Global grower and distributor Oppy is debuting a state-of-the-art vertical farming facility in British Columbia. 

The inauguration comes after nearly a decade of research done by partner company UP Vertical Farms to secure the latest technology for high-yielding crops.

The farm is located in Pitt Meadows, where both companies expect to grow crops at 350 times the yield of conventional field-grown green.

“We’re looking forward to officially bringing this long-time vision to life, and providing our retail customers with the most advanced, sustainable technology in leafy greens that they have ever seen,” said Oppy’s Executive Director of Berries and Canadian Category Development Aaron Quon.

UP is fully automated from seeding through to harvest, with plants grown using 99% less land, 99% less water, 99% less fertilizer, no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides.

The firm also uses recycled CO2 and proprietary lighting technology to grow leaves to custom brix levels and flavor profiles while lasting 22+ days refrigerated. 

And because greens are never touched by human hands, they are ready to eat right out of the package with no need to wash, making UP Canada’s first hands-free vertical farming operation.

“With climate change affecting the fresh produce supply in a multitude of ways, we’re honored to do our part to help Canada navigate its food security issues — as with recent shortages experienced in the traditional leafy greens sector, for example. 

These limitations in supply will be a continuous issue, one that we had foreseen, and for which we developed a commercial scale solution to address. 

Our facility will further limit Canada’s dependence on imported greens in the provinces we supply and we anticipate expanding our footprint quickly,”  said Bahram Rashti, co-founder of UP Vertical Farms.

Production for this new facility is forecast at just under 2 million pounds ( 6.3 million bags) of salad greens per year.

Related article: Oppy expanding product lines with Spanish garlic