Finding new ways to help NL be self-sustaining with food and developing new models of growing locally is how a St. Anthony-based organization helps Canada win.

Diane Crocker

March 05, 2025

SABRI Farms farm success manager Felicia Hillier, centre, oversees the entire operation of the St. Anthony hydroponic farm, including seeding.

St. Anthony Basin Resources Inc. (SABRI) got its start as a social enterprise with a focus on the fishery.

The St. Anthony-based organization was involved in not just fishing but in programs and research and development initiatives, but when SABRI’s fishing quota was reduced, CEO Christopher Mitchelmore knew they had to develop a good diversification strategy if SABRI was to continue to meet its mandate.

“Which is all about expanding the economic base and creating jobs, and doing so in harmony of our rural lifestyle,” he told The Telegram.

Today, Mitchelmore is confident in saying that SABRI has been able to find success in diversification.

It’s done so through real estate, with the construction of 26 housing units that were completed in 2023, and by expanding into transportation with SABRI Transit.

Inside SABRI Farms in St. Anthony. CONTRIBUTED

Now, SABRI has set its sights on food security and sustainability with its latest venture, SABRI Farms.

Inside a specially purposed 10-foot by 40-foot shipping container on the parking lot of the College of the North Atlantic’s St. Anthony campus, SABRI Farms is using hydroponics to grow six varieties of leafy green, nutrient-rich produce.

From the outside it looks like an ordinary shipping container but on the inside is a fully functional hydroponic farm. CONTRIBUTED

The college provided SABRI with the land and the Town of St. Anthony is also involved in the project.

Funding for the farm has come from ACOA and the Department of Industry, Energy and Technology.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Mitchelmore said as he explained how SABRI Farms went from research to a pilot initiative to a full-blown farm that’s producing hundreds of products every week.

Making a difference

He said when farming came up, there was discussion around whether SABRI should pursue root crops, ranching or greenhouse farming.

“One of the reasons why we pursued this, and this option, was we were seeing huge spikes in prices,” he said of the decision to go with the hydroponic facility.

In the winter, he said, the price of lettuce, for example, continually increased.

“And we’d like to be able to provide a consistent pricing model for our products so that the consumer when they purchase it know that the price this week is the price next week and find a way that they can build that into their grocery budget.”

SABRI Farms in St. Anthony is providing local consumers with choices when it comes to the types of produce they consume. Greenstar lettuce is just one of the types grown at the hydroponic farm. CONTRIBUTED

Another benefit of this model is that it could create a hydroponic farm fairly quickly and have an impact without taking years to get there.

Mitchelmore said the farm is helping significantly with food sustainability and it’s doing it by producing a product that is of high quality.

“The ability to produce something that is so nutrient rich and dense that has less water weight means that when you consume a SABRI Farms product you’re eating healthier, you’re getting more nutrients, you’re feeling fuller than you would if you were to consume something high in water content,” said Mitchelmore.

It started with romaine lettuce

SABRI Farms started its first plant in December 2024 and conducted its first harvest in mid-January.

Initially, the plan was to just grow romaine lettuce.

“Because we felt that romaine would be the top seller,” said Mitchelmore.

“That’s what’s available at the grocery stores, and we took a retail strategy. We wanted to displace exports that are coming from very far distances that are of a lower quality by the time they hit the shelves. We wanted to produce nutrient rich, and we felt that was the product that was in demand.”

A crop of butterhead lettuce is ready for harvest at SABRI Farms in St. Anthony. CONTRIBUTED

Experimenting

It wasn’t long before they found there was a demand for other varieties and SABRI Farms started to branch out, adding other varieties of lettuce, including a spring mix and spinach.

Mitchelmore said they have the ability to grow over 200 different varieties of products.t

“So, we’re experimenting a little bit,” he said.

A variety of seedlings are planted regularly at SABRI Farms in St. Anthony. CONTRIBUTED

A lot of that experimentation falls to farm success manager Felicia Hillier.

She’s responsible for doing just about everything on the farm, from seeding, transplanting and harvesting, to cleaning and dealing with the technical aspects and sales and distribution.

Hillier doesn’t have a background in farming, having previously only farmed as a hobby. Her interest came about through her studies as she completed a degree in environmental science.

When the farm started, she liked the experimentation aspect of it and the variety.

She started with five varieties, four lettuces — monte carlo, romaine lettuce, butterhead lettuce, buttercrunch lettuce — and a spring mix

“To kind of enter the market with a few varieties and then we would switch based on what would sell,” she said.

That led to the addition of spinach, which has become a bigger hit than originally thought.

Market demand resulted in SABRI Farms expanding into growing spinach. CONTRIBUTED

“So, we’re kind of transitioning to what the market needs,” she said, adding they’ve since added greenstar lettuce, which is selling well.

“What’s interesting, I think, from a sales point of view, is it seems the different products we bring in the market actually have interest because people know what romaine is, they’re familiar with it, but they seem interested in trying things like the butterhead, which is a beautiful, very aesthetically appealing product,” said Mitchelmore.

“Even though some of these are smaller volumes, it’s hard for us to just shift immediately. It takes a number of weeks before we can scale and change our growing, our production. So, if we see that something is growing in demand, it’ll take us a while to adjust before we can say, ‘OK, we have more spinach next week.’ It’ll be a few weeks before we can catch up to the demand growth,” he said.

Part of the farm’s growth could be dictated by other things like the tourism industry. Mitchelmore said he sees the possibility of expanding to arugula and herbs that could be utilized in local restaurants during the tourism season.

Colemans in St. Anthony and Port au Choix have been selling local produce grown by SABRI Farms in St. Anthony. CONTRIBUTED

“It’s really interesting to see how we can be growing hundreds of heads of lettuce and other products every single week here in St. Anthony, when the temperatures get below -30, and everything inside is growing and you know you could harvest and have your products on the shelf in less than 48 hours,” he said.

That includes shelves in Colemans stores in St. Anthony and Port au Choix and Burden’s General Store in Saint Lunnaire-Griquet.

SABRI Farms has also sent products to Roddickton, Englee and Flowers Cove.

“We’re always looking to expand our opportunities to sell into other areas, but distribution is a big challenge, figuring out the transportation, the transportation costs,” said Mitchelmore.

“You’re dealing with a perishable product, so you need to get it to market relatively quickly even though the shelf life for our product could be several weeks long,” he said.

Mitchelmore would like to work with other entities to find ways around that and to expand the footprint of SABRI Farms’ products to the south and further north into Labrador.

He sees opportunities in working with other organizations like the Western NL Food Hub in Corner Brook and in connecting with farmers.

He’d also like to work with the provincial government to bring SABRI Farms’ produce into health-care facilities and schools.

“We’re building our capacity. We can scale our operations. We can grow,” he said.

That growth can also come in the form of education and the provision of recipe cards showing ways to prepare and use the produce.

SABRI Farms produce is packaged at the farm and sent to local stores. CONTRIBUTED

Proud of what’s been done

“We’re learning as well, and as we go, we’re going to improve and certainly get better when it comes to being able to reach a greater market and expand our footprint,” said Mitchelmore.

“But we’re really proud of where we are to date and what we’ve been able to achieve. Our product is absolutely delicious. We’ve received rave reviews. We feel like we’ve produced something that we can be really proud of here in St. Anthony.

“People are really proud to know that a product was grown right here in Newfoundland and Labrador, right in their own backyard. People are saying that they’re choosing to buy that product just for that reason,” said Mitchelmore.