Andy O’Brien has found himself at the right place at the right time to help Canadians counter the threat of rising temperatures and Trump tariffs.
Launched as a concept in 2011, GoodLeaf Farms opened its first pilot farm in Truro, N.S., in 2015 followed by a full-scale vertical farm in Guelph in 2019.
Instead of growing produce on large tracts of land south of the border — dealing with pests, climate change and a potential trade war — GoodLeaf is producing leafy greens indoors right here in Canada.
“This produce category has been littered with major recalls for 15, 20 years; that doesn’t happen in vertical farming, because it’s a controlled environment,” says O’Brien who was appointed president and CEO of the company last July.
Its four vertical farms, located in Guelph and in rural areas outside Montreal, Calgary and Halifax, boast a combined 300,000 square feet of growing space and produce five million pounds (about 2.3 million kilograms) of food annually. The company has plans to double output by year’s end making it the largest vertical farming company in Canada — and possibly North America.
Their product “tastes better because it’s not sitting on a truck for three weeks,” O’Brien says, speaking remotely from the company’s Calgary facility. “It has higher nutritional value — up to 40 times or 100 times, depending on the product, compared to that grown in the field — it has a longer shelf life, doesn’t use any pesticides, and it’s safer.”
After following his father’s footsteps into accounting and landing a job in the oil and gas sector, O’Brien says he discovered he was more interested in marketing, leading him to an MBA from York University.
Since graduating in 1994, O’Brien has worked in marketing of products found in just about every grocery store aisle with General Mills, Campbell Soup, and Mars.
He has also been president of Canadian restaurant chain Montana’s, was president and CEO of The WORKS Craft Burgers & Beer and CEO of M&M Food Market from 2014 to 2022.
During a temporary pivot into private equity O’Brien began researching the brand he would later be asked to run.
“I thought they were a cannabis company,” he joked. “I did my evaluation, and I realized there was a big opportunity for this company, and that’s what made me consider coming over, and I joined in June.”
The 30-year food industry veteran recently spoke with the Star about why he believes our current agricultural practices are unsustainable, why a Trump trade war might prove a boon to the Canadian brand and why the indoor alternative is the future of farming.
What attracted you to vertical farming?
One part is there’s a challenge in Canada where we just can’t get fresh produce across our country 365 days a year.
Most of it comes from deep in the U.S., and it takes a long time to get up here.
The reality is we can’t just keep doing what we’re doing; we can’t rely on the climate, there’s too many recalls, we’re losing our agriculture space, we don’t have food security in many pockets of the world, so I do believe this is the future of farming.
The other thing is, I remember the days when we were launching green laundry products that didn’t clean your clothes as well, or the greener garbage bag didn’t hold your garbage.
You want to save the planet, but the product also has to perform.
So, taking that consumer lens, (our product) actually tastes better, has higher nutritional value, and has a longer shelf life, because it’s all done in a controlled environment. That’s when I realized it was a big opportunity.
Why were they looking for new leadership?
Companies are always on a life cycle.
The early part of that life cycle for GoodLeaf, between 2012 and 2016, was an entrepreneur with a PhD in biology figuring out how this all works.
He doesn’t know how to build or scale a company but has the intelligence and experience to figure out the science behind it. That was phase one.
Then they brought in someone for phase two who’s more of an operator.
He worked for McCain for 25 years, and he came in to build the next three farms, but he had some personal health challenges.
He also recognized that he was highly skilled at building production capacity, but not building a brand, and that’s what I’ve been brought in to do.
What is vertical farming exactly?
The best way to think about a vertical farm is to think about a tall box, and inside this box we have what we call “stacks.”
In Calgary, we have 10 stacks. The plants go through each stack as they grow over the course of 21 days in a controlled environment that mimics what would happen in a perfect world without droughts or bugs or seasonal changes in sunlight.
It’s real plants, real food, grown inside in a controlled environment, limiting all the external factors.
Are there any drawbacks?
The real challenge is the cost of entry; one of our farms costs $70 million to build. So, to supply all Canadians all their produce from inside these farms, we need a lot more investment. That’s the biggest challenge.
Does that mean it’s also more expensive?
There is a price premium, because it’s a premium product.
Like any category of food, you have good, better, best, and this would be in the in the “best” area, with the highest level of nutritional benefits and the longest shelf life.
But there is also a real cost to buying produce and throwing it out three days later when it goes bad. We have a 21-day shelf life on our produce, so I would say the benefits outweigh the price premium.
What do you grow?
Right now, our lineup consists of three distinct categories.
The first are what we call “babies,” which are a baby versions of spinach, lettuce and romaine, because we only grow them for 20 days. To get a full head of lettuce it would take 60 to 80 days, depending on where you are in the world.
Our second category is called “micro greens,” which are micro versions of pea shoots, broccoli and arugula.
These are smaller plants that are dense in taste and nutrition and are so good to put in salads or sandwiches or a smoothie, and that’s what they get used for, as a component to another product.
The third category is what are we call “blends,” which are a mixture of the babies and the micros that are ready for salad inclusions, like adding in your cheeses, nuts or dry fruits and a dressing.
Why hasn’t vertical farming taken off before?
The technology has evolved quite a bit, and part of the problem was the business case.
They’re expensive farms to build, and to run, and nobody wants to build a business that can’t deliver a profit.
Over the last 10 years, however, we’ve seen a massive change in consumer attitude, especially when it comes to where their food is sourced and how it’s made.
That may also tie in with the development of social media, which is educating consumers.
So, the technology has made it a more viable business and at the same time the demand from customers and awareness of food security issues has really developed in the last few years, and especially in the last few months, thanks to the Trump administration and its threat of tariffs.
Are you seeing more demand for Canadian-grown produce?
I’ve never seen the Canadianism that I’ve seen over the last few weeks.
It makes me proud to be a Canadian, but the tariffs haven’t really had an impact yet in terms of pricing, so we’re not really seeing a change in consumer habits.
There is certainly fear of tariffs, but I think the real change in consumer behaviour will happen when prices change.
Would tariffs potentially make your products more cost competitive?
It will help, yes.
I look at it the same way I did M&M during COVID.
At the time the most popular item at Costco was a deep freezer, because people were stocking up on food, so our sales went through the roof.
And I told the team that we were benefitting from a terrible situation, but we also have great products that people are going to discover, and I think the same will happen here.
If people want to buy Canadian, or it’s the only thing on the shelf at a reasonable price, they will try GoodLeaf, and they will discover that it has real benefits, and I think they will come back.
I think it’s going to get people to try our products and realize how good it is for themselves, their families, the country and the planet.
What are your ambitions for GoodLeaf?
We plan to open more farms in Canada.
Right now, we’re strategically set up to supply Western Canada, Eastern Canada and the middle, but as the demand grows, we need to grow our facilities.
Two, as you look at our portfolio, you’re going to see an evolution to more value-added products, whether it be salad bowls or salad kits or plants that are ready to be put into a smoothie.
Geographic expansion will happen, but probably not for a couple years. We had plans to enter the Northeast of the U.S., but we’ll need to wait and see what happens there.
We’re also in discussions about other areas around the world, because there’s only a few small pockets where you can grow produce year-round, and there’s lots of places with dense populations that are running out of land, or don’t have ideal growing conditions.
But for the short term our focus is on making sure we’re able to supply our leafy greens to more Canadians and evolving our portfolio in Canada.
