Canada has an important place in the indoor farming sector with many publicly-traded companies, large investments made and development plans that remain despite challenging times lying upon the indoor vertical farming sector.
Indeed, the 4 main provinces where indoor farming has witnessed impressive growth in recent months remain British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario & Quebec. A variety of companies have been created over the years offering solutions, growing various plants, or developing innovative technologies.
This editorial is an overview of the indoor farming sector in Canada and does not have every single company involved in the indoor farming sector.
British Columbia
British Columbia is home to many indoor farming companies either providing solutions to the sector or leveraging existent technology to grow a variety of produce. Some of them are even floating on stock markets in Canada or in the United States.
The first company, CubicFarm Systems Corp provides modular solutions to grow produce or animal feed through its subsidiary HydroGreen. Up until the release of its second-quarter results, the company has been announcing new deals in North America and signed a manufacturing agreement to handle the increasing demand the company had for its modules. The company estimated that it had 223 modules pending manufacturing and installation with an estimated contract value of USD 30.7M but was dealing with expanding operational costs linked to heavy research and development growth. Since the release and the announcement of cost-reduction measures to reduce the monthly cash-burn rate, the company delayed the start of its FreshHub update after the private investor group made the decision not to proceed and get a full refund of its initial deposit. Furthermore, the company changes its management and further cost reduction measures by laying-off 87 employees (nearly 50% of its workforce) to accelerate its path to profitability. To support the company’s day-to-day management the company also secured CAD 6.4M in Senior Secured Term Loans (Loan type given to lower-rated companies unable to get ‘traditional’ forms of financing).
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Photo by Eugene Aikimov on Unsplash
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