Ontario Plants' core business is greenhouse vegetable plant propagation. The company combines superior management, advanced technology and innovation to supply healthy young vegetable plants to order for their customers, who are the operators of greenhouse farms.

Located on John Wise Line in St. Thomas, Ontario Plants, www.ontarioplants.com, was one of the first companies of its kind in Ontario. President Jack Vanderkooy ventured away from greenhouse tomato production to start a vegetable plant propagation operation in 1999 with 6.5 acres of high-tech greenhouses.

Today the company has expanded to 15 acres of production and can produce up to 15 million vegetable plants a year. It employs 30 to 40 people during most of the year, with a peak of up to 180 from November through January.

Vanderkooy explains that it is more efficient for a greenhouse grower to purchase propagated plants than to grow the seedlings themselves. The grower can maintain 100-per-cent production of plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers for the maximum length of time, rather than having to make space available for seedlings. The grower also reduces any risk from growing new plants, since Ontario Plants provides guarantees with its products.

“By outsourcing this task, it simplifies life for the growers and lets them pay attention to things they are good at,” Vanderkooy says.

“Growing the young plants happens only annually or semi-annually and it demands another set of skills. A propagator with specialized equipment for growing plants from seeds will always do a better job.”

Ontario Plants Propagation makes use of advanced technology to produce young vegetable plants that are robust and disease-free. Heating, venting, humidity and irrigation systems are all computer controlled. No soil is used; all the seedlings are grown hydroponically in rock-wool blocks, with fertilizer added to the water they absorb.

Much of the infrastructure and technology used by Ontario Plants originates in the Netherlands, regarded as having the world’s most advanced greenhouse industry. Vanderkooy’s parents immigrated from the Netherlands to Norfolk County in 1956 – he got his start on the family dairy farm after graduation from the University of Guelph – and he finds it handy that he can speak Dutch in dealing with suppliers.

Ontario Plants has become a third-generation family business. Vanderkooy and his wife Margaret have two sons and two daughters, and both boys are now working at the company.

Vanderkooy says that, after six years of operation in Elgin County, the family is very glad they chose to locate here.

The property they purchased is well served by electric and natural-gas utilities with a plentiful water supply. There’s a good pool of local labour – Ontario Plants finds all of its full- and part-time employees locally.

Of particular importance is the support that Ontario Plants has received from municipal officials, Vanderkooy says.

“I can rightfully say that when dealing with Elgin County and Southwold Township officials in the many stages of our business, we were met with welcoming support and that continues to this day.”