Hydroponic facility sprouts up in Wapak

NEW BREMEN - A hydroponic greenhouse company from Canada is planting new roots in Wapakoneta with a $250 million facility.

Golden Fresh Farms, a sprawling site along U.S. 33 at the I-75 exit, will start growing tomatoes in January for harvest in March.

Greg Myers, executive director of the Wapakoneta Area Economic Development Council, talked about the facility on Monday at a New Bremen Ag Boosters meeting. Myers began working two years ago to get the business to locate in Auglaize County.

The first phase, consisting of one 20-acre greenhouse and a warehouse/distribution center and irrigation/boiler area, is almost complete, Myers said. This first phase will create 82 full-time jobs (42 year-round and 40 seasonal) with an annual payroll of $2.9 million. Two more greenhouses are planned by 2018 with construction of the second one beginning next year.

During the next 10 years, parent company Red Sun Farms based in Kingsville, Ontario, wants to construct 200 acres of greenhouses at the site. The completed facility would create 400 jobs with an annual payroll of $15 million.

"Nothing is planted in dirt," Myers said of the hydroponic growing process. "Every plant has its own what I call I.V. tube with water and nutrients computer-fed into the plants."

The first greenhouse will have 9,300 lights that provide "sunlight" 24/7. It is expected to yield 5-8 million pounds of tomatoes a year, Myers said.

All produce is non-genetically modified organisms and organically grown without pesticides. Scouts will ride bicycles down 270-feet-long rows in the greenhouse daily looking for plant diseases and insect pests, Myers said.

"If they find bad bugs, they put out a packet of good bugs, and they go out and eat the bad bugs," he said.

Pickers will be the only people who touch the produce. The rest of the operation is automated, Myers said.

"They will be able to pick the produce one day and have it on the grocer's shelf the next," he said.

The seasonal migrant pickers from Mexico will live in apartments at the complex, he said. Workers will use scissor lifts to pick tomatoes from plant stalks that can grow up to 40 feet long. The growing season will last from August through May. After each season, workers will remove all spent plants and restart with new ones.

The salary range for the highest-paying technical jobs will be $50,000 to $75,000. Pickers will make $13.50 an hour, he said.

The new business has already provided an economic boost to the area, Myers said. With the exception of the glass and steel, all supplies totaling about $7 million for the facility have come from Auglaize, Mercer, Shelby and Allen county businesses. Red Sun Farms already uses Crown lift trucks and dumpsters from a company in Kenton, he added.

The first 20-acre greenhouse will use 10 megawatts of electricity annually. By comparison the city of Wapakoneta uses 34 megawatts a year. The facility will use water from Wapakoneta and reclaimed rainwater that runs off the greenhouses and other structures.

Myers said the company plans to host a grand opening, though he did not know details. Golden Fresh Farms officials plan to provide a training ground for students from The Ohio State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Plans also are in the works to partner with the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum on school tours.

Paul Mastronardi and his uncle Louie Chibante are principle owners of Golden Fresh Farms. A company brochure provided by Myers says Red Sun Farms has seven distribution centers in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico serving retailers and food-service providers throughout North America. The family-owned company started when their grandfather and pioneer in the greenhouse industry, Olindo Mastronardi, built his first greenhouse near Kingsville, Ontario, in 1954.

Red Sun Farms is the largest vertically integrated hydroponic greenhouse company in North America. The company also grows peppers, cucumbers and eggplants. Vertical integration means the company performs every step from seeding the plants to delivering to the grocery retail market. Red Sun Farms is the fifth-largest grower of tomatoes in the world.

The Wapakoneta site was one of five considered. The other top site was in Trenton, Ohio. Myers said he believes the very visible location at U.S. 33 and I-75 is ultimately what sold the site.

"It is an 8-hour drive for 100 million Americans from Wapak," Myers said. "With 74,000 light fixtures, you won't be driving down I-75 and not see it."

The industrial park where the greenhouse facility is located consists of 470 shovel-ready acres.