Turning a new leaf, literally and metaphorically, comes naturally to the friendly folks at Vegpro International Inc., a fast-growing Quebec produce grower supplying baby lettuce and other high-quality fresh vegetables to Canadian consumers for over 25 years.

Founded in 1998 by Gerry Van Winden and Anthony Fantin, the company’s knack for growing and packaging great-tasting, nutritious and conveniently pre-portioned greens enabled it to become Canada’s largest producer of fresh vegetables by the turn of this decade, attracting interest from major capital investors looking to put their money into an exciting business venture with virtually unlimited growth potential.

And with Vision Ridge Partners acquiring a majority share in the company in 2022, Vegpro has recently showcased that potential in spectacular style with the unveiling of a brand new, state-of-the-art $135-million greenhouse in Sherrington, Que., near the company’s headquarters.

Covering an area of 12.8 acres—an equivalent of four soccer fields—the glittering new structure is a breathtaking addition to Vegpro’s already impressive asset base comprising three production sites and growing fields in Quebec, British Columbia and Florida, which employ a combined total of about 700 people.

Designed with a keen focus on sustainability in all aspects of its operations, “It has an annual production capacity of 3.5 million kilos (7.8 million pounds) of lettuce and fresh vegetables, regardless of the season, as it will remain in operation 12 months per year,” says Vegpro’s chief operating officer, Patrick Ravary.

“On a weekly basis, the new Vegpro complex can produce an average of 68,000 kilos (150,000 pounds) of lettuce,” adds Sophie Ruel, executive vice-president of sales and marketing, noting that the new greenhouse is home to the company’s new FOLIA brand of GMO-free baby-lettuce salads grown without any pesticides.

Says Ruel: “With this $135 million investment, our objective is to develop our sales in a very buoyant market segment, greenhouse crops, thanks to the high quality, crisp texture and distinctive flavour of the FOLIA lettuces we produce.

“But the big motivating factor behind this decision is also to be able to produce locally grown lettuces 365 days a year in a resilient, responsible and eco-responsible way,” Ravary adds, citing lead-edge production and harvesting technologies assembled at the new complex, including:

• An intelligent climate-control system with remote control;
• Robotized mobile gutters for automated sowing, germination, cultivation and harvesting;
• A one-of-a-kind germination chamber that shortens the growth cycle by eight per cent;
• A natural CO₂ refrigeration system for lettuce packaging, as well as high-performance heat pumps, for sustainable energy management throughout the greenhouse;
• A custom-engineered system for complete recovery and recycling of rainwater and irrigation water.

Ravary points out that the company’s firm focus on sustainability was entrenched throughout the organization right from the planning and construction stages of the new greenhouse.

“It’s worth noting that for our choice of lighting, conveyors and refrigeration systems, more than 25 companies, located less than 100 kilometres from here, contributed to the construction,” Ravary says, complimenting valuable contributions from Vermax (Les industries Harnois), Green Automation, Frare Gallant, Gobeil Dion et Associés and Laporte Consultants, among others.

Employing roughly 150 people onsite daily during the construction stages, the vast new greenhouse complex houses numerous groundbreaking structural features such as:

• More than 2,000 metal posts supporting over 40,000 glass panels;
• Over one million square feet of surface of thermal and blackout fabrics covering the greenhouse, to increase energy efficiency and prevent light pollution;
• Three water recovery tanks with combined 5.9-million-litre capacity to keep the greenhouse running; and
• Over 60,000 automated gutters.

“If you put them (gutters) all together, you could go all the way from our greenhouse south of Montreal to the Charlevoix mountains north of Quebec City,” Ravary quips, adding that more than 95 per cent of all the steel, aluminum, composites and other construction materials used in building the greenhouse were processed in Quebec.

“Our lettuces are grown using environmentally friendly practices,” Ravary points out, “which are sometimes even more rigorous than organic farming.

“Thanks to a controlled environment, we eliminated the need for pesticides,” he elaborates, “and our cultivation process uses 90 per cent less water than traditional field farming for lettuces, combining innovation and respect for the planet.”

As Ravary explains, the new Vegpro complex houses two vast blocks of glass-covered growing areas—measuring nearly five acres each—leading to two different harvesting lines.

After harvesting and sorting, the bulk lettuce passes through a state-of-the-art cooling system and proceeds to the two packaging lines: one double-lane line used to pack 113-gram plastic clamshell bowls; and another single line for packaging the 227- and 340-gram portions of the FOLIA brand baby lettuce.

And as Sophie Ruel explains, choosing clamshell packaging was a conscious environmental decision for Vegpro.

“Our FOLIA brand packaging contains up to 30 per cent recycled plastic,” she says, “helping to reduce our environmental footprint while keeping the lettuce fresh.

“And it is also 100 per cent recyclable.”

Adds Ruel: “Rigid and transparent packaging is essential for the fresh-lettuce market.

“It keeps our lettuce fresh and prevents compacting, while the [packaging] transparency helps consumers make their choices in the store.

“However, it is our goal to continually increase the proportion of recycled plastic in our packaging,” Ruel points out. “That is why we are in constant discussion with our packaging suppliers.”

According to Vegpro’s corporate director of quality and food safety Pascale-Valérie Lett, the new facility is currently in the process of obtaining the vaunted CanadaGAP certification for food safety—internationally recognized by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)—requiring the company to spare no effort or expense in maintaining the highest food safety standard possible at all times.

