Growth Industry

My company opened a fully automated greenhouse north of Toronto to boost Canada's supply of homegrown leafy greens—just in time for the trade war.

- Jay Willmot

MY FAMILY HAS FARMED in King City, Ontario, since 1967. We used to run one of Canada's top horse racing and breeding businesses, but, in that world, it's notoriously difficult to stay profitable year in and year out. By the late 2000s, we were asking ourselves, “Do we double down on racing, sell our land or pivot to something else?” We chose the third option, starting with beekeeping and raising chickens. Later, we got into renewable energy, building and operating five revenue-generating solar power plants—including one on our farm. That laid the foundation for our greens business.

When I was a commerce student at Dalhousie University, one of my professors said, “Make a list of things that piss you off—those are your business ideas.” Number one on my list was grocery-store lettuce. The stuff on the shelves was always one or two days from its best-before date and often turned to mush before I could finish it all. Not only that, Canada imports the vast majority of its greens, more than 90 per cent of which come from Arizona and California. That often left us settling for slimy produce that had been on trucks for days or weeks. I decided to start a new company to establish a local supply. That became Haven Greens.

Nowadays, fewer and fewer farmers are growing field greens in Canada. This country has notoriously short growing seasons, and lettuce is a time-consuming and physically strenuous plant to harvest: workers typically walk through fields, cutting heads of lettuce one by one with small harvest blades, then carry them back to tractors in totes. Like other crops, the fate of field greens is also determined by variables like labour shortages, weather and contamination.