Getting to green
Packaging
Keeping it cool
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February 2023 Vol.79, Issue 1
Industry invests in table grapes
Jupiter is the first table grape variety since Sovereign Coronation to make a foothold in Ontario.
From the Editor 4
Industry News 6
Growth Trends 10
12 14 16
Getting to green
Jupiter, a seedless blue table grape variety. See page 8. Photo by Vineland Research and Innovation Centre.
Finding sustainable options to reduce the industry’s produce packaging footprint.
BY NANCY TREGUNNO, PERENNIA
Organic Perspective
Confronting organic produce’s plastic packaging problem through sustainable packaging options.
BY STEPHANIE BRUNET, OCO
Keeping it cool
Considering storing winter vegetables? Know your variables, start small and, above all, stay cool.
BY J.P. ANTONACCI
When was the last time you learned something new?
In January, I watched a virtual event on cyber security in agriculture, put on by the Canadian AgriFood and Automation Intelligence Network (CAAIN). The panel focusing specifically on cyber sceurity in agriculture featured a discussion on how Canadian ag and agri-businesses can better protect themselves from attacks. One of the panellists discussed the importance of training yourself and your employees to recognize and mitigate potential problems before they become full-blown issues, and they emphasized the importance of refreshing or updating that training on an annual basis.
It makes sense, considering the pace at which computer technology moves – what is cutting edge now will be practically outdated in a couple years, if not less than a year. I’m a few years out from my education, which included elements of digital technology, and many of the practices discussed during the CAAIN webinar were basically Greek to me.
there are short courses and workshops out there; if you prefer a different format, there are thousands of webinars and podcasts that will impart whatever topic and depth of coverage you could hope to find. Being spoiled for choice can be overwhelming, so start small – focus on one thing and branch out from there.
And remember that learning can be as simple as chatting with other growers about crops or practices and evaluating their ideas in relation to your own experiences. Agriculture is an industry that has learning built into it by virtue of every year and every crop being different, considering the huge variety of factors both within and outside of your control. Peer-to-peer discussions of what did (and especially what didn’t) work in the field are invaluable in their practicality.
If you like to digest your information via audio, Fruit & Vegetable will be releasing a few podcast episodes over the next couple months, including one on Feb. 16. Be sure to listen in on our podcast channel, AgAnnex Talks.
And, if you’re in Ontario, be sure to check out the Ontario Fruit &
“Peer-to-peer discussions of what did (and especially what didn’t) work in the field are invaluable.”
But, considered in a wider context, there’s value in continuous learning in elements of our work and life that don’t change quite as rapidly.
I’m a firm believer that learning is something we should strive to do throughout our lives. Learning can be active or passive, big or small – by picking up this magazine, the hope is that you will learn something. It doesn’t need to be a formalized, classroom-style experience for it to count.
For those who appreciate the structure of traditional education,
Vegetable Convention in Niagara Falls on Feb. 22 and 23. There are dozens of sessions over two days covering a variety of topics in fruit and vegetable production, including pest control, soil health, and crop-specific production practices and tips, as well as conversations to be had by the coffee table with fellow growers and the exhibitor’s hall. We’ll be there at booth 406, so come by to say hello! We’d love to chat with you. •
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Whatever the season brings, we’ll be there with the solutions and support you need to grow a crop that looks good, tastes great, travels well and exceeds expectations from farm to table.
Learn how we can help you achieve your production goals at Syngenta.ca.
Marie-Claude Bibeau, federal minister of agriculture and agri-food, announced the launch of consultations in early December.
The strategy will focus on five priority issues: soil health, climate adaptation and resilience, water, climate change mitigation and biodiversity.
It will serve as a guide to support the livelihoods of farmers while growing a sustainable sector. By identifying goals and a way forward, Canada’s agriculture sector will be equipped to recover quickly from extreme events, thrive in a changing climate and contribute to world food security, while also contributing
to Canada’s overall efforts to cut emissions.
The strategy will be developed in close collaboration with the agricultural sector. The process will include public consultations, targeted workshops, and an advisory committee. Co-chaired by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, the advisory committee will be comprised of industry experts, including producers and representatives of associations and non-governmental organizations.
The consultation document is now available online, and comments can be made until March 31.
BY
Brock University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) is bringing their lecture series back in-person for the first time since 2020. Beginning on Jan. 25, the series will take place weekly on Wednesdays at 2 p.m. ET (with no
lecture on Feb. 22).
The annual lecture series, established in 2007, is free and open to the public, and is offered as a livestream for those unable to make it to the St. Catharines’ campus. Featuring presentations by CCOVI Fellows and profession-
al affiliates, the lectures present current topics of importance to grape growers and winemakers, ranging from viticulture and winemaking to wine business and culture.
