Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement at Red Sun Farms Ontario
May 10, 2024 Finding ways to increase efficiencies and cut costs in the greenhouse doesn’t necessarily mean making significant changes to processes and investing in expensive technology. CEAg World spoke with Sarah Lombardi, General Manager of Red Sun Farms Ontario, about how she and the team collect and analyze data to implement incremental changes, make smart budgeting decisions and keep employees motivated.
CEAg World: Can you tell me more about Red Sun Farms Ontario and what they produce?
Sarah Lombardi: Red Sun Farms Ontario is a state-of-the-art, 1.2 million square foot greenhouse located in Kingsville, Ontario, Canada. We are currently in our fourth growing season. Our cultivation includes 21.5 acres of several different tomato varieties grown conventionally and six acres of mini cucumbers grown under LED lights. We are a three-phase project, with two phases left to go. After the project is completed, we will total approximately 70 acres of greenhouse production.
CEAg World: In the time that you’ve been at Red Sun Farms Ontario, what steps have you taken to cut costs across the business?
Sarah Lombardi: It’s been an ongoing process every year. We started our first crop in 2021, and year after year, we are learning, growing, and determining what is needed to make the next season even better. We work closely as a team between ownership and management and have come up with ways to track data that’s not done in our environmental and labor software programs.
The greenhouse industry continues to face challenges, from diseases and pests to unnecessary government and municipal regulations, which all have a large financial impact on farms. Now more than ever during these difficult times, decisions made for the business must be data driven. Here at Red Sun Farms Ontario, we have carefully cultivated a culture focusing on continuous improvement to create efficient and sustainable processes.
Specifically, we’ve taken a deep dive into crop registrations to understand where we can become more efficient in labor, as it’s our biggest direct cost. With minimum wage increasing every year, sometimes twice a year, farms must strategize on how to cut back while not falling behind on crop work. More and more, we see automation making its way inside the greenhouse: robotic harvesting, scouting, plant lowering, just to name a few. We are currently looking into trialing different robotic options but in the meantime, we set targets for crop registrations [for employees] and incentivized them. Creating this small competition with monetary benefits amongst our employees has helped us save substantially on labor costs.
CEAg World: Do you have specific examples of the types of data that you track?
Sarah Lombardi: Every year we’ve added more to the list of things to track. In the greenhouse, we track all crop registrations and showcase them to the employees. We just recently installed TVs in the greenhouse where we are showcasing the data live. All employees are able to see if they are at, above or below target in their current task. It’s become a great tool for the Labor Manager and Grower to address why some employees may fall below target and work with them on improving in those tasks.
In the packhouse, there are a lot of manual pack styles, so we keep track of timing and individual employees to understand how many punnets are packed per minute per employee, how many skids are completed per hour, the total labor cost per day per pack style and that equivalent labor cost per pound. This data over the years has helped us to create benchmarks and make improvements. It also allows us to make larger decisions as a business, like whether a capital investment for specific automation is needed or not.
From a higher level, we track our daily natural gas usage, monthly hydro usage, packaging costs, sales revenue, etc. Capturing and analyzing these KPIs and KAIs daily, weekly, and monthly helps us to be more conscious when making decisions.
CEAg World: What advice do you have for other growers who are looking to streamline processes in the ways that you’re talking about? How can they keep their employees motivated? Where do they start and what can they do?
Sarah Lombardi: It starts from the top. Having the right people in the right management roles is very important. We are fortunate to have a great management team here, each person bringing their previous experiences, skill set and knowledge to Red Sun Farms Ontario. We have weekly meetings with owners and management where all data from the previous week is presented and reviewed, and a round table discussion is had. Having open and honest communication is absolutely necessary to be able to streamline processes in any operation.
As a team, create realistic targets for your operation. Remember that every farm is different and has different people, equipment, and crops. A target at one farm might not be the same target in yours. Set achievable goals/targets and when you can consistently reach those targets, marginally increase them, and repeat the process. It takes time for employees to master their skills in the greenhouse and packhouse so be patient. Ensure proper training is conducted and adequate supervision is on hand. Encourage with positive reinforcement during the transitional learning time as it helps keep employees motivated.
CEAg World: That’s great. So, what I’m hearing is that growers don’t necessarily need to run out and buy the most expensive technology and equipment in order to make these incremental changes?
Sarah Lombardi: No, not at all. Labor software is a must in the greenhouse and I’m sure most farms have it, but if you don’t, manual tracking is fine too. As long as you are capturing the data accurately, that’s all that matters. Take that data and create benchmarks and targets that are attainable in your operation. We currently track all our packhouse operations manually, with anywhere from 18 to 45 employees packing four different varieties in different pack styles concurrently.
Knowing what your current operational costs are in this detail affords you the opportunity to make changes comprehensively.