In 2013, Roelands Plant Farms Inc. opened its doors with four-acres of propagation space to serve the growing greenhouse vegetable industry in Ontario. At that time, owners Adrian and Jodi Roelands had a vision to build a propagation greenhouse that was sized small enough for them to be able to get a foot in the door, and then rapidly scale up to a size that was more economically viable; 12-acres.
For the first phase, they invested heavily in gas lines, power lines, electrical connections, transformers, boilers, irrigation tanks and units, office space, warehouse and land; an investment on infrastructure that they knew wouldn’t be fully utilized until they reached their 12-acre goal.
“It was definitely a struggle at four-acres and I have to say I know for sure we wouldn’t want to go back to that, but it was a necessary step to get started in an sector that requires a large up-front investment.” says Adrian Roelands.
The first seedlings inside the recently opened 4-acre expansion.
They built their second four-acre phase in 2015, and are now happy to announce that as they celebrate the third anniversary of the planting of their first seedlings, they are also celebrating the completion of their final four-acre phase. This phase was started in the spring of 2016 and the first seedlings were placed in the new space last week.
At this size, they grow enough plants in a year to justify investment into automation of many of their processes. Roelands Plant Farms has purchased a new seeding line, block line, and plant grading line from Flier Systems based in the Netherlands. “Labour is far and away our largest expense and now being at a size that we can economically automate our processes is a great feeling” says Roelands.
Roelands Plant Farms Inc. would like to thank its dedicated suppliers and trades that made the project go so smoothly.
- South Essex Fabricating
- Ruthven Greenhouse Construction
- Haliburton Electric
- Tradewind Construction
- Zwart Systems
- McCann Redi-mix
- Canadiana Concrete
- Horizon Screening Installation
- Honey Electric
- Flier Systems
For more information:
Roelands Plant Farms Inc.
519-786-6001
info@roelandsplant.ca