Tune in on Feb. 8 for a discussion of sustainable control of grapevine trunk diseases with AAFC-Summerland’s José Ramòn Urbez Torres, and join CCOVI research associate Kevin Ker on Feb. 15 for a lecture on grape IPM. Check out brocku. ca/ccovi for the full schedule and recordings of previous lectures.
*Actual technology may not be exactly as shown.
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One thing is clear: Canadians love grapes.
According to Statistics Canada, grapes are the top-imported fruit, followed by bananas and strawberries; in 2020, Canada imported over $685 million worth of grapes, primarily from the United States and Mexico.
Jupiter is the first variety since Sovereign Coronation to make a foothold in the province.
BY JULIENNE ISAACS
In contrast, a very small amount of grapes are produced domestically, says Sarah Marshall, manager of both Ontario Tender Fruit Growers and Ontario Fresh Grape Growers. This is due to a whole host of factors, including the challenge of finding winter-hardy varieties, the extensive testing time required for imported vines, the cost of land and labour shortages.
ABOVE
Since its development in the 1970s by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in B.C., a single table grape offering – Sovereign Coronation, a semi-seedless blue-purple hybrid grape variety – has ruled the domestic industry.
Based on this one domestic table grape, the industry is worth $4 million in growth, Marshall says. Given a chance, she adds, “it could be 20 million.”
Ten years ago, the Ontario Fresh Grape Growers’ marketing board began a partnership with Vineland Research and Innovation Centre (Vineland), with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)
Jupiter, a seedless blue variety, has shown excellent winter hardiness.
dark-coloured plastics, polystyrene (PS) or poly-vinyl chloride (PVC), as well as oxo-degradable plastics, which can leave microplastic residues behind as they break down. The CPMA has created an online Preferred Plastics Guide, which outlines the acceptability of different materials to help guide industry to better choices. If plastics are used, try to maximize post-consumer recycled material content and use a mono-material if possible.
This past summer, Nova Scotia’s strawberry industry took steps to improve traceability to align with the requirements of the Safe Food for Canadians Act. The new regulations require producer identification on each retail pack, which was historically not done on traditional wooden strawberry quart baskets. They have become more difficult to source, contain staples (making them incompatible with some municipal composting systems) and are difficult to label.
Perennia Food and Agriculture, SKUFood and Balance Creative undertook a project, with support from the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, to identify viable options allowing producers to meet the regulatory requirements to fit within
existing recycling programs and to meet the logistical and efficiency requirements of growers (e.g. compatible with existing master packs and pallet configurations). The project team identified potential cost-effective packaging solutions in other markets and commodities. Various options were presented to industry, and different growers tried options like stickers with wood-compatible adhesive or a tag hooked over a quart.
Nova Agri Inc., operating the brand Country Magic, decided to embrace the opportunity to move to a new sustainable package for their tunnel-grown strawberries. Switching to a cardboard quart with bio-wax coating from Maritime Paper offered the ease of printing the producer’s information on the side of the box and gave consumers a fully recyclable option. In addition, the new package seems to provide better protection for the berries, since imperfections in the wood sometimes caused quality issues. The new boxes are similar in price to traditional wooden quarts. Consumer feedback has been positive.
“We are always excited to receive positive feedback about the quality of our
produce, but this was the first time we received praise from consumers about our packaging. They liked the functionality of the package and that we got the strawberries into something that can be recycled or composted”, says Susan Sipos, Country Magic account manager, Nova Agri.
Let’s not forget the consumer and retailer viewpoints. “Packaging is a very important part of the consumer brand experience, so food businesses need to pay attention to consumer’s values and insights,” says Dana McCauley, chief experience officer with the Canadian Food Innovation Network. “Likewise, grocers should be part of the packaging development phase; they will want to maximize display units on shelves while minimizing restocking needs. Once these factors have been considered, see which sustainable solutions can be applied to make your products more appealing to your customers and consumers.”
Lastly, getting a clear end-of-life disposal message out to consumers is key to achieving positive change. With a lack of universally mandated symbols, it’s up to industry to give clear composting or recyclability messaging. •
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BRUNET | Organic Council of Ontario
Confronting problems with packaging organic products through innovation in the packaging industry with Wellington Produce Packaging.
ABOVE
Wellington Produce Packaging’s prototype recyclable, compostable clamshell packaging.
A major value of organics is the production of food in a sustainable, environmentally friendly manner. For an organic farmer to go through the process of obtaining certification and following organic regulations only to end up packaging their product in layers of plastic seems counterproductive.
In reality, organic produce typically involves significantly more plastic packaging than its non-organic counterpart, as many grocery chains rely on packaging to ensure organic products are scanned correctly at checkout counters. According to the Canada Organic Trade Association, 82 per cent of Canadians who buy organic products do so through major grocery chains. If all these organic products are being sold in grocery stores with heavy packaging requirements, organic produce could be responsible for a massive amount of plastic waste.
