Securing tomorrow’s food supply today

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[00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:06] SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Angela Faith from Canada's podcast. I am very excited to be talking about food security here in Canada today. So we are talking to see to sky farms who are combining vertical vertical farming technology with limited natural resources to grow fresh nutritious reliable products for local markets across
[00:29] SPEAKER_00: North America. The exciting thing is they use less water less land less labor less energy no pesticides or fertilizers and they're committed to supplying sustainably grown products and ensuring food security for all.
[00:44] SPEAKER_00: So we are going to jump in and on today's podcast we'll be talking about why enhancing local food security is so important.
[00:54] SPEAKER_00: Some of the solutions that landowners and land use policy makers should consider. We're going to jump in and specifically talk about vertical farming and what makes this a good solution.
[01:05] SPEAKER_00: Does it make good social sense. Does it make good business sense. And then how to get started or where to turn for the next steps if you're serious about considering the solution.
[01:15] SPEAKER_00: So let's bring to Canada's podcast the co founders of see to sky farms Daniel Cruz and J. Kellu.
[01:24] SPEAKER_00: Awesome. Welcome. Welcome to Canada's podcast. So just to get started. Could you please just introduce yourself to our audience.
[01:35] SPEAKER_05: I'll start here at Daniel Cruz one of the co founders of see to sky farms. You know I'm a first generation Canadian like so many of us and I was born and raised in Vancouver and have most recently moved up the corridor to the sea to sky and started to see to sky farms.
[01:57] SPEAKER_01: Awesome. Hi, Jay Kellu. I am the CEO of see to sky farms and vertical choice and like Daniel more or less BC bread.
[02:10] SPEAKER_01: Born overseas in England, but from the age of five I've been living in British Columbia and had a strong passion for farming and the produce industry and trying to move it forward and that's where I partnered up with Daniel.
[02:25] SPEAKER_00: Awesome. Well, and I'm a farmer's daughter from Southern Alberta as well living out on the west coast now and I have two also share passion for farming and for and innovations and farming.
[02:37] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we also experienced a number of disruptions in food security, but for the last few years between COVID and you know floods in the Fraser Valley.
[02:50] SPEAKER_00: There's wars in the world that are affecting you know food security. So from your experience you guys.
[02:57] SPEAKER_00: Why is enhancing food security you know at a local and particularly regional level maybe national level so important today.
[03:08] SPEAKER_01: I can start with that I guess. Well, you know we've seen over the years, especially when COVID came around.
[03:18] SPEAKER_01: How supply chain is so vulnerable to any kind of you know whether it's a illness like or a disease that goes through like COVID or it's something that is in the fields in California or some other growing regions where is one of
[03:39] SPEAKER_01: the things that is that the supply coming in gets low.
[03:46] SPEAKER_01: The price goes up right so it.
[03:50] SPEAKER_01: There's so many factors involved that tend to increase the price of our imported produce out of the US out of Mexico and a lot of it has to do with labor logistics.
[04:04] SPEAKER_01: And so in order to make sure that we have a secure food supply in Canada, we've got to start growing produce in a year round basis here locally within our communities.
[04:18] SPEAKER_01: And the best way to do that is through vertical farming.
[04:23] SPEAKER_01: Not biased by it. I've tried everything conventional greenhouse and vertical and it's been proven through experience on our end that we're able to provide and grow a better product on a year round basis to supply communities in which we have forms currently in BC and Alberta.
[04:47] SPEAKER_00: And you bring up an interesting point I'm going to touch on that later as far as actual where farms currently are and land use and things like that.
[04:56] SPEAKER_00: Daniel, can you add to that like why local food security is so important today?
[05:02] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, of course. So you know a little bit more about my background.
[05:06] SPEAKER_05: You know I come from the capital markets world. You know went to college studying economics and was lucky enough to start at can accord genuity and Vancouver.
[05:18] SPEAKER_05: And my whole career has been really looking at startups and trying to finance entrepreneurs and really looking for that new market opportunity and essentially exactly what Jay said during COVID.
[05:32] SPEAKER_05: You know people might not love this analogy, but I'm going to bring up toilet paper.
[05:38] SPEAKER_05: You know that was something that was kind of laughed about and it was running joke all over social media.
[05:45] SPEAKER_05: But you just realized some of the most common goods were difficult to get.
[05:50] SPEAKER_05: So when I started looking into the statistics about produce and food waste in Canada, two huge stats stuck out to me.
[06:01] SPEAKER_05: The biggest one is about half of food in Canada is wasted.
[06:08] SPEAKER_05: And there's a variety of reasons that Jay would know all about long chain logistics, trucking, spoilage, all of these sort of things.
[06:20] SPEAKER_05: And coming from my background in economics and researching trends and disruptions, I said what business has half spoilage and how is this a secure food system in Canada?
[06:37] SPEAKER_05: The second big point that Jay has helped me understand is in British Columbia, I'll say as high as 90% of the produce is imported into our province.
[06:53] SPEAKER_05: And when we saw the borders being shut for COVID, I mean it was to me as clear as day that there was a major problem with our food systems.
[07:04] SPEAKER_05: And I like so many people just kind of drove out of the city into farmland up in Squamish Valley and said we need to learn about technology and food security because God forbid there's never another pandemic.
[07:21] SPEAKER_05: But it just brought to light all the real issues with food security and logistics.
