With plenty of agricultural and technological moxie in tow, Jodi and Adrian Roelands are shifting the greenhouse farming industry while sowing their own success story.
The proprietors of Roelands Plant Farms in Lambton Shores, Ont., northwest of London, have exponentially grown their business by 500 per cent since launching in 2013 and their team, which started with 40 employees, now tops 190.
“Our business grew faster than we anticipated; we reached our 10-year vision within the first three years,” Ms. Roelands says.
The couple says their employees are a major driver behind their evolution. “Speaking to agriculture, from what we’ve seen, owners feel that they have to do everything; they feel compelled to do every task themselves. We try to work on our business and not in our business,” Ms. Roelands says.
This guiding ethos has led to holistic decisions such as investing in human resources early on to acquire and manage the talent they needed to evolve. “If you’re micromanaging every move, it’s stressful. We try to hire the right people and give them the trust, autonomy and freedom to go forward,” Ms. Roelands says. “You need the infrastructure to assist you so you’re not doing it on your own.”
That infrastructure supports the bread and butter of their business: Premium and organic starter plants which are sold to growers in Canada and the U.S.