Buying greens often feels like a gamble – burnt tips, browning edges and wilting leaves are all too common. It is this frustration that inspired the launch of Haven Greens, a new, state-of-the-art, automated greenhouse dedicated to the production of sustainable, long-lasting leafy greens.

Kinghaven Farms, located in King City, Ont., was originally founded in 1967 as a thoroughbred breeding and racing farm by Donald G. ‘Bud’ Willmot.

In 1974, Bud’s son David S. Willmot transformed the operation into a father-and-son venture when they began managing the farm’s racing and breeding programs.

Kinghaven grew to become one of Canada’s premiere horse racing and breeding operations, winning Canada’s oldest and most prestigious horse race, the Queen’s Plate (today, called the King’s Plate), on five occasions.

Following Bud’s death in 1994, David assumed sole ownership and Kinghaven continued to produce champions and stakes winners until 2011. At that time, the farm’s operations were scaled back significantly to accommodate David’s responsibilities at the Ontario Jockey Club and Woodbine Entertainment Group.

Today, the farm maintains its roots in the industry in thoroughbred, and now standardbred, horse breeding and ownership through the leadership of David’s son, Jay Willmot.

Under Jay’s leadership, the farm has expanded into apiculture, egg farming, woodlot management, bee keeping and more, all with an eye towards reducing the farm’s carbon footprint.

In 2012, his drive for sustainability started with the installation of solar panels on various barns and administrative buildings throughout the farm, generating up to 200 kilowatts per hour when the sun is shining.

His latest project, Haven Greens, is the embodiment of his passion for sustainability and renewable energy, with the goal of bringing fresh, long-lasting, pesticide-free, and greenhouse-grown leafy greens to market.

The root of it all

In the summer of 2021, Jay started to weigh the options for his new project. He knew there wasn’t going to be an easy option, especially given the farm’s uneven terrain and space limitations. He originally considered building a small-scale vertical farm in a tent or temporary structure, but colleagues urged him to reconsider the economics of vertical farming.

While trying to determine the best course of action, Jay was intrigued by automated greenhouses and their potential for scalability and year-round production of affordable and consistent crops.

“Globally, we asked, ‘where is it really working’, that kind of gave us the American models and we then ended up trying to pull as many best practices as possible from them,” said Jay. “We started looking at different implemented systems and landed on Green Automation who are a proven leader in the space and knew we could scale up their system quickly without having to fiddle around with getting it dialed down.”

Next, they had to determine if their property in King Township would be suitable for such an endeavour.

“It’s quite hilly,” Jay said. “We don’t have infinite space and we’re in the Greenbelt, so it’s hard to build large structures.” 

In 2022, Jay began working with Eric Highfield, Haven’s chief agricultural officer, who previously worked with Green Automation, brought 25 years of experience in hydroponic systems, to help develop the facility. They received their first permit to begin earthwork in August of 2023, for a 10-acre facility. 

By December 2023, they received a building permit followed by a full building permit in April 2024, that allowed them to begin putting up steel. 

They worked with Atrium Agri to build the greenhouse and utilized their partners Havecon, PB Tec and VB to help manage their electrical, irrigation, climate and their engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC).

Jay remembers that some days, the concept of growing greens in a greenhouse felt like a distant reality as the planning process was extensive and lengthy. 

“You’re spending lots of money and you’re saying: ‘geez, I hope this works,’” he said.

“You’ve got to pull yourself out of bed every day, putting one foot in front of the other. It’s not a straight line. You’ve got to be ready to problem solve.”

Integrating automation

In phase one of their plan, Haven Greens will operate the greenhouse with a fully automated Mobile Gully System (MGS) that covers two hectares of land. 

They plan to use Green Automation’s open gutter system, one of the styles of MGS, that will use 30,000 gutter placements in their first block of the greenhouse.

Seeds of baby green leaf, baby red and green leaf mix and baby spring mix, will be planted into peat moss within the gutters.

The system, which Jay calls a “perpetual motion lettuce machine,” continuously moves the gutters, twice the size as a singular gutter, into the greenhouse and the growing line.

The gutters are placed into the system where they facilitate two rows of staggered, primed, seeds, that are sprayed with a robust mixture of different beneficial bacterial nematodes, amino acids and natural growth promoting hormones.

Each gutter has a radio frequency identification (RFID) pad that helps the scanners and the team easily track and gather information from them within their system. 

At the front of the growing line sits a germination chamber where they spend around two days in the dark as the seeds hatch. They then move into the greenhouse as the MGS pulls them automatically through the greenhouse, creating a hands-free system. 

The system eliminates manual transplanting and limits the risk of damage to the crops when entering the greenhouse until it ultimately reaches the consumer.

“The first time a person touches a product is when someone picks up a sealed package and put that into the case,” said Highfield. “The retail consumer is the first person to ever touch this lettuce.”

Their climate corridor, which gives them the ability to use mechanical cooling in the facility as well as dehumidify, is something Highfield guarantees will set them apart from other greenhouses.

“We’re doing some things here that are innovative and unique,” said Highfield.

The corridor utilizes active air vents that adjust the amount of air coming into the greenhouse from outside. This allows them to dictate and recirculate the air outside and inside depending on what requires less energy.

