ATHABASCA — Movers, shakers and growers in the Athabasca area gathered recently to hear from Ontario-based Rob Lyle, founder and managing director of Greenhaus Inc, which harnesses passive solar power to grow better lettuce closer to home.
Lyle was invited to the Multiplex on April 8 to share his knowledge, successes, and lessons from his mistakes as part of the Athabasca Grown workshop series, put on by researchers and experts with Athabasca University. The series studies and showcases the feasibility of harnessing alternative practices to extend the growing season and create local food economies.
Greenhaus Inc. is a commercial operation based in Almonte, Ont., west of Ottawa, leading the way in passive solar growing innovation in Canada since 2018.
“It really started with a trip to the local Loblaws to get a lettuce for a dinner party, and here I am talking to you,” Lyle told the crowd of more than 30 Athabascans. Lyle’s experience is one many Canadians can relate to; poor quality, overpriced produce coming to the shelves from more than 3,000 kilometres away.
“It’s really sad that we have such wonderful growers and produce in the summertime, and then come wintertime, we just have to hold our noses and throw that dehydrated piece of lettuce into your bag.”
His answer to the dilemma? Build an operation that would allow for Canadian-grown produce to populate the shelves of his local grocery store year-round. Today, Greenhaus is a 2,100-square foot facility made up of one wall of triple-paned glass, three walls of insulated metal panels to keep the heat in, and a patented heating system that circulates air through underground pipes to control temperatures.
After setting up the hydroponic greenhouse, Lyle first sold his lettuce direct to customers by opening the greenhouse to shoppers on Thursdays. But after hearing locals ask why they couldn’t get his lettuce every other day of the week and continuing to see sub-prime produce, he wanted to make the move to commercial real estate, and he prompted his customers to advocate for his product at the store.
“You don’t realize how much power you have at the local franchise. If you really push, you have a lot more than you think you have,” said Lyle.
His biggest hurdle to getting onto commercial shelves was proving his product was not only high-quality, but consistent week over week. Over the years that followed, Lyle and his team made a science out of growing, exacting how much time each plant needs to be kept at the propagating station, and how single-degree variations in water temperatures could make or break different lettuce species.
Now, Greenhaus is a regular supplier for supermarkets in the Almonte area, and it’s the hyper-local aspect of the operation that makes it successful, said Lyle.
The closest store that carries his product is just over three kilometres from his greenhouse, and the farthest is 30 kilometres. By keeping transit times short, Greenhaus’s product hits the shelves within an hour of harvesting, and has a 99.99 per cent rate of sale, losing very little to spoilage.
Other decisions, such as packaging the live-root lettuce in recyclable paper sleeves to avoid single-use plastics and maintaining prices even when production costs rose, have allowed him to create a story and a brand that locals identify with and want to support.
Lyle fielded questions from attendees curious about food safety inspections and regulations, pest control, and specifics about the ground to air heat transfer system. And while the specifics and science of growing is a large part of the learning process, anyone interested in starting a similar venture needs to have the basics of book and record keeping down first.
“Unfortunately for small growers, there’s no QuickBooks — you can’t just go online and someone’s going to bring you inventory systems and all those things,” said Lyle. And for growers considering a passive solar commercial operation, Lyle is making his inventory and data management templates available for free.
