NatureFresh adds Leamington acreage

Leamington, Ontario-based NatureFresh Farms is expanding greenhouse acreage.

Construction of a 32-acre greenhouse facility will begin this summer, with production scheduled to begin in 2019, John Ketler, general manager at NatureFresh Farms, said in a news release. The new greenhouse, when completed, will give the company more than 90 acres of greenhouse tomatoes.

The facility, according to the release, will host a range of tomato varieties and use supplemental lighting to enable year-round production of Canadian tomatoes.

With the new capacity, NatureFresh Farms will increase tomato production in 2019, according to the release. The facility will grow Tomz snacking tomatoes, tomatoes-on-the-vine and beefsteak tomatoes.

NatureFresh Farms expanded its greenhouse production into the U.S. in 2015 with a 45-acre facility in Delta, Ohio. That facility grows tomatoes with lighting that enables year-round production, according to the release, and the new Ontario greenhouse will also have that technology and other innovations.

“The first full growing season in our Ohio greenhouse has been very successful so far, so with the same technology that we use in Ohio being implemented in our new Leamington greenhouse, we expect similar success,” Matt Quiring, executive retail sales accounts manager at NatureFresh Farms, said in the release. “We should see higher production, greater efficiency in the growing process, and consistently high-quality products from our new Canadian greenhouse.”