Providing Cost-Effective, Reliable Fresh Produce to Calgary Year Round
COR 628 Design Thinking Individual Project
Overview
Canadians desire, and are used to, having year round access to fresh produce. Due to weather and climatological differences across the country, Canadians are dependent on long distance transportation for that fresh produce. Fresh produce must be imported from warmer climates during the winter months and moved across the country. Cross-country transportation is actually required year-round due to growing different crops in different parts of the country. Access to fresh produce is therefore dependent on access to secure, cost-effective and reliable supply, and supply routes.
Canada is a northern country with extreme winters impacting much of the populated areas and, more importantly, much of the agricultural land. The result is that Canadians are dependent on imported fresh produce through the winter season.
Canada is also a country that has vastly different climatological regions, north to south and east to west. The impact of this is that not all types of fresh produce grow well in all parts of Canada. Therefore, inter-provincial trade is also a requirement to access fresh produce grown elsewhere in Canada, like interior British Columbia or southern Ontario, for shipment to other parts, like Calgary. These shipments must occur year round.
We are seeing increasing climate-change driven environmental events like forest fires and flooding. These can impact areas that supply fresh produce and routes to transport the produce to distant markets. Last year, for example, the floods in British Columbia shut down major highways and rail lines across the Rocky Mountains impacting supply chains from the ports to inland markets in Alberta and further east (Zussman R, 2022).
Lastly we are seeing rising fuel costs as part of our inflationary market. Forecasters are estimating high fuel prices will be around for a while (Cooban, 2022). This cost must be factored into the delivered cost of any products shipped. Upward pressure on fuel price means upward pressure on fresh produce costs.
These challenges to the food supply chain means that supporting getting fresh produce reliably and cost-effectively will continue to be under stress.
Identifying the Problem
The problem is two-fold: access to and cost of fresh produce.
While Canada is blessed with abundant agricultural land, the country imports $10 billion worth of fresh fruit and vegetables every year — especially in the winter months.
Outside of the relatively little produce grown in Canadian greenhouses, the vast majority of fresh food that Canadians eat this time of year comes from the United States or overseas. (Evans P, 2022)
In regard to access, fresh produce can be grown locally in the Calgary area in the summer time. Calgary is considered a good growing location in Canada because it has 115 days of a frost free growing season. However, that is 30% shorter than in the Toronto area which has 150 days, and even 7% shorter than Edmonton which has 123 days (National Gardening Association, garden.org). As good as that is from a Canadian context, it still means that in Calgary over 2/3 of the year is unproductive for growing crops outdoors.
Calgary is also relatively proximate to the interior valleys of British Columbia that grow prolific volumes of fruits, vegetables (and world class wineries). Further afield from that is the port of Vancouver, for the importation of more exotic foods from across the Pacific. Food is typically transported from those valleys or from the port in Vancouver to Calgary by transport truck. There are only 2 primary highway routes through the mountains (Hwy 1 — TransCanada, and Hwy 3 — Crowsnest). Any disruption on those routes results in delays and/or costly detours. During the floods in late 2021 in British Columbia the Coquihalla was closed for 35 days causing major supply disruptions to foods and other products. (Zussman, 2022)
The second issue is cost. “[Most of] the costs that we’re seeing right now relate to transportation issues, whether it be ocean, air earlier in the season or overland trucking from any place you can imagine,” (Evans, 2022). Fresh food can also enter Canada through other ports like Toronto. The map below shows a typical path for grapes grown in Peru making their way to Winnipeg.
Typically, a shipment of his prized grapes would leave a port in Peru and sail through the Panama Canal before making their way to be offloaded somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard of North America. His stuff mostly comes through Philadelphia, Wilmington, Del., or sometimes Halifax, and if he’s lucky, he’ll have his hands on his shipment about two weeks after it was loaded on to the boat. (Evans P, 2022)
The global supply and demand issues since the pandemic have caught all consumer goods, resulting in delays and higher prices. The wholesale costs of of some imported fruits are up 50% since last year. Further the risk of delays and lost shipping containers has increased as well.
The supply chain has issues domestically too. There is shortage of long haul truck drivers, lost due to retirement or turnover, without replacement due to work-life balance concerns. (Bernstien J. 2021)
Reframing the Problem
Examining the issue from a human-centred perspective, regardless of the technical issues and supply chain challenges people in Calgary simply want fresh produce, when they want it. The question then is what other options are available to resolve this issue. Frozen is one option as is canning from some fruits and vegetables, but may not be favourable to fresh (and one knows you can’t can bananas!). To consider this I tried to examine the problem from a typical Calgarians perspective in terms of why they see fresh produce as too expensive and why other options may or may not work.
I used the 5-Whys and drilled down through a hypothetical discussion with this typical Calgarian (NOTE: for the purpose of this exercise, and due to limited available time, I considered myself to be that typical Calgarian. Should this advance, the template should be completed following discussion with a larger sample of “typical Calgarians”).
