkenbeck et al., 2019). Similar to “economies of scale”, “ecologies of scale” refers to the dynamics whereby a massive practice of an ecological action has the likelihood of benefiting from efficiency factors, making it more sustainable.
We assume that this regional difference may be due to the fact that people in different countries have different understandings of “ecologies of scale” under the influence of cultural backgrounds and society. A quantitative analysis in Sweden shows that customers’ trust in in-store farming products is positively related to the importance of packaging and the importance of certificates (Dominika Emília, 2023). Packaging and certificates can reflect the safety of the food to a certain extent. The fact that customers are concerned about these two points shows that they value the safety of food.

Image credit: Infarm

Research findings also suggest that customers’ resistance to this non-traditional way of producing food can be reduced by increased customer awareness of its sustainability, proof of its safety and nutritional values, as well as improved ways of selling those products. For instance, having in-store farms and getting customers engaged in the harvesting process can improve customers’ perception of the usefulness of vertical farming systems (Müller, 2023). 

Written by Jessie Xia and Sherry Qiu