As Lett relates, other Vegpro packaging facilities already have obtained the PrimusGFS certification validated by GFSI and the Ecocert and/or Procert certifications for organic production, while its Quebec packaging facility laboratory boasts the international ISO 17025 certification for testing and calibration standards compliance.

“Those certifications represent Vegpro’s commitment to quality and food safety,” Lett asserts.

To maintain the company’s stellar food safety record and brand reputation, Vegpro recently installed two state-of-the-art Eagle Pack 320 PRO model X-ray inspection systems—manufactured by Eagle Product Inspection (EPI) and distributed in Canada by the Bolton, Ont.-based packaging-equipment integrator PLAN Automation—at the new greenhouse.

Having already enjoyed considerable success with the other Eagle Pack 320 PRO X-ray detector purchased earlier for its lines used to produce Vegpro’s Fresh Attitude brand, Vegpro’s project manager Gabriel Boulé had no hesitation in reaching out to PLAN Automation again to take care of the new greenhouse’s product inspection requirements.

“Since 2024, we installed three Eagle X-ray units at our Sherrington facilities in order to upgrade our detection capabilities and meet new industry standards,” Boulé relates. “This technology allowed us to upgrade contaminants detection range and precision.

“We are now able to detect new contaminants such as glass, aluminum and acetal plastic without affecting our line efficiencies,” says Boulé, praising the Eagle systems’ pinpoint accuracy and operator friendliness.

“The interface is user-friendly,” he says, “and it also allows multi-level access for our operators, quality control staff and the mechanics.”

Says Boulé: “Our initial bid analysis oriented our selection to Eagle on many aspects such as pricing, inspection speed, and local pricing and parts support.

“In our greenhouse facilities, our primary line speed is 220 feet per minute, or 120 bowls per minute, which the Eagle units handle without lowering any detection specs.”

Boulé says he is especially fond of Eagle’s TraceServer data collection and traceability software technology, which records valuable production data and machine status information from one or more of Eagle’s X-ray machines.

“The Eagle TraceServer is a great tool for our food safety team to track and record data and statistics on a specific run in the last six months,” he says, “with the equipment programmed to eliminate any risk.

“In fact, we interlock X-ray detection with the lines’ running conditions, which means we are able to stop lines if certain triggers are met, such as multiple consecutive detection, or no product reject confirmation after detection,” says Boulé, complimenting PLAN Automation’s technicians and support staff for their exemplary customer service and professionalism.

“Vegpro has developed a great partnership with PLAN Automation,” he extols, “and their technical support team is a big asset for our operations—especially in the ramp-up process, when we were still adjusting recipe algorithms for our products.

“Even now, an Ethernet connection allows for PLAN Automation to connect and assist our production teams remotely at any time, using real-time data.”

Such strong endorsement is music to the ears of PLAN Automation’s vice-president and chief operating officer Mat Bédard, who says the multiple Vegpro installations are among his favorite projects in recent years.

“They have a very good engineering and project management team,” Bédard says, “which enables them to stay on top of their project at all times in a very organized fashion.

“That’s not a standard experience in our line of work,” he adds.

“Many of our customers rely on us to do all the work, without really knowing their product or having a good handle on their product scope, which often makes a project more difficult to execute.

“But because Vegpro has such a strong engineering and project management team, it made the project run very smooth, since they already had answers to a lot of the common questions, and also because they were so organized.

“They were actually the ones who identified aluminum detection as a big deal for them,” Bédard relates, “because it is a difficult material for X-rays to detect due to its low density.

“But thanks to Eagle’s powerful Simul-Task PRO image processing technology, the PACK 320 PRO detectors provide them with the higher aluminum detection capabilities (as small as two mm) that they require for their product.”

In addition to providing three full days of operator training and conducting system commissioning, PLAN Automation also made sure that all the key operational information, data and other details would be available to operators in both French and English, requiring just a simple finger tap on the unit’s touchscreen interface to switch over.

As Bédard cheerfully sums up, “The fact that Vegpro came back for two more systems, after having already installed three of them, pretty much speaks for itself in terms of how happy they are with their performance.

“And we love nothing more than making our customer happy.”

This dedication to customer satisfaction closely echoes Vegpro’s own unwavering commitment to providing Canadian consumers with high-quality and innovative fresh produce options.

“The greenhouse lettuce industry is a new vegetable segment that has seen a considerable amount of innovation in recent years,” executive vice-president of sales and marketing Ruel points out.

“We have a few competitors in Quebec, Ontario and the United States, but we are convinced that the potential demand in Canada is far greater than the current supply,” she relates.

“What makes FOLIA lettuces unique is their texture and flavor,” Ruel proclaims. “To try it is to love it!

“Its crunchy texture is perfectly matched by its fresh, slightly sweet flavour, while its robust leaves can be used in a wide range of dishes, with countless toppings and dressings,” she elaborates.

“Furthermore, our local, eco-responsible, GMO- and pesticide-free production methods make FOLIA the lettuce of choice for people who care about their health and our environment.

As Ruel sums up, “Growing and packing baby lettuces is a specific operation requiring considerable expertise, and Vegpro has specialized in growing and packaging baby lettuces and fresh vegetables for over 25 years.

“Our experience and solidity as a company are important assets in the market,” she asserts.

“What’s more, we are investing heavily in research and development, whether in our products, our farming practices, or our packaging equipment,” Ruel concludes.

“The greenhouse project is the most recent illustration of this mindset, which firmly positions us among the leaders in the country’s fresh vegetable market.”