Let us grow lettuce. As a young man, Henk Droogendyk took the opportunity to grow a high-quality product based on methods of innovation, efficiency and commitment. For more than 25 years now, the Dutch farmer and his family have specialized in field lettuce: Romaine, Boston and Leaf varieties. 
    

As labour costs continue to escalate, he is employing more mechanical devices on his Princeton, Ontario farm. A vacuum chamber, for example, is now in its third year of use, for cooling freshly cut lettuce. It was sourced from Romco Industries, a Brantford, Ontario company and is serviced twice a year by Tim Boers, the system specialist from Agrimaint. Vacuum pressure is required to cool produce from outside temperatures to 1°C within 30 minutes. 
   

A natural gas generator with a 160 horsepower engine is used to pull the air out of the chamber creating high negative pressure, i.e. a vacuum which is directly proportional to a drop in temperature.  Refrigerant cools the surrounding air molecules which is the second part of the process. This is an improvement over forced air systems which can take up to 24 hours to remove core heat from the produce. Another benefit of the natural gas generator is that it is one-third the cost of diesel fuel. 
   

“Even bugs will be killed with this system,” says Droogendyk. The lettuce remains fresh and crisp, and retains a long shelf life through this technology. 
    

Growing lettuce is finicky business. Seeds are planted every four days in early March which continues into the beginning of August. Young plants are then transplanted in the field four weeks after seeding. By the end of May, a team of university students are hand harvesting the product and packing it into either corrugated boxes or reusable plastic containers (RPCs) depending on the end customer. These boxes are loaded onto pallets on a field trailer. For Romaine lettuce, one corrugated box will hold 24 heads and one RPC will hold 14 heads.
    

It takes one hour to harvest six pallets of produce for these efficient workers. The trailer is then driven to the farm warehouse where Droogendyk uses a forklift to place three skids at a time into the vacuum chamber. This is repeated every 30 minutes to cool all the skids of lettuce. A tractor load of lettuce is shipped daily to Bayshore Vegetable Shippers, a wholesaler based in Burlington, Ontario.
    

“I’m 100 per cent a Bayshore grower,” says Droogendyk. “They stand behind the farmer and support the sale of local produce.”  
    

The success of this growing and cooling system has encouraged Droogendyk to experiment with baby greens and spinach. He has invested in a high-density seeder from Italy, a Roopack Spimaro harvester, a Ferrari Remoweed and other machinery to become even more efficient on his 60 acres. 
    

“With California drying up, I think that buying local is catching on,” says Droogendyk. “Customers want to be closer to the farm and want to understand where their vegetables are coming from.”