Shallow roots: can UK vertical farms keep growing as foreign rivals shrivel?

The Jones Food Company founder and chief executive, James Lloyd-Jones, in its vertical farming growing room in Lydney. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

Fifteen layers of trays, brimming with lettuces, salad leaves, basil and other herbs are growing underneath rows of multicoloured LED lights, stacked one above the other. The wall of edible greenery rises 10 metres high, all the way to the roof of a vast building in Lydney near Gloucester.

This vast matrix of glowing shelves is one of Britain’s latest vertical farms, growing plants indoors in a tightly controlled environment all year round. With the jump in energy prices and other costs, a string of similar ventures have gone out of business in recent years but the technology is still hailed by some as the future of food.