Canada’s largest vertical farm opens in southeast Calgary

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The facility that will produce leafy greens year-round for Calgarians, even in the dead of winter, officially opened Tuesday.

Located deep in Calgary’s industrial southeast, next to Amazon’s giant warehouses, GoodLeaf Farms has opened what it calls Canada’s largest vertical farm at 96,000 square feet.

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It marked the completion of construction of the massive $52 million facility. In 2021, the Alberta government contributed $2.7 million through the Alberta Investment Growth Fund (IGF). GoodLeaf CEO and founder Barry Murchie said that while construction has completed, the company hopes to double the facility’s capacity “in the not-too-distant future.”

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“It’s extraordinary the amount of effort it takes to build a farm that no one has done before,” Murchie said.

Premier Danielle Smith stopped briefly to meet with GoodLeaf executives and sample the company’s lemonade with radish microgreens, leaving before the news conference began. Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation, RJ Sigurdson, and Minister for Employment, Economy and Trade, Matt Jones, also made some comments.

The GoodLeaf facility is an important step for food sovereignty in Alberta, Murchie said, as concerns about water needs in areas of the United States have made vertical farms key facilities for the regions’ food supply. Canada sources most of its leafy greens from California and Arizona.

“For the next Black Swan event, Canada must be prepared,” he said.

GoodLeaf has had significant investments from McCain Foods Ltd., Murchie’s employer for 25 years. The major food producer announced in February 2021 that it had invested a total of $65 million in GoodLeaf and has since provided further financing.

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Sigurdson said Alberta’s agricultural processing tax credit is key to attracting more GoodLeaf-like investments, adding that the province spent its planned $2 billion in investments a year ahead of schedule.

Sigurdson said the province is looking at new targets “to provide more food stability and bring that localized production here.”

Vertical farming has had problems in Calgary in the past

Vertical farming, for all its obvious benefits, has not been a sure winner in Calgary and Canada, often thanks to short-lived enthusiasm and foundering within a few years.

One such company is Infarm, a German vertical farming company that was once valued at $1 billion. Infarm established a farm and base in Calgary in 2021, one of 11 farms it had worldwide at the time, and touted significant growth plans in the Alberta market.

That all came to a head in November 2022, when Infarm announced it would lay off more than half of its workforce and consolidate operations across a handful of its farms. The company has since withdrawn its operations from Vancouver and Calgary, but maintained its facilities in Hamilton.

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Earlier this month, on April 9, Infarm Indoor Urban Farming Canada Inc. filed for bankruptcy in Calgary. in a sworn declarationFounder and CEO Erez Galonska said the company’s business in Calgary and Vancouver was unprofitable and it could not afford the costs of upgrading its leased facilities in Calgary.

The CEO of GoodLeaf confides: “We are a food company”

Murchie said his company is in a different class compared to startups and other companies that have failed to establish vertical farming.

“I think a lot of our peers have struggled because they were investment bankers or focused on technology,” Murchie said. “They saw their companies as a technology company. We are a food company. “Our DNA is food.”

The company has been working on its technology for almost 12 years, he said. GoodLeaf opened its first commercial farm in Guelph, Ontario. in 2019.

“One of the differentiating points is that we have taken the time to determine what the foundation should be… others feel the walls closing in, we see the opportunities that open before us because we have taken the time to build the foundations. .”

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Jeremy Dover, vice president of engineering and automation at GoodLeaf, said the company’s incredibly humid facility captures all of the condensation produced and returns it to the plants, meaning the only water leaving the facility is that embedded in the greens. .

With Calgary’s typical supply chain for leafy greens often requiring two weeks of transportation and therefore a higher rate of spoilage, Calgarians often use vegetables that last only a few days in the refrigerator. GoodLeaf’s production facilities get leaves on shelves much faster and with more nutrients, he said.

“I don’t think people would have thought this was possible a few years ago,” he said.

– With files from Brent Calver

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X: @mattscace67

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