Top of Mind

Putting good things into small packages is all part of a day’s work for good folks at the Westmoreland Sales-Topline Farms distribution center in Leamington, Ont., where farming and packaging sustainability have long been two flip sides of the same coin.

Located a 45-minute drive from the Canada-U.S. border crossing in Windsor, the 100,000-square-foot warehouse is a year-round, around-the-clock produce packing and distribution facility that lies at the heart of privately-owned greenhouse operator with a proud track record of serving North American market for fresh Canadian-grown cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes for over 50 years.

“Sustainability is at the core of every business decision we make,” says Dino DiLaudo, vice-president of sales and marketing for Westmoreland Sales.

“From the installation of solar panels at our warehouse to our growing methods, the packaging materials we select, and all the way to our continuous improvements in fleet efficiency, we are always monitoring our emissions and looking for ways of lowering our environmental impact,” DiLaudo states.

As he relates, over the years Topline Farms has grown into one of North America’s largest suppliers of greenhouse-grown mini cucumbers (cukes), which have practically become the company’s signature calling card.

In addition to its snack-sized mini-cukes and the classic Long English Cucumbers, the company is also well-known for the quality, taste and variety of its peppers and tomatoes, including:

• Bell and Mini Sweet peppers in various colours.
• Tomato varieties such as Beefsteak, Tomato-On-The-Vine (TOV), Grape, Cherry, Roma, Mini Roma and Cocktail tomatoes.
• Various types of eggplant.

“Our products are enjoyed throughout Canada and the United States by consumers at home and when dining out,” says DiLaudo, noting that the company ships between 70 and 90 different SKUs (stock keeping units) of its flagship Topline brand of packaged produce on year-round basis.

“Although private label programs constitute a significant portion of our business, our Topline labeled products experienced consisted growth over the past few years,” DiLaudo notes.

“We service a broad range of customers, from major national retailers to smaller regional players.”

The growing customer base naturally keeps the Leamington operation busy at all times, according to Westmoreland Sales facility manager Dave DiMenna.

“We typically run two 10-hour shifts with at least 250 employees per shift,” DiMenna states.

“With the adoption of LED lights, the growing season has been extended and the typical seasonal fluctuations are less of a factor,” says DiMenna, although there are spikes in demand during the traditional holiday seasons and special day occasions like the 4th of July, Labour Day, etc.

According to DiLaudo, being a master of its own fate provides Topline Farms with a distinct competitive advantage in a hotly contested market.

“We are a vertically integrated produce company, meaning that we have consolidated the entire supply chain, from seed to shelf,” he explains.

“We grow, pack and ship our own produce under one label, Topline Farms, and we are privately owned by a group of shareholders who are also the main greenhouse growers for the operation,” DiLaudo relates.

“Additionally, we have a network of grower partners in the region and in Mexico, who supplement our produce supply in order to fill customer needs.”

As DiLaudo explains, “It’s an extremely competitive industry with many established players.

“Essex County is home to several large greenhouse growers that compete amongst themselves for market share and shelf space inside retail stores,” he elaborates.

“We also compete with different farmers throughout North America and that forces us to continuously seek innovative ways of increasing our output, from leveraging LED lights inside our greenhouses to incorporating automation in the packing process.

“One major advantage Topline Farms has over other growers is the complete control over distribution,” says DiLaudo, describing formation of the company-owned Westmoreland Transportation unit as a “strategic move that allowed the company to keep distribution costs down, minimize delays and build our own delivery lanes.”

This high degree of self-reliance allows the Leamington DC facility to concentrate on what it does best—packing processed fresh product into attractive, functional and increasingly sustainable packaging with optimal shelf-life properties and product freshness.

Boasting several globally recognized certifications for food safety and quality—including CFIA, PrimusGFS, USDA Organic and Canada Organic—the facility houses four different production lines equipped with high-performance automatic and semiautomatic machinery to keep the lines running smoothly.

“We rely on automation for higher volume packs, such as mini cuke trays and boxing TOVs (cluster tomatoes),” says facility manager DiMenna.

“Our semi-automated production equipment allows us to shrinkwrap, flow-wrap, top-seal and clamshell product in nearly 100 per cent recyclable packaging,” says DiMenna, lauding the company’s ongoing switch from PVC (polyvinyl chloride) films to the more eco-friendly and recyclable PE (polyethylene) films—vastly improving the environmental footprint of its mini-cucumber packaging.

“In partnership with a major Canadian retailer, we have phased out of PVC films when packing our cucumbers and mini cucumbers to maximize recyclability and lower our overall environmental impact,” DiMenna relates, adding the company plans to switch over to PE film for all the vast majority of its top-sealed and stretch-wrapped products.

“This material change allows for the same level of food safety, preservation and retailer presentation,” he says, “while being 100 per cent recyclable and eliminating the release of chlorine gas that is typically associated with PVC production.”

