The owners of Mucci Farms saw many good reasons to stay away from expanding their Leamington-area greenhouse operation to grow strawberries.
But as the company looks back on its 2015 decision to proceed anyway, following two years of acreage expansion and expected construction of a third 12-acre strawberry facility in 2018, those perceived obstacles have faded into memory.
Why it matters: Strawberries have become big business with Ontario customers purchasing imported strawberries year round. The ability to grow strawberries in an extended season here could be a significant business opportunity.
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“(The crop) is really delicate, and it’s so easy to get it wrong,” said Mucci Farms’ manager of digital media and public relations, Ajit Saxena, during an interview with Farmtario.
He said the projected investment back in 2015 of $1 million per acre to add strawberries to a business that already included tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and cucumbers would be uncomfortably risky for many greenhouse operators.
But days after Loblaw Companies CEO Galen Weston described indoor-grown strawberries as a game-changing innovation during the Arrell Food Summit in Toronto, Saxena said Mucci Farms has definitely found it to be worth the risk.
“It was unheard of,” Saxena said of the concept of greenhouse-raised strawberries back in 2015.
He added: “Actually growing strawberries indoors was the innovation. It has only been done before in Holland, and they’re the kings of the greenhouse.”
Mucci Farms is expected to grow 36 acres of greenhouse strawberries when the next phase of construction is complete in the fall of 2018. This will create three separate 12-acre greenhouse facilities, which are connected on the same site.
Mucci is now the largest greenhouse employer in Ontario with about 1,200 full-time positions. It also grows the largest acreage of indoor strawberries in North America.
Mucci Farms markets standardized, 340-gram clamshell packs of strawberries under the company’s trademarked Smuccies brand, as well as under other brands at other retailers in Ontario.
Saxena said it is not surprising that the greenhouse-grown berries taste better than the southern United States-grown field berries with which they’ll compete through much of the year.
“You’re harvesting at waist height,” so the picker handles the berry, not bringing it in contact with the soil as would happen in a field-berry scenario, and places it in the clamshell. And the next person to handle the berry is the consumer.
“Plus, after they’re picked, they’re going from the Windsor area into Toronto in a little over three hours.
“You just don’t get those berries that go soft after the first few hours with this product.”
Just as importantly, under greenhouse production everything is controlled: nutrients, water, temperature. Experience and enhanced knowledge allow producers to know exactly how to manipulate each resource to create the tastiest berry, without having to worry nearly as much about the weather.
Those benefits lead to a higher cost of production, so Mucci Farms has no illusions about competing on price with field-grown Ontario berries.
“We don’t want to treat it like a commodity, where the price rises and falls over the year,” Saxena said. Although retail price is out of the company’s control, the Mucci Farms vision is to present the indoor berries as a premium product that out-matches California or Florida field-grown berries in taste and consumer satisfaction.
Until now, under natural lighting, the company has been harvesting indoor strawberries from the end of March through the middle of December. The third phase of construction next fall is expected to feature high-powered sodium lighting, potentially allowing for year-round harvest. Changes to the lighting sooner depend on whether there’s consumer demand at Christmas and Easter, said Saxena.
At this point, strawberries still represent a fairly small segment of the company’s 200 acres of greenhouse production.
As well, the company is working on its first U.S. expansion with 24 acres as the first phase of a project in Ohio. Mucci plans to eventually have 60 acres of greenhouses there, growing strictly tomatoes.