[07:27] SPEAKER_00: So interesting because of course I naturally defaulted to the biggest problem being production, but in actual fact we're talking waste is another major issue related to food security in getting it here.
[07:44] SPEAKER_00: So talk to me a little bit about and you've touched on it, but if we can, you know, there's the landowners and the land use policy makers, right?
[07:55] SPEAKER_00: The people who are making decisions on whether or not something is zoned properly or the land use policy attributed to particular land is okay for agriculture and is a traditional agriculture, which is, you know, seeds in the ground versus vertical farming.
[08:12] SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about generally before we get specific into vertical farming, what are some of the solutions that have been that have come up that we've experimented with, you know, as far as yields and and salute results that, you know, if we could talk a little bit about the broad solutions, what else what's been tried hearing it.
[08:35] SPEAKER_00: And I guess I'm talking specifically in Canada.
[08:40] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'll start first and I'll let Jay get into this because he has a very long history and produce and he has been, you know, critical to major companies in Canada and the food change just moving food in between of, you know, America and Canada.
[08:56] SPEAKER_05: So, I mean, just speaking from the little I know about my farming history, which is fresh, you know, climate change is something we don't really want to talk about and Canada, we are very harsh territory, but generally speaking, nature has given us seasons and, you know, sunlight, obviously in the summer, phasing into the fall, obviously dark winters.
[09:22] SPEAKER_05: You know, field lettuce is is a difficult challenge to say the least for I think Canada, you know, Jay touched on this earlier, California, obviously being a beacon of a field lettuce.
[09:37] SPEAKER_05: You know, I won't get into that. I'll let Jay talk with the differences of the issues of field lettuce.
[09:43] SPEAKER_05: Greenhouses, I think Canada has a great greenhouse system.
[09:46] SPEAKER_05: You know, there's successful greenhouse businesses and they're great, but once again, they're limited to the amount of light that comes into them.
[09:56] SPEAKER_05: And it's very hard to control the climate of a greenhouse and lettuce from what I know from some of our master growers is it can't fluctuate too much on the temperature.
[10:10] SPEAKER_05: So there's a huge cost associated with how do you control that temperature and not have huge heating bills and such.
[10:17] SPEAKER_05: So the best thing about British Columbia is we have renewable energy, we have clean energy and, you know, our project in squamish that we're developing will have renewable energy and combining that with technology and vertical farming.
[10:35] SPEAKER_05: Climate change is always an issue, but you get to control your environment and vertical farming is a term that everyone talks about, but I think as Jay gets a little bit more technical, controlled environment, agriculture is really what we're talking about here.
[10:52] SPEAKER_05: It's how do we use technology to give plants the best environment to grow the best product, you know, sends GMO and pesticides and such.
[11:03] SPEAKER_05: So that that's a little bit of what I've seen about the three core, you know, ways to grow food and I obviously believe that controlled environment agriculture is the future and we all have to get on board.
[11:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, yeah, further what Daniel said, yeah, there's a big part of is the energy portion of it.
[11:29] SPEAKER_02: Supply chain distance, right? Labor, right?
[11:36] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, generational things change, you know, people that, you know, worked in the fields, their grandkids.
[11:47] SPEAKER_01: Don't want to work in the fields, targeting lettuce, right?
[11:52] SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, I can make 15 bucks an hour, 17 bucks an hour at McDonald's or I can sit there in the fields and this is the same system for the same philosophy, which takes place in California, right?
[12:07] SPEAKER_01: So same thing down there, people are aging out of that occupation and new generations are not getting into it.
[12:14] SPEAKER_01: Whether they're just field workers or they're farm owners, right?
[12:19] SPEAKER_01: The new generation wants to do something that's more sexy than, you know, shelving dirt and so they're all looking at, okay, which is the best way to move forward in this environment given that we have labor issues, you know, in the field of 40 acres, you're going to need about 25 to 30 employees to harvest props.
[12:43] SPEAKER_01: And when you're looking at C.E.A., that number drops drastically.
[12:49] SPEAKER_00: And sorry, what's C.E.A.
[12:51] SPEAKER_01: Controlled environment.
[12:52] SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, of course, yes, thank you.
[12:56] SPEAKER_01: So good. So for instance, you know, like in one of our farms, we harvest an acre at a time, I have a vertical container and that facility only requires four people to run it.
[13:12] Speaker UNKNOWN: Wow, so you are.
[13:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right. It's it's a lot less labor intensive.
[13:18] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you know, you don't have to rely on a big workforce in the area, right, which is a great thing.
[13:25] SPEAKER_01: And then we look, looking into what happens in Canada, right?
[13:28] SPEAKER_01: So every fall or winter, you know, our remain lettuce, for instance, is coming out of California.
[13:35] SPEAKER_01: The C.E.A. puts implementations to restrict field grown lettuce out of certain counties out of the US out of California.
[13:45] SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is that cost of that remain for the past two years, we've seen it well over a hundred dollars a case for 24 heads of remain, landed into Vancouver on the west coast and into Alberta.
[14:01] SPEAKER_01: The product goes well above a hundred dollars a case.
[14:05] SPEAKER_01: And what we can do with C.E.A. or vertical farming is our costs are pretty constant.
[14:14] SPEAKER_01: We know what they are, right? You have your your fixed cost, you have a variable cost, but even your variable costs are pretty much set.