To make the packaging switch happen, Topline Farms has worked closely with the local branch of leading Canadian packaging-materials supplier Canpaco, the official North American distributor for the PEXY range of PE stretch films supplied by Italian-based packaging specialists Fabbri Group.

According to Fabbri, PEXY is a polyolefin-based stretch film containing polyethylene polymers, making it ideal for use in packaging of fresh foods. With gas permeability five times higher than that of similar films, PEXY allows for better food preservation, according to Fabbri, and it can be safely used both on industrial and retail wrapping machines.

Moreover, PEXY can withstand temperatures even below zero—typical of the freezing process without ulcerating or embrittling—offering optimal protection to the food without suffering ‘cold burns’—while also providing superior puncture resistance.

Thanks to its unique chemical physical properties, PEXY ensures superior sealing performance, according to Fabbri, leveraging its transparency, brilliance and effective “anti-fog” properties to create maximum shelf appeal for the packaged products. In addition, the proprietary technology behind this film also allows users to optimize the consumption of material by taking advantage of its extensibility characteristics.

According to Fabbri, the PEXY film performs best when used on Fabbri-made stretch film wrapping machines, such as the Fabbri Power Pack 7 overwrapper supplied to the Leamington distribution centre by Burlington, Ont.-based food-packaging machinery distributor Reiser Canada.

According to Canpaco president Robert Appel, “The PEXY film is a highly innovative sustainable alternative to PVC film, which is now used by Topline Farms to achieve a more sustainable package for a better future.”

According to Appel, Canpaco has been working in close partnership with Topline Farms for the past five years, supplying the grower with various packaging consumables and materials such as corrugated boxes, PP tomato inserts, BOPP film for peppers, clamshells, clear PET plastic trays, mini-cuke and pepper bags and corner board, among others.

“Canpaco has been an integral part of the produce-packaging supply chain that you are seeing on all the shelves at retail grocery-chain levels,” Appel states.

“Over the last nine years, Canpaco has strived to increase our footprint in the produce industry by selling sustainable packaging and solutions to all their partner customers,” he relates.

“Recently, Canpaco put up a 65,000-square-foot facility in Kingsville, Ont., to support their growth and to better serve the southwestern Ontario region.”

Appel’s enthusiasm about the PEXY alternative is readily shared by DiLaudo.

“Packaging always plays a major role in our strategic decisions,” DiLaudo states.

“Not only are we happy to work with our retail partners to use sustainable materials, but we’re also always trying to enhance our in-store presentation.

“We recognize the value of an aesthetically pleasing label as a key driver in sales,” says DiLaudo, adding that Topline Farms has already received a lot of positive feedback form its clients since the switchover.

“In general, the market has a very positive perception of our products—the volume of produce we move is a testament to that,” DiLaudo states.

“Compared to most field growers, our tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are more uniform in shape and have consistent flavour—separating greenhouse grown products from the rest.

“Additionally, growing in a controlled environment allows for improved yield consistency,” DiLaudo points out.

“Retailers place a high value on surety of supply,” he states, “and that’s what has catapulted the company to reach its current size.

“Our retail partners also appreciate our strict adherence to their packing specifications, which can be exemplified by the lower than one-percent rejection rate across all deliveries.

As DiLaudo relates, smaller-sized products such as mini-cukes and snacking tomatoes are becoming extremely popular with today’s busy on-the-go consumers, and Topline Farms is working hard to take advantage of this trend through further product and packaging innovation.

“Each commodity has its own array of different varieties,” he says, “and lately there has been an increase in demand for bite-sized and snacking varieties.

“Besides the PVC to PE transition we’re experiencing at the moment, another good example is the introduction of the Grab n’ Go Snacking Tomatoes cup to a few retailers in the U.S.,” he relates.

“With consumers increasingly looking for healthier snacking alternatives, the four-ounce Grab n’ Go cups can be displayed at the checkout lane, capitalizing on impulse purchases that are also guilt-free.”

As DiLaudo sums up, “Controlled environment agriculture allows us to exercise better control over the resources we use to grow our crops, resulting in a more environmentally friendly growing cycle.

“Our orders are staged in our cooled environment and typically shipped out same day to arrive at our customers to be as fresh as possible,” says DiLaudo, adding the company is an active and proud member of the CPMA (Canadian Produce Marketing Association), whose own effort to promote packaging sustainability within the produce sector is very much in line with Topline’s own environmental agenda.

“Being a CPMA member gives us the opportunity to become a highlighted vendor at the most important produce trade show in Canada, where we connect with our retail partners and share any new products we are introducing to the market,” DiLaudo concludes.

“It also allows us to take advantage of industry data and insights CPMA compiles and makes it available to all its members.”