Considering the root-causes of why fresh produce is expensive it is first because alternatives like canned fruits and vegetables are considered sub standard, and need to be shipped as well. Shipping is expensive, but without a competitive alternative it is a necessity. Currently there are limited opportunities for year round green-houses, which take up a lot of land that can be used for other purposes.
The Opportunity
Upon consideration of the root causes of why fresh produce is expensive, we can reconsider the problem from an opportunistic perspective. Instead of asking “Why can’t we”, we can change the perspective to a question of “How might we”. How might we produce fresh fruits and vegetables in a Calgary winter? To do this we need access to indoor space, that is big enough to produce viable crops to offset imported shipments. Industrial space in Calgary is at a premium, currently sitting at about a 3.5% vacancy rate, the lowest since 2014, and large amounts under development and pre-leased (Carley S, 2022). So that’s likely not part of the answer.
What other vacant indoor spaces exist in Calgary? If one follows the news then one is aware that due to the energy downturn beginning about 5 years ago and exacerbated by the pandemic the vacancy rates of vertical office spaces in the downtown core are at an all-time high. As of the Q4 2021, Calgary’s downtown office market hit a new vacancy level of over 33% (Franklin, 2022). There is approximately 6 million square feet of commercial real estate that needs to be repurposed or taken off the market. The City of Calgary is seeking ways to convert some office space into residential, but there is at least half of the space for which alternative solutions need to be found (City of Calgary, 2022). There is a distressed market, with lots of horizontal floor space, it just so happens to be stacked vertically. Perhaps the question we need to consider is:
How might we integrate vertical farming as one of a set of solutions to Calgary’s vacant office buildings?
According to Bronwyn Scrivens, vertical farming space could have potential benefits such as:
- condense the equivalent of 700 acres of farmland into the footprint of a big box store.
- planting and harvesting can take place 365 days a year, with shortened growth cycles to about 10 days for many products (a 700% increase)
- saving about one million gallons of water per week using 1% of the land of traditional farming. Further the water can be substantially recycled through the HVAC system.
While the cost compared to traditional farms has been high it can be brought down through the use of robotics and enhanced lighting systems.
Additionally, delivery issues will only focus on the “last mile”, from vertical farm to consumer. Risk of supply interruption will be minimized. Fuel costs, and associated carbon footprint will drop.
Lastly, that strawberry grown in your garden, fresh off the plant is always more delicious than one that ripened in a shipping container. Wouldn’t it be great if all fruit could taste that way, year round? With vertical farming it just might be possible.
References:
- The National Gardening Association, average frost-free growing season, info retrieved June 14, 2022, https://garden.org/apps/calendar/?q=Calgary%2C+AB
- Geography of Canada, Climatology, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Canada
- Wallish murphy, S., Gardening with Sharon, When to Plant a Successful Vegetable Garden in Alberta …, February 8, 2022, https://gardeningwithsharon.com/growing-food/when-to-plant-a-successful-vegetable-garden-in-alberta-or-any-other-zone-3-4-growing-zone-downloadable-chart/
- Evans, P, CBC News, Inflation biting into your grocery bill? Follow the food from farm to fork to see why, February 22, 2022, https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/food-grocery-inflation-1.6355172
- Zussman R & Judd A., Global News, Months after disastrous floods, B.C.’s Coquihalla Highway to fully reopen Wednesday, January 18, 2022, https://globalnews.ca/news/8519601/bc-floods-latest-update-state-of-emergency/#:~:text=More%20than%20300%20workers%20using,35%20days%2C%20the%20province%20said.
- Cooban A., 3 reasons high oil prices are here to stay, CTVNews, June 3, 2022, https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/3-reasons-high-oil-prices-are-here-to-stay-1.5931547
- Bernstien J., What’s behind a trucker shortage in Canada? Britain’s labour crisis offers a clue, CBC News, October 4, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada-truck-driver-shortage-1.6198830
- Carley S., Calgary Industrial Market Report Q1 2022, Colliers, Apr 13, 2022, https://www.collierscanada.com/en-ca/research/calgary-industrial-market-report-2022-q1
- Franklin, M. (2022, January 12). Downtown office vacancies in Calgary jumps to more than 30%: CBRE. CTV News. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://calgary.ctvnews.ca/downtown-office-vacancies-in-calgary-jumps-to-more-than-30-cbre-1.5737481
- The City of Calgary. Retrieved June 10, 2022, from https://www.calgary.ca/pda/pd/downtown-strategy/downtown-calgary-development-incentive-program.html
- Scrivens, B. Could vertical farming be a solution for vacant office or retail space?, January 20, 2022, Real Estate News Exchange, https://renx.ca/could-vertical-farming-be-a-solution-for-vacant-office-or-retail-space/
