Where have you heard that?
I�m not sure it is correct, but what you might be referring to is the mass production techniques employed by Japan's high-tech food factories.
The essential element in this is hydroponics, the cultivation of plants in nutritive solutions. Factory farms are air-conditioned, and high-pressure sodium lamps provide twenty-four-hour-a-day illumination. The density of carbon dioxide, oxygen, temperature and humidity are controlled by a computer to maintain an optimum growing environment.
Daiei, Japan's biggest supermarket chain, has installed a factory farm next to its store in the Tokyo suburb of Fanabashi. This experimental facility, constructed in co-operation with Hitachi to grow lettuce for sale in the adjoining supermarket, uses a fully automatic hydroponic culture technology. The system produces some 130 heads of lettuce and other green vegetables per day (some 47,000 per year) on a floor space of no more than 66m�. Grown from seed, the lettuce is big enough for harvesting in only five weeks, 3� times faster than plants cultivated using conventional methods. In Mitsubishi's Amagasaki laboratory, a prototype food factory assembly line succeeded in growing lettuce seedlings from 2 grams to 130 grams in 15 days - 6 times faster than the natural growth rate. With specially developed fluorescent lamps, the photosynthetic ratio is said to be better than that of the sun.
By using these systems, Japanese producers are able to provide a continual daily supply throughout the year. So perhaps what is meant is that every 24 hours a new batch of lettuce are ready for dispatch?