The new vertical farming facility in Pitt Meadows is the first of its kind in Canada and promises to yield 350 times the greens as field-grown crops.

Brothers Shahram and Bahram Rashti officially started UP Vertical Farms in 2021, and with some help from their sales and marketing partner Oppy, they鈥檝e now been able to unveil their new state-of-the-art facility.

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鈥淲e are thrilled to go live after many years of research, development, and planning,鈥� said Bahram.

Using specialized indoor growing methods, UP Vertical Farms is able to produce greens in a fully automated system that uses 99 per cent less land, water, and fertilizer than traditional farming methods, they say.

It also avoids the use of pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides, and is able to recycle carbon dioxide produced by the plants.

鈥淲ith climate change affecting the fresh produce supply in a multitude of ways, we鈥檙e honoured to do our part to help Canada navigate its food security issues 鈥� as with recent shortages experienced in the traditional leafy greens sector, for example,鈥� said Bahram.

鈥淭hese 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鈥檚 dependence on imported greens in the provinces we supply, and we anticipate expanding our footprint quickly.鈥�

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The Pitt Meadows facility is projected to produce nearly two million pounds of salad greens per year, which is possible thanks to the automated 13 to 21-day growing periods for the crops.

All of the greens produced are designed to last 22-plus days in the refrigerator and do not require washing due to the lack of human contact in the growing process.