We spoke to Wellington Produce Packaging (WPP), an Ontario-based packaging manufacturer
that has been in business for 88 years, to learn how our organic sector can make the most sustainable choices when it comes to packaging organics.
“We currently sell lots of the products we are aiming to replace, but we have the idea of ‘putting ourselves out of business before someone else does’ – we want to be the leaders of sustainable packaging in Canada,” says Adam Hincks, sales, WPP.
With grocery chains requiring some form of packaging for organic produce, some companies have gotten creative in minimizing their footprints. Eosta, a European distributor of organic produce, has developed laser technology that affects pigments on the peel of the fruit or vegetable, leaving a permanent mark on the produce and effectively eliminating the need for a label or packaging. While replacing packaging altogether might not be an option in Canada just yet, shifting away from
single-use plastics (SUPs) is a vital step in mitigating the climate crisis.
WPP is currently developing cardboard clamshells that will compete directly with the plastic clamshells that are commonly used for berries. The cardboard clamshells are completely recyclable and can be torn into smaller pieces for compost, as they are manufactured using vegetable inks. The company is also working to increase the sustainability of its existing packaging; they are currently trialing a new material for green plastic strawberry quarts that can be broken down quickly by the bacteria present in landfills.
“We have achieved 10 per cent degradation in 100 days,” Hincks says. “This does not affect the recyclability of the product, and it also will not degrade on a customer if they want to wash and reuse. So it’s not perfect, but it’s a positive step!”
Selecting sustainable packaging becomes challenging for organic producers when the line blurs between the appearance of sustainability and its actuality. There
are countless brands guilty of falsely marketing their packaging to producers as sustainable, a tactic known as “greenwashing.” WPP tells us that greenwashing can make it difficult to communicate sustainability honestly to organic producers. Scrutinizing green claims is time-consuming.
“Packaging is such a small part of their business that [organic producers] can’t afford to put a lot of time into researching,” Hincks explains. Emerging government regulations prioritizing sustainability could make greenwashing a less common occurrence in the industry.
The Government of Canada is introducing the Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations, which will ban plastic checkout bags, cutlery, foodservice ware, ring carriers, stir sticks and straws. The regulations are part of Canada’s goal to eliminate plastic waste by 2030. While the regulations are certainly a step in the right direction for the industry, they are not without flaws. The new regulations aim to protect the environment as soon as possible in response to the global climate
Preventative and Curative activity on Powdery Mildew and Botrytis, comparable to conventional products
crisis, but their implementation may prove to be sudden for some businesses.
“This is sort of like the industry has hit the iceberg,” Hincks explains. “Now we need to find a solution before the boat sinks. We hope it leads to positive results.”
Another issue that organic farmers can face when choosing sustainable packaging is the requirements of their buyers. WPP once had a compostable packaging tray tested and approved by a farmer. However, the head office of the grocery chain they were selling to made them switch to plastic packaging after a few shipments.
“We were totally surprised by this, and frustrated by the lack of transparency in the decision. Big grocery chains dictate so much about what farmers can and cannot use as packaging. At the end of the day, changes need to come from them,” Hincks says.
“For organic growers especially, using sustainable packaging creates an excellent opportunity for marketing, as now your packaging communicates your ethos.” •
Pick your storage veggies, know your variables, start small and, above all, stay cool.
BY J.P. ANTONACCI
Most community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs close up shop in the fall when the weather cools. But farms that store winter vegetables can provide local produce to their customers all year long.
“There’s so many ways to go about it,” said Sarah Dolamore, farm manager at Mount Wolfe Farm in Caledon, Ont., whose CSA runs from May to March and offers members a selection of roughly 30 different summer and winter vegetable crops.
Mount Wolfe Farm stores four main types of winter vegetables – brassicas, squashes, alliums and root vegetables – in a cold room that keeps produce at just above the freezing mark.
The structure is foam-insulated and has plastic cladding on the inside. Summer cooling is provided by a CoolBot, an electronic device commonly used by small-scale farmers that overrides a household air conditioner to work below factory settings.
The insulation and a concrete slab under the structure provide enough warmth that a heater is not needed until temperatures drop to around -20 C.
Different areas of the storage room have different temperature settings, allowing for vegetables with different optimal storage temperatures and humidity requirements to be kept in the same space.
ABOVE
“This is relatively low-tech storage stuff, as we move toward a potentially low-energy economy,” Dolamore says. “It’s great that people are coming up with programmable apple bins, but I don’t think everybody who wants to grow their own food has access to that technology or is producing at a scale that makes the investment economically viable.”
The key to storing winter vegetables is controlling light, temperature and humidity. Storage environments should be kept dark – as exposure to light will reduce storage life by signalling to the vegetables that it’s time to grow – aerated and free of standing water.
