It might not have been the type of day that Darcy Vatamaniuck was looking for, but he’s still excited about the potential for Estevan Fresh Farms.
A ground-breaking ceremony was scheduled to happen on Saturday morning at the site of Estevan Fresh Farms greenhouse just northwest of the Bienfait town limits. But thanks to the frigid temperatures, which hovered around -20 C, those plans were scuttled.
The greenhouse will be located on 37 1/2 acres of land, which is currently an empty field. Vatamaniuck is looking forward to when the greenhouse is complete.
He said about 500 to 600 people have expressed an interest in purchasing fruits and vegetables grown at Estevan Fresh Farms through its membership program.
“Ultimately it comes down to it’s fresh fruit and vegetables, and everyone likes fresh fruit and vegetables,” said Vatamaniuck. “A lot of our produce in Estevan and in Canada comes from Mexico and southern California. There’s getting to be more and more tomato greenhouses in Alberta and in Ontario, and peppers and what not, but there’s a large part of our produce that comes from outside the country.”
Vatamaniuck has been selling memberships for $100 each through Kickstarter as a way to generate revenues and create interest. But the reason he went through Kickstarter is once the greenhouse is built, he’s only going to have so much available space and produce each week.
“If I were to open it up and say whoever wants to be a member can be a member, then I could have let’s say 10,000 people and it would be just a random free-for-all of whoever ordered when,” said Vatamaniuck.
With Kickstarter and the yearly memberships, it means people are committed to it, and they’re more likely to be a weekly purchaser.
Vatamaniuck believes there are 30,000 to 35,000 potential customers within an hour of the greenhouse’s location, and Vatamaniuck is looking forward to supplying fresh fruits and vegetables to this market.
The goal is to not only sell fresh fruits and vegetables through the greenhouse’s membership program, but to supply local stores with the fresh fruits and vegetables. The stores that have agreed to accept his produce are smaller. To sell in some of the larger, independent grocers, he needs certifications that he can’t get until he’s operational.
“Then it’s a matter of contacting them, seeing what they need and supplying their weekly needs,” said Vatamaniuck.
Since his business has been advertised in the Mercury and on its website, Vatamaniuck said people are aware of what he’s been doing.
Vatamaniuck said he was hoping to have some nice spring weather at the end of March for the ground-breaking, since warmer temperatures have usually settled in. He was hoping to meet with people and to answer their questions.
“At the end of the day, it just delays it a week or so,” he said.
