Greenhouse Business Innovation
On April 8, 2025, a day with the promise of spring in the northern air, the Athabasca Grown team welcomed our speaker for the evening, Rob Lyle, “The Lettuce Man” and founder of greenshaus, to Athabasca.
Cara and Mike showed Rob all the sights, including a look at the town across the Athabasca River, from Lion’s Centennial Park and the Athabasca University campus. Also part of the tour were some of the possible locations for a passive solar greenhouse (PSG) which have been suggested.
They also had lunch with some local growers and retailers, which sparked some great discussion!
As people filled the Multiplex lounge for the evening workshop, Back Forty BBQ prepared to serve their amazing smoked chicken and fixin’s!. Thanks to them for the amazing food!
After the crowd of about 70 was full of BBQ, Cara and Mike welcomed the participants and acknowledged the Indigenous territories we are present on. After some calls to action and housekeeping, they welcomed Mayor Rob Balay to say a few words on behalf of the Town of Athabasca.
The County of Athabasca, one of our event co-hosts, was unable to be present as their team was attending a municipal economic development convention. Fortunately, Mayor Balay kindly stepped in to welcome participants to the evening. The Town of Athabasca is one of the initiating partners on the Athabasca Grown project.
After some friendly banter with the guest speaker, the Mayor welcomed the audience and spoke positively about the project. Then he welcomed Rob Lyle to the podium.
About Rob Lyle & greenshaus
Rob is a former finance professional-turned-commercial passive solar greenhouse operator. On his land in Almonte, Ontario, he has set up a “hyper-local” produce business using a hydroponic growing system in a passive solar greenhouse.
His greenhouse is designed by Ceres Greenhouse Solutions and influenced by work by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. It’s a steel building with insulated steel panels, triple glazing, LED lighting and ventilation. Ceres also installed an earth-based heating and cooling system they call Ground-Air Heat Transfer (GAHT), a system explored in the last Athabasca Grown workshops.
With the addition of some propane heating during the coldest months, the greenshaus stays warm and toasty all the time. Rob believed he could “show that this could be done low energy.”
The design for the PSG was inspired by the Bauhaus school of design…
“As we began thinking about building greenhouses for new age growers who want to practice environmentally sustainable methods, we discovered a connection between our design objectives, and Bauhaus principles. Our design/build ideas fit within the five essential Bauhaus principles of design.
Form follows function, True materials, Minimalist style, Gesamtkunstwerk, and Uniting art and technology.”
“First and Best Choice”
Rob gave the audience a rundown of how he got started, how the greenhouse was built, even mentioning the costly mistakes he made along the way. He learned everything he could about how to grow the lettuce hydroponically, which types of lettuce were the best to grow and what consumers wanted to eat.
He showed us a photo of his first customer, who bought $20 of lettuce from him. Positive word of mouth locally allowed him to create relationships with local grocery retailers.
He has put a lot of thought into his brand and how it represents “first and best choice” for local consumers. He solved a market problem that Canadian local growers have by not being able to produce in winter and provide a year-round fresh product. Year-round availability solidified the brand loyalty in the local market.
Rob eventually created a relationship with local Loblaws stores, where he set up nicely merchandised displays of his premium and sustainable product.
To stay in line with his sustainable approach, Rob found plastic-free packaging that worked for his product. The wrapping that the lettuce was packaged in was a waterproof, wax-free, paper product that was recyclable. He used a stamp to personalize it with the greenshaus brand.
Even the display stand was on-brand and sustainable: it was cardboard printed with a “lettuce” green plaid! It definitely stood out in the produce section.
Tips from Rob’s success!
Same day harvest and delivery, 2 - 3 times a week - getting the product to the retailers quickly was a huge plus for them;
through testing and mistakes, found the lettuce that worked the best;
was in continual conversation with consumers on what they wanted to eat, and that helped guide what to grow;
brand consistency and reliable, year-round availability was important;
high quality is also important;
best choice, but also best price. Sometimes people even expect local food to be less expensive.
“Stay in connection with the community. You get a lot of satisfaction when you see people who know you’re doing good and they are proud to buy your product. That’s worth money... that emotional feeling is money in the bank, in a sense.”
The evening wrapped up with some questions for Rob from the audience and lots of folks hanging out to talk about the presentation and their ideas.
Thanks to Rob for travelling across the country to share his humour, knowledge and experience with the Athabasca Grown audience.
What we heard from participants…
Who, what, where and how?
Join us for our next and final workshop in the series: Who? What? Where? and How? - A Passive Solar Greenhouse For Athabasca on May 8th, 2025, at the ARC building at Athabasca University.
For our final workshop, we will be asking participants to answer the following:
Who could carry the project forward, and how could it be governed? Who would the intended customers/audience be?
What would the physical components of the building include? What does the business model look like?
Where, from a list of suggested sites, would a PSG be most appropriate and successful?
How can it be funded? How do the contributions and funding models differ for various scenarios?
We hope to come away with a plan on how to move forward and a “Champions” group that will continue to drive the project.
Bring your expertise, ideas and passion to be part of the future of this exciting project!
To learn more about Athabasca Grown upcoming events, visit our Eventbrite Page.
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