[14:21] SPEAKER_01: So what you're able to do is provide a fixed cost product out the market.
[14:27] SPEAKER_01: Right. Right. Right. Right. So as opposed to US, you know, product coming in fluctuating based on transportation cost, which fluctuate based on supply and demand of trucks and containers.
[14:43] SPEAKER_01: Supplying demand out of the US, and if any part is when you're buying produce out of California.
[14:49] SPEAKER_01: So quickly, I'll divert to a little background on myself. So you know why I'm talking about this is.
[14:56] SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I was a farmer, grower.
[14:58] SPEAKER_01: And then also distributors are work for a large North American food distribution company overseeing the produce category to produce brought into BC.
[15:13] SPEAKER_01: And that's where, you know, a lot of this experience and information is coming from.
[15:18] SPEAKER_01: And that was the reason we decided to get into the vertical farming space.
[15:22] SPEAKER_02: We're seeing, you know, this habitual, you know, year to year to year to year.
[15:31] SPEAKER_01: Increase in prices and decrease in the quality of product. Right.
[15:36] SPEAKER_01: So produce unlike other things when you're paying high dollar, the quality is probably the poorest it's going to be. Right.
[15:45] SPEAKER_01: Because it's supply and demand. Right. And that's where with the vertical farming what we're able to do is it's a consistent product. Right.
[15:53] SPEAKER_01: You can control the environment, grows in you can control. You know, the logistics to get it to market to the distributors, whether it's retail or food service distributors.
[16:03] SPEAKER_01: Because we try to keep within a four hour distribution window.
[16:08] SPEAKER_01: So to limit the transportation costs or carbon footprint of the trucks as well. Right.
[16:16] SPEAKER_00: And so we've definitely jumped into, you know, why vertical farming is a good solution, right.
[16:24] SPEAKER_00: We've talked about costs. We've talked about addressing cultural shifts and expectations of the labor force.
[16:30] SPEAKER_00: And, and being able to, I'm not going to say price fix because that has a negative connotation. But be more, you know, strict strategic on exactly knowing what what price things are going to come out the door as opposed to too many external variables.
[16:48] SPEAKER_00: So if nothing else, those are fantastic reasons and solutions. I want to bring up some of our listeners might have listened to another podcast I did with some independent freight farmers who are their small containers.
[17:05] SPEAKER_00: You guys are big. So just comparing those two solutions and their motivation for, you know, starting a micro freight farm was health.
[17:18] SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about health. They, it's, it's a little bit of a, it's a little bit of a tear jerk or motivation, but their son died from, you know, pesticides that were on leafy greens and they said this is not okay.
[17:35] SPEAKER_00: So can you talk, look, can we talk about the health and well being of our, of our people around, you know, specifically vertical farms and the produce that's coming out of it.
[17:47] SPEAKER_05: Wow. Okay. I'm going to take a little bit back to the zoning question that I somewhat overlooked a little bit. If I think it ties right into your, you know, the community in the land.
[18:00] SPEAKER_05: So, you know, land costs are so expensive in British Columbia in particular and so restrictive for building and such.
[18:10] SPEAKER_05: I think the ALR land designation in itself is a way for people to connect with the land and with the community and just clarifying ALR is agricultural land reserve just for people not familiar with the acronym keep going. Sorry, Daniel.
[18:28] SPEAKER_05: Yeah. And, you know, one thing when we were designing the foundation and such for the building going through the permitting process, I was, I was surprised how much they looked into the soil and really the soil that came into the land all had to be sort of approved.
[18:51] SPEAKER_05: And I'm just talking to the soil because, you know, earth is soil and I think nutritious food and nutrients are things that, you know, bring health and, you know, I don't want to start war with all the past aside people and GMO people because that has a place.
[19:11] SPEAKER_05: But I think it's so important for people to connect to the land and I think the ALR designation and the Canadian government's protective nature of the land is super important.
[19:24] SPEAKER_05: But I'm just going to add a little bit more on the labor side and for the youth, I think what Jay touched on earlier is very important and, you know, you Angela coming from a farming background.
[19:37] SPEAKER_05: And I think people need to connect to the land and the youth needs to learn about being in the land.
[19:42] SPEAKER_05: And it can't be this old school concept that, you know, picking shovels on the beating sun for 17 hours a day.
[19:52] SPEAKER_05: You know, picking crops.
[19:54] SPEAKER_03: Yes.
[19:54] SPEAKER_05: I think we have to look for technology and we have to encourage nutritious food eating and I believe it can help lots of medical ailments.
[20:05] SPEAKER_05: I'm obviously not a doctor.
[20:08] SPEAKER_05: But yeah, I just wanted to tie back the land and zoning and labor and jobs.
[20:15] SPEAKER_05: I mean, people are coming up to swamish and whistler partially because it's beautiful, but also for a lifestyle.
[20:22] SPEAKER_05: Right people are having this post-COVID.
[20:26] SPEAKER_05: You know, I want to touch the dirt. So I want to get my hands dirty.
[20:29] SPEAKER_05: So I think C.E.A. is so important to that.
[20:32] SPEAKER_05: And, you know, I think it can really bring health benefits and Jay is in much better shape than I am.
[20:39] SPEAKER_05: So I'll let him talk about some of the nutritious side of the food and how it can really bring more health to humanity because our soil is not nutritious anymore.
