It could be a challenging situation–maintaining the interest of new customers once a crisis in the industry has largely passed. Such could be the case for greenhouse lettuce growers and what some of them saw following this past summer's Cyclospora outbreak.

However, John Bonner, owner of Great Lakes Growers, is not seeing that challenge. "I've been doing this for almost 15 years and this scare isn't an anomaly. Virtually every year you see news about either Listeria or Salmonella or E. coli. However, when it happens, you get a group of people that are either fed up or want to make a change or move on and they come to the greenhouse side and they don't go back," he says. "They see the benefits. Maybe they pay a bit more than they do for field lettuce but they also see the quality, the consistency and the lack of disruption."

Consumers and buyers with questions
In fact, the crisis came just as the company was in the midst of its sixth greenhouse expansion, and it just had its first harvest from that expansion two weeks ago. The company grows living lettuce such as green and butter lettuce, Zesty Arugula, Gourmet Baby Spinach, Spring mix and more for retail and a variety of lettuces and leafy greens along with fresh-cut herbs for foodservice, and the day the expansion opened, its product was already sold out.

"We saw a huge uptick in emails to our website and even my personal email from consumers asking how they would know if our lettuce was safe. We had a fairly detailed response on why it is and why it's a good alternative product. Buyers were also telling us they had people who wanted to switch to greenhouse-grown product and we also had people calling us out of the blue wanting to discuss being a customer," says Bonner, adding that demand is slightly greater now for cut-type products from customers in search of convenience.

Customers switching to greenhouse-grown lettuce following the Cyclospora in field-grown product was also only one contributing factor to that increased demand. "We were also having natural organic growth in our products because the cost of fuel was also pushing the cost of field-grown product up," says Bonner, adding that recent closures of other greenhouses also left the industry with tighter availability on product.

Another expansion in 2027?
With this most recent expansion being one of the company's most technologically advanced yet in terms of environmental controls, systems and more, and new customers lined up, the company is already eyeing its next expansion. That's anticipated to take between eight to 10 months following the still to be determined start date. "We've done the infrastructure of gas, heating, water systems so now we're just bolting on greenhouses. It's not simple but it's a lot simpler than it would be if we had to build coolers, pack houses, irrigation, etc.," says Bonner.

In all, his outlook is optimistic about where the greenhouse industry is going from here. "Those who've figured out how to grow product well at a price that can be somewhat competitive are really going to do well," says Bonner. "I think the industry is moving towards business models that make more financial sense. As far as demand from consumers and buyers, the industry is going nothing but up."

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com