Canadian Greenhouse Expert Partners With Cannabis Company
The list of Canadian companies planning to grow and market cannabis is increasing, and greenhouse vegetable veterans play a key role.
( File photo )
Another greenhouse vegetable grower is lending his expertise to the growing number of companies with plans to produce medical marijuana in Canada.
Peter Quiring, owner, and CEO of NatureFresh Farms, Leamington, Ontario, is the CEO of GreenhouseCo., a joint venture with Quiring and Wheaton Income. Quiring, who also founded greenhouse fabricating company South Essex Fabricating Inc., will oversee construction of the new company’s 1.4-million-square-foot cannabis greenhouse in Leamington.
The 102-acre site has room to double to 2.8 million square feet of production, according to a news release.
Quiring said the partnership is separate from NatureFresh. Harvest of the first crop, from 30-35 acres of new greenhouse construction, should be in late summer 2019.
Quiring said the large scale of the operation and the fact it’s in a new facility and not a retrofit of a vegetable greenhouse, sets the new venture apart from similar Canadian operations. The new operation takes no vegetables out of production.
Quiring’s expertise will be used for building the facility, not overseeing production.
“It’s a very different crop — there’s not like there’s 10 years or 20 years of history on this,” he said. “ ... The fit is really good because I bring strengths they (Wheaton) don’t have, and they have strengths I don’t have.”
The company will also seek “international cannabis-related greenhouse cultivation opportunities for joint development” and license GreenhouseCo.’s intellectual property for facility design and operation information, according to the release.
The company will also seek “international cannabis-related greenhouse cultivation opportunities for joint development” and license GreenhouseCo.’s intellectual property for facility design and operation information, according to the release.
“In getting to know Peter during this transaction it has become clear that he possesses exceptional greenhouse and operational knowledge and his track record as one of North America’s most accomplished greenhouse builders and operators speaks for itself,” Hugo Alves, president, and director of Cannabis Wheaton, said in the release.
Quiring isn’t the only greenhouse vegetable grower who’s applying greenhouse production expertise to help medical marijuana businesses. Casey Houweling, chairman of Houweling's Group, is also CEO of Glass Investments Inc., a consultancy focused on expanding greenhouse technology. He and Peter Cummings, who has worked with Houweling for two decades, are consulting for PUF Ventures Australia, which is building a 1.2-million-square-foot cannabis facility in New South Wales in Australia. Houweling's Group is not affiliated with the project.
Another greenhouse grower recently announced plans to turn a 540,000-square-foot cucumber facility into a medical marijuana production facility. In mid-February, the Ottawa City Council gave grower Peter Abboud approval for the transition. Abboud is the co-CEO of the company, LiveWell Foods Canada.