[20:53] SPEAKER_05: Soil degradation is a major problem.
[20:55] SPEAKER_05: And obviously as doing hydroponics, you know, we're not using soil.
[20:59] SPEAKER_05: But yeah, in a roundabout way, that's just me talking with the land and how important it is to be connected to the land and how nutritious and healthy the product we're bringing, which is all driven by health and trying to get people on that path.
[21:17] SPEAKER_01: So if you look at the freight farms, right?
[21:21] SPEAKER_01: And what, you know, a smaller scale people trying to do in their communities or for their families.
[21:26] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, there's been E. coli outbreaks, you know, in spinach, which have caused deaths.
[21:33] SPEAKER_02: It's on the pesticides.
[21:35] SPEAKER_01: So these environments, you can close the, so C.E.A. control environment time culture.
[21:41] SPEAKER_01: It allows us to grow without pesticides, not having to worry about E. coli and all these other diseases, which can happen in the fields.
[21:52] SPEAKER_01: I always use scenario, you know, if you have an organic farm and you have a conventional farmer down the road, you know, the fields are organic.
[22:00] SPEAKER_01: But a lot of times that, you know, the conventional farmer spraying his crops and, you know, you're not supposed to spray when the wind does at a certain, you know, speed.
[22:12] SPEAKER_01: However, you know, farmer's going to do it based on what his crop needs.
[22:16] SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, yes, organic farming used to be a great solution, probably 20 some odd years ago.
[22:26] SPEAKER_01: I was around, now we're aging ourselves.
[22:31] SPEAKER_01: When it was starting to actually get going here in DC, right, we were looking at.
[22:38] SPEAKER_01: In the States, in Oregon, Oregon, tell us what they were doing to grow more nutritious product without use the pesticides.
[22:46] SPEAKER_01: We looked at California, which had a called CCO app at that time, California certification of food.
[22:56] SPEAKER_01: And Oregon, it was Oregon, tell us and these organizations were helping people, you know, set guidelines to grow without having use pesticides and other things that may be detrimental to someone's health.
[23:11] SPEAKER_01: And now we've come to vertical farming where this is the entire system, right.
[23:18] SPEAKER_01: It's benefit it exceeds the benefit of, you know, the field because, you know, one of the tool, I'll back up a second, one of the challenges that we have with vertical farming those we can't be certified organic in Canada, because we don't grow in dirt.
[23:35] SPEAKER_01: But even though it's a cleaner product, because in a field, you could have, it could be organic, but you can have bird droppings, you could have animals that are, you know, walking through, do their business, but you're eating organic lettuce.
[23:49] SPEAKER_00: Is there a way, pardon me, I'm just jumping to the consumer perspective, you know, we were we were sold or branded this idea that our granics better.
[23:58] SPEAKER_00: At Talbos make consumer choices. What is there anything that can be done from a educating the consumer point of view as far as, you know, being aware that they're eating.
[24:10] SPEAKER_00: C E A right control agriculture environment agriculture products that maybe even higher higher, you know, nutrition rate and impact rate sustainability sustainable impact, producing what what what solutions are either happening or can you imagine happening to help the consumer.
[24:32] SPEAKER_01: So what we've been doing is we've been kind of promoting the term grown clean.
[24:37] SPEAKER_01: For now and it's difficult to do, especially, you know, educating the consumers because we're still very, very, you know, in an infant stages, we're small, you've got a trade organization where you can bring all these vertical farms together and as a group, you know, push the grown clean as opposed to organic.
[24:58] SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I'm pretty sure that the Canadian food inspection agency will make some kind of decision around it because in the US.
[25:08] SPEAKER_01: The growing increase, vertical farming is certified organic now it didn't used to be what about a year and a half ago they made the change.
[25:18] SPEAKER_01: Down there, so I'm pretty sure eventually we'll see the change happened up here were you know, because we're not growing in dirt doesn't mean that the products in are organic and then we're hoping that the government will see.
[25:31] SPEAKER_01: that you know what, this is actually a cleaner product than actual field-grown organic.
[25:38] SPEAKER_01: So you know, it's time to make that change.
[25:42] SPEAKER_00: And Jay, you touched on the, you know, coming together of vertical farmers as a collective.
[25:48] SPEAKER_00: Is there a movement towards that happening here in Canada?
[25:53] SPEAKER_00: Is it kind of organically or top-down happening?
[25:56] SPEAKER_01: No, not really. There is one more of a global group, right?
[26:00] SPEAKER_01: Which, you know, they do kind of started during COVID.
[26:04] SPEAKER_01: So all the summits were held online.
[26:07] SPEAKER_01: So you could participate with, so they would bring all the vertical farmers from, you know,
[26:11] SPEAKER_01: out of Europe, US, Canada, anywhere around the world would all come together once a year.
[26:17] SPEAKER_01: And, you know, you'd join chat rooms to discuss it. We'd have different topics, whether it was
[26:22] SPEAKER_01: nutrition, whether it was, how do you, you know, what are you doing for technology?
[26:28] SPEAKER_01: How to get your product to market, right?
[26:31] SPEAKER_01: So they are starting to work together.
[26:34] SPEAKER_01: And you kind of have to for an industry like this.
[26:36] SPEAKER_01: If it's, you know, just starting off, you want to be able to get as much voice as you possibly can.
[26:42] SPEAKER_01: And the best way to do that is as a collective, right?