Jay notes that the system’s intelligence will continue to improve as it learns from the environment inside and outside the greenhouse.

“It learns about the crops that we’re putting in there and it starts to get smarter,” he said.

Once the crop is ready for harvesting, it is taken to their packing hall where it’s cut from the root and put directly into the packaging.

 “No one has this product yet that’s also being produced in Canada,” said Highfield. “We’re really intent on being the first and quite honestly, being the best.”

The gutters are then pushed through another machine where, what Highfield calls a “pizza cutter,” comes down and removes the substrate and places it into a compost bin. 

The compostable substrate is intended to reinvigorate the local farms: “It’s eventually all going into topsoil amendment and adding to overly clay pasty areas so we can turn the rest of York region into more fertile agricultural land,” said Jay. “We’re using this as a launching point to make even more food.”

The gutters are then cleaned by another machine before returning to the beginning of the cycle.

Although the system is automated and leaves little physical work for the team to do when it comes to growing the greens, Jay said they still have a vital role to play.

“They make sure everything’s working, that the climate is stable, the irrigation system is functioning, the correct light recipe is being delivered to the crop, there’s right pressure levels in the greenhouse,” he said. “Just keeping homeostasis in the system and making sure it keeps rolling.”

The team, of around 35 people, was built behind Highfield and Dominick DiMucci, from True Harvest, as Haven’s director of cultivation, who has been a head grower in MGS facilities for the past four years. 

“It’s an interplay between everything and ultimately it comes down to team – everything is team,” said Jay. “It’s all the people that are involved; they’re the magicians behind the curtain they’re the ones make sure everything is working.”

Jay attributes Highfield and DiMucci’s work as a pivotal role on the project. “I give all the credit to these two, they’ve been so incredible getting the whole facility set up,” he said. 

Highfield, DiMucci and Jay all share one continuous goal – to prioritize the needs of the plants. “We work for the plants,” said DiMucci. “They tell us what to do and we try to facilitate that for them.”

A greener approach

Jay’s continuous search for ways to incorporate sustainability within the business is seen throughout the farm.

Jay has plans to integrate a solar array that could provide up to 100 per cent of the power that is needed for Haven’s phase one block.

In addition to solar, they plan to integrate a localized microgrid system, incorporating combined heat and power, with potential for battery storage in the future. The system will also use a microturbine that burns hotter than traditional turbines, producing a cleaner exhaust that can be captured and processed to eliminate emissions.

Utilizing everything that comes off the turbine, they aim to increase their bioeconomy to increase their yield density by sequestering the carbon in their crop rather than having it emit.

Jay has also tapped into the natural landscape to improve sustainability. Referred to as a ‘lazy river’, the greenhouse’s location sits within a drop in elevation allowing for a bioswale – a planted ditch that filters nutrient-rich water, turning it into reusable quality.

Plans are in the works to create a larger scale biofilter operation that will use layered aggregate to filter all that water.

“It’s even capable of breaking down hydrocarbons, which is pretty crazy, to rehabilitate all that water into drinking water quality once it reaches the bottom,” he said. “You can think of it as like a giant Britta filter.”

They’re also capturing the waste streams that come off the turbine by augmenting the boilers to use it for heating and cooling. 

“Even though we are combusting fossil fuel, we’re being hyper efficient with how we use it in that combined heat and power system and then pairing that up with the direct renewable input of the photovoltaic system creates a very, very sustainable aggregated system,” he said.

Haven Greens doesn’t plan on turning a blind eye on packaging either: “We want to make sure that we’re doing the right things in that respect as well,” he said.

Using as much post-consumer recycled plastic as possible, they are currently using a plastic tray to package the lettuce. They plan to implement a cellulose-based tray in the future that will ensure the longevity of the crunch in the greens. 

Jay doesn’t plan to stop there – with a multitude of ideas for sustainability in greenhouse operations, he hopes to implement them in the future and take what’s been traditionally seen in the industry to the next level.

Be(e)yond the greenhouse

Along with maintaining his greenhouse, Jay also tends to his busy bees – yes, actual bees.  

The hobby that started around 2011, has slowly scaled up into a commercial. Kinghaven’s 75 colonies, in addition to its other sites on surrounding farms, totaling 250 hives, contribute to the local ecosystem, aid in pollination and provide a natural fertilizer for the surrounding crops: “They have a short lifespan, and they die. They literally just put themselves in the ground,” he said.

Giving back to the community is another focus for Jay when it comes to his new venture. 

Working with Ontario food banks, he plans to provide them with everything Haven doesn’t sell at a heavily subsidized price.

His commitment to giving back to the community is something Jay said he has baked into the business ethos: “We’ll always have something that goes through that program.” 

With Haven’s first crop now in, Jay and his team look forward to the harvesting process, the packaging and the implementation of the next phases.

They’re excited to offer a new perspective on leafy greens and sustainable farming and eager to raise the bar for quality and innovation in Ontario’s agriculture.

“We’re just really fired up to be able to replace some of that old low-quality lettuce in the market,” Jay said.

“We want to bring the goodness back to the leafy greens in Ontario.”