For specifics on optimal storage temperature, relative humidity and length of storage, Dolamore consults a reference guide available online from Cornell Co-operative Extension that classifies vegetables based on what storage conditions they prefer.
The farm’s cold room does the trick, but nothing beats an actual subterranean root cellar, she adds. “I wish we had one. Trying to build something to emulate what the earth does naturally feels a bit futile,” Dolamore says. “In the long run, I would say, build a root cellar. Because it’s the thermal mass of the soil that’s going to regulate the temperature and
CONTINUED ON PAGE 21
Late maturity variety with large size potential. Well adapted to the northeast growing conditions. Attaractive bulb with nice golden-brown skin. Medium to long term storage. Maturity 105 days.
Good quailty roots for both mineral and muck soil. Very strong tops.
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CMS version of Expect. Same maturity, same weight, same clean look. Tolerant to thrips. For long term storage. Maturity: 92 days. Weight: 2-2.6 kg. Tolerances: Fusarium yellows, thrips, tip burn.
High quality, fresh market green bean. Beautiful, dark, straight and uniform pods. Upright plant with high pod position. Very good yield potential. Strong disease package. Maturity: 55 days. Length: 12-13 cm. Sieve: Medium. Tolerances: Common mosaic virus, brown spot, bean rust.
Sanford sets well in stressed conditions, either in heat or cool temperatures. Produces vigorous, upright plants with dark green pods that are very straight Maturity: 56 days. Length: 13-14 cm. Sieve: Medium. Tolerances: Common mosaic virus, bean rust, Anthracnose.
Early variety. Interesting because of its large size potential, producing a good yield. Bright red colour. Maturity: 98 days. Tolerances: Basal rot (Fusarium), pink root.
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16
the humidity, instead of having to do it yourself by design or electronically.”
Mount Wolfe Farm began as a 70-acre, ecological family farm enterprise and CSA in 2016. Members pay at the beginning of the growing season and share in the harvest throughout the year.
Interest in the CSA spiked during the pandemic as residents went in search of safe, fresh food grown close to home. Enrolment has since levelled off at around 80 members, with those in smaller households opting for half-shares.
In the summer and fall, around 50 full-share equivalents are picked up every Friday by CSA members who choose their own produce in a market-style setting.
In the winter and spring, Dolamore and her colleagues pack and deliver customized veggie boxes every other week to about 30 members in the greater Caledon area, augmenting their stored crops with locally sourced apples and microgreens.
As winter begins, the veggie boxes are filled with leeks, radicchio, Napa cabbage and other late-season vegetables harvested to avoid frost damage and placed into short-term storage. “It’s stuff that can hold, but it’s not going to hold for very long,” Dolamore says. “We definitely have to send it out before Christmas.”
Root vegetables like carrots, beets, turnips and radishes need cold and moist storage conditions to trap the crop’s sugars inside during hibernation. These vegetables should be harvested as near to peak maturity as possible and must not be allowed to freeze in the field.
Dolamore recommends layering harvested root vegetables in lightly moistened sand “like lasagne” to store them.
After the harvest, trim the foliage to about a half-centimetre of stem. “Don’t wash them,” Dolamore says. “In fact, you want to agitate the skin as little as possible, because any kind of nick or trauma to the root will be a place where it will rot.”
Small-scale or homestead farmers may cover their root vegetables in sawdust or chopped leaves for storage, but at Mount Wolfe Farm, Dolamore layers them in lightly moistened sand “like lasagne” to keep them from drying out in long-term storage. “If something goes wrong with the temperature regulation at any point during the season, (the vegetables) are insulated against big fluctuations,” she says.
An alternative is storing the produce in plastic bags or stackable crates, with the entire room humidified to a moist level.
Dolamore recommends sowing root vegetables in mid- to late June “to not only get them established, but get them to size up to a point where it’s worth storing a really nice thick carrot, as opposed to a spindly one.”
Growers should choose varieties that are best suited for cold storage, which are
often heirlooms.
“You have to do some trial and error to find your preferred varieties,” Dolamore says. As an example, certain summer carrot varieties “taste like sawdust after two months in storage,” but varieties bred to be stored over winter come out sweet and crunchy in May.
“Read the seed catalogue carefully, and talk to other growers in your community about their experiences,” Dolamore says.
Like root vegetables, brassicas do well in cool and humid storage conditions.
Mount Wolfe Farm grows two varieties of cabbage – one green and one red, with the red variety having a much shorter storage life. That is typical of purple vegetable varieties in general, which are eye-catching but don’t store as well or grow as robustly as green varieties.
Heads of cabbage destined for veggie boxes in November or December can survive in storage until delivery day. To make cabbages last into the new year, 80 per cent of the leaves are removed before the entire plant is harvested – stem, roots