[26:45] SPEAKER_00: Well, and I just want to bring that up as a bit of a point of differentiation about,
[26:50] SPEAKER_00: see the sky and just to you guys is honed for you is you are both growers,
[26:56] SPEAKER_00: primary growers, but you're also consultants in the field, right?
[26:59] SPEAKER_00: As far as helping people with, you know, working with locations and farmers on developing your own
[27:09] SPEAKER_00: vertical farm, supporting them with farming, sales, distribution, business growth, consulting.
[27:16] SPEAKER_00: And there's not a lot of people doing both.
[27:19] SPEAKER_00: Could you want to just touch on how that differentiates you and compared to others?
[27:24] SPEAKER_05: Sure.
[27:26] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'll jump first because we're such an interesting case study, you know,
[27:31] SPEAKER_05: you know, again, I'm coming from the entrepreneur background.
[27:35] SPEAKER_05: We wanted to be in this food security world was learning so much about nutrition and the
[27:43] SPEAKER_05: travel time for food. It loses a lot of nutrients.
[27:47] SPEAKER_05: And I was looking out there, you know, there's got to be someone out there that can help kind of
[27:52] SPEAKER_05: bring this vision together. And again, me coming from entrepreneur and, you know, being a farm
[27:57] SPEAKER_05: owner and wanting to launch this company, I meet Jay. I don't know if you can see the halo above him.
[28:05] SPEAKER_05: But I see it.
[28:06] SPEAKER_05: But yeah, he had this company that he co-founded Vertical Choice, which was kind of an all-in-one solution
[28:12] SPEAKER_05: for independent farmers to come to him and say, you know, I have this dream, I want to launch
[28:18] SPEAKER_05: a product and I want to get in grocery stores. But I don't know about labeling and I don't know
[28:22] SPEAKER_05: about logistics and I don't know about this and this and this. So Jay has a fabulous shirt,
[28:28] SPEAKER_05: neighborhood, which is the brand that he created and put together with his team. There's a team.
[28:34] SPEAKER_05: There's more than two of us. But yeah, I'll let Jay talk about Vertical Choice and neighborhood,
[28:40] SPEAKER_05: which is kind of the merged co-abuse being able to offer consulting as you touched on Angela.
[28:48] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, because my background in the space, I would be contacted by numerous
[28:56] SPEAKER_01: people to kind of help take product and market or help with their farming operational side.
[29:03] SPEAKER_01: And so with Vertical Choice, we provided growing support, operational support, and sale support
[29:11] SPEAKER_01: for the farms. Because a lot of these guys, they got into it and this is where, you know,
[29:18] SPEAKER_01: some of these businesses start to struggle is, you know, crop selection. So you got to select the crop
[29:26] SPEAKER_01: based on your market. So you got to do a market analysis to find out, okay, hey, listen, what is
[29:31] SPEAKER_01: the ideal crops for this market? And what are the viable crops that you can grow with the technology
[29:38] SPEAKER_01: you're looking at? And then a lot of them as well, you know, they had big investment funds behind
[29:46] SPEAKER_01: them and stuff. And the problem with that becomes is, that's great. You've got that money behind
[29:53] SPEAKER_01: you to grow. But at the leadership up there, you don't have anybody in those out of grow.
[30:01] SPEAKER_01: You don't have anybody to help with the sales of the product, right? And that's where
[30:06] SPEAKER_01: C.D. Sky and Vertical Choice kind of came together was, you know, to help expand what we were doing
[30:14] SPEAKER_01: on a larger scale, right? And so in planning the farm, I love it. I wanted to bring up that
[30:25] SPEAKER_00: on a larger scale just to challenge us. So I asked, I asked kind of, you know, what's your
[30:33] SPEAKER_00: objective over the next little bit? And if I can share what you shared is, you know, reduce the
[30:40] SPEAKER_00: import of, let us by 10% over the next three years, right? By producing local grains in Canada.
[30:47] SPEAKER_00: How do we blow that up? How do we get exponential on that? I mean, that, you know, 10% is a nice
[30:53] SPEAKER_00: little linear number. And I'm sure it's doable. And we can make that, you know, we can do that
[30:58] SPEAKER_00: measurably and probably reasonably easily. How do we blow that up and go, you know what, let's
[31:06] SPEAKER_00: and I don't know what I'm just spitballing on stuff. How do we get to, you know, 50% food secure
[31:11] SPEAKER_05: in Canada across the board? Any ideas? I know you want to take someone first.
[31:18] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean, I'll start first. I mean, you know, Canada is a great nation, right? You know,
[31:24] SPEAKER_05: I talked about being first generation, both my parents were immigrants from different continents
[31:30] SPEAKER_05: coming here. And they came here because they believed, you know, there was there's a better way to
[31:36] SPEAKER_05: live. And the government and our society, you know, launched, you know, immigration to the to the
[31:43] SPEAKER_05: forefront, we're a place of a lot of a lot of people. So I mean, we need help from the government.
[31:49] SPEAKER_05: I mean, you know, there's some very powerful government agencies that have been supporting farmers.
[31:56] SPEAKER_05: I don't know for how long, but for a very long time. And they have the knowledge of the farm
[32:03] SPEAKER_05: business. You know, I'm coming from the capital markets, right? I'll make it stock market. If
[32:09] SPEAKER_05: people don't make that official connection and and base street and Wall Street was a little bit
[32:15] SPEAKER_05: distracted over the last few years with another crop, which I don't think we need to talk about.
