Ontario’s processing vegetable growers recorded a milestone in 2023: a farmgate value of $162 million for nine crops that find a home in soups, stews and frozen foods. That figure will be in eclipse in 2024 as processors contracted fewer tons.  

The same trend is evident in Québec. Contracted acres in 2024 were also down for beans, sweet corn and particularly peas according to Mélanie Noël, general manager, Québec Processing Vegetable Growers. 

The bump coming out of the COVID pandemic reflected consumers’ refreshed view of the value of processed vegetables. But something happened in the last year that’s changed the dynamic. Take butternut squash for example. 

“Our contracted tonnage was down 60 per cent in 2024,” says Tracy Gubbels who farms with husband Pete near Mount Brydges, Ontario. “The heads-up came in late spring from Nortera, considered North America’s leading vegetable processor. We had to make some last-minute changes on how we planted our land.”

Butternut squash is a small slice of the overall processing vegetable pie. It brings in the least revenue of the processing crops in Ontario at about $1.5 million but it’s a bellwether of what happened in 2024. Contracted tons were down in cucumbers, green beans, green peas, lima beans, onions, sweet corn and tomatoes. Carrots were the only crop to increase in tons contracted.  

One reason is foreign competition. Despite the fact that Nortera invested in a new freezing tunnel at its Ingersoll plant in 2023, the company lost favour with some of its end-use clients. Amble down any freezer aisle at a supermarket and the story becomes clear. Frozen vegetables now have labels that say Product of Belgium, Product of France, Product of Spain, Product of Greece. 

Zast Corporation is one provider of frozen vegetables in a line called “Cookin’ Greens.” From its headquarters in Toronto, it is supplying an attractive medley of kale, butternut squash and quinoa. Its website refers to a “proudly Canadian company” and sports a logo that shows “farm to freezer in hours.” It specializes in organic, dark leafy greens and as such, is finding its raw materials overseas.

 “Canadians historically like to source products from home, and when labels are not clear it makes it difficult for our consumers to know if the canned or frozen vegetables they purchase are grown here or a product from somewhere else,” says Keith Robbins, general manager, Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers. “Price is only one factor in global competition, and I believe that our customers want products grown here especially coupled with our high food safety standards to feed to their families.” 

Cloudy outlook

Foreign competitors aren’t the only challenge to growers of processing vegetables.  Climate change affected crops in both Ontario and Québec in 2023. As Jennifer Thompson, agriculture manager for Nortera Foods explains, sweet corn is processed before butternut squash. That meant the longer growing season favoured sweet corn and pushed the squash run back into the late days of October. When three inches of snow fell in southwestern Ontario on October 31, the crisis was to get butternut squash trucked to the factory as quickly as possible before it deteriorated. 

Québec’s growers experienced a different crisis in deluges of summer rain in 2023, the worst in recent record. Pascal Forest, a green bean grower located northeast of Montreal, experienced the grey summer first-hand.

"The increasing variability in processing vegetable production due to climate change stands as one of the key challenges awaiting us in Québec's near future,” says Forest, who also serves as president, Québec Processing Vegetable Growers. 

The vegetable processing sector in Ontario and Québec offers a glimpse of the headwinds ahead. Both governments have goals to increase food grown and prepared in their respective provinces. That ambition is currently being stymied by factors outside their control.