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Growing great greens
Lettuce grower floats to success
Imagine a sea of floating greens – 750,000 square feet of them. That’s what you’ll see if you visit Hydroserre Mirabel, the largest hydroponic lettuce producer in the world.
In the 1980s, a family of entrepreneurs with an innovative idea and the moxie to make it happen spent several years developing a revolutionary method of growing Boston lettuce. Called deep pool floating raft technology, the lettuce floats around on styrofoam rafts until it reaches maturity and is harvested by hand and packaged for sale. You’ve probably seen the end product in the grocery store. It’s the one that comes in a plastic clamshell with its roots still intact and sold under the Sunhouse Farms or Mirabel Frais label.
From construction of their first 300,000 square foot greenhouse in 1987, just 30 miles north of Montreal, Martin Desrochers and his family, along with business partner and general manager Sylvain Terrault, have expanded the business several times to its current size. Although 90 per cent of production is Boston lettuce, they have been growing mache, cress and arugula for the past three years. And in 2003, they added a line of fresh herbs, including basil, chives, cilantro, mint, thyme, rosemary, anise, savoury and oregano.
Hydroponic systems use only water – no soil. Water carries all the nutrients required for consistent growth and quality. And in this system, the water is reused over and over again, minimizing environmental impact. Hydroserre doesn’t use fungicides or herbicides, and only occasionally need insecticides – usually in the summer months.
Hydroserre produces between 16 and 18 crops of lettuce a year. In the past 12 months, the company sold nearly 13 million head of lettuce. “We’re already sold out of our Boston lettuce for this year and we’re looking to expand,” says Martin Desrochers, president of Hydroserre Mirabel. “We’re looking at building facilities in other locations, close to the market we want to serve.”
And serving markets is what it’s all about. “Right from the beginning, we established good relationships with our wholesalers and chain stores,” says Desrochers. “That’s critical. We make it a very easy buy for them. Our main competition for most of the year is California. We’re six hours from Toronto, Boston, New York and an hour to Montreal versus three to four days from California. Our customers can change their orders every day and we can make it happen.”
The infrastructure that contributes to the company’s success is key. They receive orders daily from each major supermarket chain as well as several specialty shops. They harvest only what is ordered and it’s shipped out within 24 hours in sophisticated refrigerated trailers that hold a constant temperature of 3°C regardless of outside temperatures.
“If you have a good idea, a good product, a group of people committed to the success of the company and good relationships with your customers, the rest is just hard work,” says Desrochers. “In our case, consumers like the product because it’s healthy, there’s no soil so it’s clean and we use no herbicides or fungicides. We had tremendous support from our primary customers.”
Desrocher believes maintaining a network of contacts in the industry is key to building a successful business. He is active in several industry associations, including being the vice president of the Quebec Produce Marketing Association, a board member on the Canadian Produce Marketing Association and a board member on the Dispute Resolution Corporation, an international body that settles disputes among private companies in the produce industry in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. “When you’re this involved in an industry, you meet a lot of people, identify trends and see opportunities,” says Desrocher.
That’s partially what is prompting their expansion into the fresh herb business. Cooks like fresh herbs but it’s not easy to get consistent quality or varieties. “The problem with herbs is they come from all over the world,” says Desrocher. “One’s from Chile, another from Mexico, another from Israel. Supply and quality is inconsistent. We want to give people the same consistent herb quality that we do in our Boston lettuce – all year round. If they buy our package, they know exactly what they’re getting. If we can achieve that with our herb line, we’ll be happy.”
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