[32:21] SPEAKER_05: But so much money and so many resources went into this recreational crop, which I have no problem
[32:29] SPEAKER_05: with. And you know, what people do with their own time is good. And of course, it's all legal now.
[32:34] SPEAKER_05: But I think of the government and base street and Wall Street and Vancouver and Saskatchewan
[32:39] SPEAKER_05: thought, wait a second, if we could get 50% food security, that's a lot more jobs and a lot more
[32:47] SPEAKER_05: prosperity for our country. And of course, America's amazing. And they're benefiting from us, you know,
[32:55] SPEAKER_05: not being entrepreneur enough. But 100% we need the government. I mean, the government grants,
[33:02] SPEAKER_05: there's been some high level political, you know, talk about food security. And it goes
[33:08] SPEAKER_05: down a huge rabbit hole all the way down to the food banks, you know, which we've supported
[33:15] SPEAKER_05: in the Edmonton area in Alberta from one of our farms. So, need the government. We need these
[33:23] SPEAKER_05: municipal policy makers. I'm very new to the political realm. And there's bylaws. There's lots of
[33:34] SPEAKER_05: rules. We went through the permitting process to get our vertical farm building authorized
[33:41] SPEAKER_05: on ALR land. It was done and there's a big announcement, I think in February 2022, with the
[33:49] SPEAKER_05: premier encouraging ALR landowners to bring technology to the land. So obviously, we can't do this
[33:56] SPEAKER_05: without, you know, those bodies kind of allowing farmers to do it. And then, you know, the consumer
[34:04] SPEAKER_05: out there, we got to educate people that, I mean, by BC is a great program. You know, that's a
[34:11] SPEAKER_05: program that kind of tells people, hey, we got food in the Okanagan, buyer of peaches there.
[34:17] SPEAKER_05: But yeah, we really need to kind of align all the parties of society in Canada here to just kind
[34:24] SPEAKER_05: root us on a bit. Because there's no reason why we can't get to that magical 50% number, Angela.
[34:33] SPEAKER_00: Awesome. Jay, how do we blow it up? How do we go from 10% to 50% food security?
[34:41] SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, it's expanding what Daniel had to say. We need that to happen first
[34:46] SPEAKER_01: so that we can grow at a larger pace and grow at a large scale. Like putting up a facility,
[34:53] SPEAKER_01: permitting processes, all that takes so long. And that's what holds up a lot of the growth.
[34:59] SPEAKER_01: When it's on demand for locally grown produce, it's exponential. We have, we meet with
[35:09] SPEAKER_01: like restaurant chains that are across Canada. And they all want and retailers as well.
[35:16] SPEAKER_01: They all want local supply all year. And so we're trying to build that program. And we're in
[35:23] SPEAKER_01: the infant stages of building that program. But yes, take be able to grow at the scale that we need.
[35:30] SPEAKER_01: We do need help in the government when it comes to grants, expediting the permitting processes
[35:38] SPEAKER_01: for buildings. And then it's a matter of putting technology into these buildings to support
[35:45] SPEAKER_01: whatever crops that we feed or feel or fit for that marketplace.
[35:50] SPEAKER_00: And what do you think, like I just red tape reduction has been one of my sort of bandwagans for a
[35:57] SPEAKER_00: long time. I used to sit on the small business roundtable here in British Columbia. And that was
[36:02] SPEAKER_00: kind of, you know, reducing red tape to allow ideas and innovation to happen was really the kind of
[36:09] SPEAKER_00: personal agenda for being there. What comes first? Like I know you guys have done a lot of work.
[36:15] SPEAKER_00: You've done the experiment. Do we need to prove results? How do we get buy in from land policy
[36:23] SPEAKER_00: advisors or municipalities? Does it start there or does it start with the farmers? Does it
[36:28] SPEAKER_00: get start with the consumer? And I understand that all three kind of have to happen in parallel.
[36:33] SPEAKER_00: But it's not enough at this point to just talk about it. Like what can we do collectively
[36:44] SPEAKER_00: right to get a shared vision of, you know, exponential growth and food security?
[36:52] SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean, Angela, you may be leading the charge here. I think we've got to get out there
[36:59] SPEAKER_05: and tell the story. I mean, when I think about investment banking and the capital markets,
[37:06] SPEAKER_05: you know, there's this coming together for a goal, which is obviously usually a financial number.
[37:12] SPEAKER_05: But it's everyone has the rules, right? Legal has a role. You know, the accounting companies have a
[37:18] SPEAKER_05: role. Government has a role in food security. It has to be part of that role in food security.
[37:26] SPEAKER_05: But I mean, the media networks, I think, you know, again, there was so much publicity about another crop
[37:36] SPEAKER_05: that came across Canada and this legalization. And that was the shiny object, as they say. It just
[37:42] SPEAKER_05: captured the minds and the the purse strings of people all across Canada and partially North America.
