How do you grow 365 days a year where the market is? Casey Houweling told us how on Skype. Over a period of ten years, he built 20 hectares of greenhouses in British Columbia, Canada. Because he was unable (then) to grow all the year round, he expanded his business with a further 50 hectares in California. It was there that he and KUBO pioneered the Ultra-Clima greenhouse concept – a greenhouse that was not just the answer to plagues of insects but also opened the door to the hostile growing climate of Utah. Now, with an 11 hectare water and energy-efficient greenhouse, he serves the Salt Lake City area ‘local-for-local’. A story of 31 years of continuous innovation, with KUBO.
“In 1985, I visited Holland to speak to all sorts of growers and to hear how they worked and with whom. It might be nice to mention that my father was an immigrant from the Netherlands who came to Canada in 1956 to grow flowers. If you want the most up-to-date know-how on market gardening, you really have to be in the Netherlands. That’s how we got in contact with KUBO. We had a good feeling about them straight away and that turned out to be justified. Since then, they’ve built greenhouses for us at 20 locations and we’re still looking at what might be done better. So I’m actually a field lab for innovation.”