Finishing Canadian projects during Covid-19. A team of 3 and over 17.5 hectares in 10 weeks.

On March 10th two members of our downsized team arrived to Ontario, Canada to complete some local projects for the Voorwinden Group (Growers: Pure Flavour, Red Sun and Jem Farms). After finishing up in England in April, once it was cleared to fly, I joined the crew, and here we are 10 weeks later, a team of 3, moving between 3 cities in Ontario, finishing a total of:

17.5 hectares

3500 m of wall

over 2000 dollies

In addition to these numbers we had an interesting challenge at Jem Farms - a portion of our drilling (200 dollies) were needed at 3.7m depth.

We are very grateful for our outstanding team during these difficult times who flew to Canada to complete these projects alongside myself going non-stop in the Canadian spring of snow and rain 7 days a week for over 10 weeks.

With Covid requiring 14 days of isolation in both Canada and The Netherlands, it was not feasible for our team to break up the trip as we would have normally built into our planning.

It is amazing what we’ve accomplished considering the global circumstances, closed hardware stores, reduced team and still finishing on time and on budget.

We have a few more weeks to go before wrapping up this Canadian leg, heading Northeast to Jarvis, ON to complete a 2.5 hectare extension with 1000m of walls including service area.

One last push and a well deserved break for my team and myself. We always enjoy growing in Canada, but we are very much looking forward to getting home to our loved ones. On behalf of my brother and I, we thank our outstanding team and the Voorwinden Group for choosing RORO Greenhouses again for your projects.

Ronald Van Santen with a reduced team [ Maarten and Rolf ] in Canada during the Covid-19 situation.