[37:50] SPEAKER_05: So yeah, I think it's a team effort and Angela, you're a champion here talking to people
[37:57] SPEAKER_05: about food security, health, there's really intimate stories about, you know, people just
[38:03] SPEAKER_05: picking mushrooms from their land and putting it in the salad. You know, it starts with that
[38:09] SPEAKER_05: big stick concept. So yeah, I mean, community building, communication, you know, social media,
[38:19] SPEAKER_00: I mean, we just got to chip away at this. Absolutely. Well, and I'm going to be playing a part and
[38:24] SPEAKER_00: sharing your guys' story. I want to ask the question now. If you are serious about considering
[38:31] SPEAKER_00: vertical farming and hydro, you know, sorry, I'm controlled environment agriculture as a solution
[38:39] SPEAKER_00: in your community, what's the next step? How do we how can we engage with Sea to Sky?
[38:49] SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean, obviously we're open for business as they say. So, you know, I'm a, you know,
[38:55] SPEAKER_05: person of the community as they say, I'm happy to speak to any entrepreneurs in such.
[39:02] SPEAKER_05: But yeah, go to our website. I think seaskyfarms.com is a good central focus for people to kind of
[39:10] SPEAKER_05: poke around and learn. And then, you know, go on your own rabbit hole on the internet and, you know,
[39:15] SPEAKER_05: do your own research, of course. There's other companies out there. You know, when it comes to
[39:21] SPEAKER_05: people who are committed and have a farm and want to get the produce out, obviously, Jay and,
[39:27] SPEAKER_05: you know, our brand neighborhood is open for business. But yeah, start with the website.
[39:32] SPEAKER_05: And, you know, get on there and start watching the videos. Watch Canada's podcast.
[39:37] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. Jay, can you elaborate a little bit more on neighborhood because we skip past it.
[39:42] SPEAKER_00: I do want to come back to it. Can you share a little bit what that is? Sure. Yeah. So, when it comes
[39:48] SPEAKER_01: to distribution on a national level and the retailer food service space is they want to see a
[39:56] SPEAKER_01: a national brand. And so what we decided was, you know, with our farm and other farms in different
[40:02] SPEAKER_01: regions to better quicker, well, freezer better, to grow that business nationally faster.
[40:12] SPEAKER_01: We created the brand so that farmers that we are helping in the east can also be under our banner.
[40:22] SPEAKER_01: So it provides a, so when it comes to marketing education on our website, it kind of just makes everything
[40:33] SPEAKER_01: self-explanatory across the board. So there's a brand, okay, it's trusted in BC, right? We know how
[40:39] SPEAKER_01: the product is grown. We know the crops they grow. And so it's the same consistency across Canada.
[40:45] SPEAKER_01: So they know that, okay, they control their sizing, their weights. So I know that if I'm buying
[40:51] SPEAKER_01: a case of this in BC, if I buy a case of that in Ontario, it's going to be the exact same thing,
[40:57] SPEAKER_01: right? So it's for consistency, right? And that's what people want to see.
[41:01] SPEAKER_00: Okay. And that brand is the licensing process, like if you're a farmer. Yeah. Yeah. It's,
[41:07] SPEAKER_01: yeah, it's it's under vertical choice, right? Okay. Well, we everything that we sell goes through
[41:13] SPEAKER_01: vertical choice, even those farmers that we help with their, their growing and their sales.
[41:20] SPEAKER_01: So everything that goes out of their farms goes out under our brand neighborhood.
[41:25] SPEAKER_00: Okay. Cool. Well, and just tying in some of the different conversations that we've even had,
[41:30] SPEAKER_00: bringing some pieces on, we did an interview, Pandas Pada's interview about Vancouver Island or
[41:36] SPEAKER_00: Island good. Same ideas. It's a regional licensing program that is monitored by the Vancouver
[41:43] SPEAKER_00: Island Economic Alliance about products that are produced on Vancouver Island. But yours is now
[41:48] SPEAKER_00: a national sort of, you know, it's a bigger, bigger brand more. It's so Canadians as Canadian
[41:56] SPEAKER_00: consumers, if you're committed, you could look out for products that have the neighborhood brand
[42:02] SPEAKER_01: attached. Yeah. Yeah. Quick point. We actually just had our first farm open up in the US.
[42:09] SPEAKER_01: That's going to be under neighborhood as well. Just open June 14th. Okay. Well, and we're friends with
[42:15] SPEAKER_00: our good neighbors on Sa'dish Kahlo. I was going to say, I was going to say it's almost like
[42:20] SPEAKER_05: amazing to say. But yeah, I mean, our lettuce will be at grocery stores near you here in British
[42:27] SPEAKER_05: Columbia. So obviously, if you're looking at those labels, you can grab yourself a beautiful butter lettuce
[42:33] SPEAKER_01: head at the grocery store. Yeah. We talk about nutrition. Yes. So everything that we sell,
[42:38] SPEAKER_01: or majority of the products that we sell into retail and food service, all come with the root
[42:43] SPEAKER_01: ball attached. So as opposed to field grown lettuce where it's cut and it's shelf life is to
[42:49] SPEAKER_01: cheerleading is nutritional values to cheerleading, you maintain 100% nutritional value until you take
[42:56] SPEAKER_01: it home and cut that root ball off yourself to put your salad. Very cool.
[43:01] SPEAKER_00: Very good. So I think if we leave this podcast, we've started this not started your story. You're
[43:10] SPEAKER_00: well and truly launched. You've got your own farms. And by the way, you've got squamish, but you
[43:15] SPEAKER_05: also have one in Alberta. Is that right? Correct. And then Jay and the Vertica Choice brand represent
[43:21] SPEAKER_05: other farmers as you touched on the USA. Exactly. So there's that you've got your own farms.
