Last week, Ottawa, Canada–based vertical farming company Growcer announced it had won the bid to acquire the assets of Freight Farms, a US–based company offering a similar type of container-based vertical farm.

Freight Farms ceased operations on April 30 after a period of financial strain that included layoffs and a scrapped merger.

Support and service for existing Freight Farms customers also ended at that time, which the team at Growcer immediately took note of.

“These people have made really large investments into controlled environment agriculture, and they were looking for someone to carry the torch, to offer support, software, parts, and all the things that they need to continue their operations,” Growcer cofounder and CEO Corey Ellis tells AgFunderNews.

Update: We've won the bid to acquire Freight Farms' assets.

A few months ago, one of our top competitors filed for bankruptcy, and the Growcer team sprang into action to help their community of farmers keep growing.

One of the options we explored was throwing our hat into the ring to purchase substantially all of the company's assets (such as an inventory of complete farms, spare parts, software, all intellectual property, and subscriptions etc.). We rallied a group of key partners, and I'm thrilled to say that we were able to make it happen.

The Ottawa Mission is using technology combined with farming to feed thousands.

The new initiative uses indoor “vertical farms” to grown healthy, fresh locally produced greens for use in the Mission’s meal programs to serve vulnerable community.

Growcer, RBC and the Ottawa Mission launched the initiative at Bayview Yards Thursday morning.

“I think it’s going to provide us very close to what we need in terms of the meals,” Peter Tilley, Ottawa Mission CEO, said.

“We’re doing over a million meals a year. This will provide us with close to the lettuce, green, leafy product that we need for those meals. Of course, we’ll still have to buy other items or produce at the usual market prices.”

Grocery shoppers in St. Anthony can now purchase fresh, locally-grown, spinach, kale and lettuce on their supermarket shelves, all year round.

Sabri Farms grows its produce inside a 40-foot shipping container, also called their hydroponics facility.

Sabri Farms manager Felicia Hillier said they produce fresh products that can be packaged and sent to the grocery store — even in the coldest temperatures.

"Like it is the dead of winter and we have to use a heat gun to get our door open and we are going out with this fresh products to the stores. It was amazing," said Hillier.

We’re actively supporting Freight Farms customers to keep growing. We’re working with current and former Freight Farms customers to create immediate and long-term solutions for your farm operations.

We are offering live support to chat through solutions and multiple support package options to help you move forward. Help us help you: Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us.

Your feedback will be used to build/source solutions that are relevant to where you need the most support.

What we need is a critical mass of farmers who are interested to unlock certain solutions so please signify your interest by taking the survey before the deadline.

We are thrilled to announce a new agriculture project that will bring hands-on, sustainable learning to our students! In partnership with The Growcer, a Canadian agritech company specializing in year-round modular farms, we will be deploying a hydroponic farm at Prairie River Junior High School.

This innovative, climate-controlled system will allow students to grow food in all seasons, ensuring a consistent supply of fresh, nutritious produce for our community. In addition to gaining valuable knowledge about food security and agricultural technology, students will develop critical skills in teamwork, responsibility, and environmental stewardship.

While U.S. tariffs threaten much of the Canadian economy, business is booming for an Ottawa-based startup that builds indoor farming units for made-in-Canada produce – also known as vertical farms.

Increased consumer interest in local produce could be attributed to looming uncertainty regarding the impacts of tariffs on agriculture and cross-border food trade, though much of our food exports, for now, will be exempt from the 10-per-cent baseline tariff.

“The phones have been ringing off the hook,” says Corey Ellis, co-founder and chief executive officer of Growcer, an Ottawa-based vertical farms supplier. “Our customers are seeing a ton of demand from Canadians across the entire country who want to buy local veggies instead of American products.”

We’re in a trade war. Whether the tariffs are on, off, paused, or decreased, the fact remains that nothing is as it was.

This can be a good thing.

Within the Growcer network we’re starting to see a surge in interest for locally-grown greens. On a national scale, we’re starting to see a renewed conversation for increasing local food infrastructure. Let’s grow more here. Let’s process more here. Let’s buy local where we can.

Leafy greens more susceptible to tariff threats

Canada imports 90 per cent of its leafy greens, a majority of which comes from the United States. A heavy dependence on importing leaves leafy greens exceptionally vulnerable to tariff threats. They’re also perishable so stockpiling isn’t an option to minimize price shocks.

Hydroponics allow plants to grow without soil. It’s a technique being used to overcome limitations of traditional agriculture like inadequate water, poor soils, short growing seasons, excessive cold and limited sunlight. Hydroponic produce can be grown any time of year at any latitude, regardless of the weather.

“With the way we’re growing, we truly get 52 weeks,” Jones told The Narwhal of the growing season. Something edible is constantly in some stage of cultivation in the farm operation’s three sea-cans and one packing trailer. 

Just over a year in, the project now has three full-time employees growing crops you can’t find in local grocery stores. 

As food bank usage increases in B.C. amid the cost-of-living crisis, a group is starting to grow lettuce in a Cranbrook city park to encourage healthy and sustainable eating.

The CBC's Corey Bullock went to the farm, which is looking to expand.

The community of Tachet on Babine Lake expects to be growing its own vegetables via the installation of a hydroponics farm by late this fall or early winter.

Using a series of grants, with a final one of $100,000 from the United Way of B.C. helping meet a total project cost of $400,000, the community, which is part of the Lake Babine Nation, is purchasing a growing unit from the Ontario company of Growcer.

Growcer, a vertical, Canadian farming company established in 2015, enables anyone to grow fresh, hyper-local produce year-round using its hydroponic modular farms and proprietary technology.

The company aims to make Barbados a regional Agri-tech hub by establishing a manufacturing facility and multiple farms, with an initial investment of $1.5 million to develop five farms, eventually scaling up to a $30-million investment.

Growcer develops vertical farms in modular containers to help combat food insecurity in challenging climates. Growcer said it has over 80 farms across the country growing more than 10 million servings of leafy greens annually.

Growcer is set to leverage this significant capital injection to accelerate its growth trajectory, expand its market reach into more regions such as the northeast U.S., and enhance its product offerings beyond leafy greens and modular structures.

The sub-arctic community of Churchill, Manitoba, located on the western shores of the Hudson Bay, in northern Canada, often captures media attention for the way locals have learned to coexist with the largest land-based predator on the planet

Ottawa-based startup Growcer has partnered with two non-profits to help make its vertical farming system more accessible to people with physical challenges, including people in wheelchairs

Horticulture Technicians are all about plant health. Their role records and tracks plant growth, makes sure that the plants receive the right amount of water and nutrients, and to carry out treatment if—or when—a plant shows signs of disease or pest damage. They can work either in outdoor agriculture environments or indoors working with hydroponic production systems or in greenhouses

Mnogin Greenhouse is made up of four trailers. Two of them are already up and running with vertical row-on-row growing of different lettuces and herbs. A third trailer will be launching soon for more produce growing, while the last trailer is set up for packaging and distribution