[43:26] SPEAKER_00: And from what I understand is you can partner with and perhaps even buy or invest in farms to get
[43:33] SPEAKER_00: them the actual your own locations launched, but you also work with farmers that want to produce
[43:40] SPEAKER_00: diversify grow. So that's why you need to talk to the team at Steve Sky and Jay. And then boom,
[43:50] SPEAKER_00: we're all going to come out and say listen, the big goal is 50% food security in Canada.
[43:54] SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to put it as a specific timeframe, but I can help with that share more stories if you
[44:00] SPEAKER_00: are in the space and you want to commit great. If there is no umbrella organization committed to
[44:07] SPEAKER_00: that cause, maybe that's something that we collectively get off the ground, right? And just go,
[44:12] SPEAKER_00: boom, how do we do this? A little innovation hub around that topic.
[44:17] SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, that is awesome. I mean, we're talking about ledissier, right? Like I'm staying on the
[44:23] SPEAKER_05: cutting edge of all technology and controlled environment agriculture, but there's some wild
[44:27] SPEAKER_05: ambitions coming up for different crops, right? This is a very early stage. And we're obviously
[44:34] SPEAKER_05: focusing on our investors and shareholders like to hear that. And yeah, we're looking at one
[44:39] SPEAKER_05: category, but this is a massive opportunity to get into all sorts of crops. And wow, to have
[44:46] SPEAKER_00: that mission. Yeah. And let's keep the land ownership with the land owners instead of selling out
[44:52] SPEAKER_00: to a few top level billionaires. So we'd like, let's keep that happening here in Canada. And
[44:59] SPEAKER_00: there's a lot of like you said, next generation, I'm one of them. And I just went to a market the
[45:04] SPEAKER_00: other day of some farmers in Saskatchewan that were third generation farmers again. And they are
[45:12] SPEAKER_00: growing peas, but they're doing all the value added products, right? So it's not just peas, but it's
[45:20] SPEAKER_00: now they're producing some new products that are quite innovative and still getting the nutrition,
[45:25] SPEAKER_00: but it's not necessarily traditional food, as we would have expected in the past. And all of these
[45:30] SPEAKER_00: things are coming from that next generation. And I think it's an amazing opportunity to change our
[45:37] SPEAKER_00: sort of look and feel and approach on food. Hopefully this will stimulate a little bit of, you know,
[45:44] SPEAKER_00: fire under the belts of those municipalities that will commit to food security, not just talk about
[45:50] SPEAKER_00: it because the commitment level happens with red tape reduction and maybe creating food security
[45:55] SPEAKER_00: innovation zones, things like that. We've got some we've got some great ideas. It's just a matter of
[46:01] SPEAKER_00: people saying picking up the phone and calling any of us to take the next step. So a big shout out to
[46:09] SPEAKER_00: Adam who brought us together as well, connected us. I'm excited. I have my next trip to Squamish.
[46:15] SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to come visit and get a real life experience on the farm. And yeah, any
[46:24] SPEAKER_00: last comments to share that we haven't touched on or that you'd like to leave our listeners with?
[46:31] SPEAKER_05: I said lettuce, but I also must add microgreens. When you talk to nutritional value, those little guys
[46:41] SPEAKER_05: are really nutritious. And Jay has been a champion once again to educate the grocery store chains and
[46:51] SPEAKER_05: the food system delivery food service people that there's a way to get local microgreens because
[46:57] SPEAKER_05: they have a very short shelf life. So that's another product. Let us microgreens. Those are two core
[47:04] SPEAKER_05: products that we encourage everyone to nibble on and get their nutrition.
[47:09] SPEAKER_01: Jay? Like Angela, you're saying, let's get to 50% reduction in the importation of US,
[47:19] SPEAKER_01: lettuce and microgreens. Yeah, we need a lot of people to do that. So, you know, this isn't a
[47:28] SPEAKER_01: competition. Everything's always competition, but it's not really a competition because we,
[47:34] SPEAKER_01: you know, we all got to work together to be able to do that on a faster scale.
[47:38] SPEAKER_00: I think this is about the most healthy competition conversation that I've probably ever been part of,
[47:44] SPEAKER_00: right? Exactly. Let's get our food secure here and, you know, and listen, I, a competition is just one
[47:58] SPEAKER_00: possibility of how to actually fast track this, you know, nothing like getting a good little
[48:02] SPEAKER_00: ex-price or something where we fund solutions or something similar at a national level.
[48:09] SPEAKER_05: The lettuce awards, Jay, is there any lettuce awards out there that we can do a stage and have
[48:15] SPEAKER_05: everyone come up with their different types of lettuce? Yeah, that's not a bad idea. It's not a bad idea.
[48:21] SPEAKER_00: Well, we're full of ideas. It's really about the implementation. And if any of these ideas
[48:26] SPEAKER_00: or implementation solutions tweaked and you got excited about them, please reach out Daniel and
[48:32] SPEAKER_00: Jay are happy to receive your calls. I'm happy to also continue the conversation on food security
[48:36] SPEAKER_00: in Canada. Thanks for listening to Canada's podcast. We are very excited to have you listen and hopefully
[48:43] SPEAKER_00: be part of the solution here advancing food security in Canada.