Mastronardi Produce Wins 10th Food Quality Award

“So we created a greenhouse facility adjacent to the fertilizer facility,” Darden recalled. The Envirofresh Produce Inc. facility uses the Terra Industries’ byproducts at no cost. Carbon dioxide passes through a heat exchanger to produce hot water that is stored in a five million-liter tank and distributed in the greenhouse. “By harnessing the CO2 and heat of Terra Industries, we were able to use byproducts that would have otherwise been released to the atmosphere,” Mastronardi’s award submission noted. “It was ambitious and continues to be,” Darden said. And there’s more to come. “It’s in production, but we’ll continue to plan more acres of greenhouse,” he continued. Having invested $21 million to build the 23-acre first phase of the project last year, the company plans to spend more to triple the acreage by the end of next year.

Doing More with Less

A different innovation from last year addressed the issue of making more with less—more produce with less space. “We’re trying to look at opportunities,” Darden noted. “We know how to produce food today, but how about the future? We’re trying to find ways to produce food locally at higher volumes in smaller amounts of space with reduced amounts of water and less fuel and fertilizer without pesticides, thereby creating jobs.”

The vehicle for that is the TerraSphere project, which maximizes the use of space by growing crop-bearing plants vertically. The project, which is based on research initiated in 2009 and is located in Romulus, Mich., uses technology similar to that applied to Mastronardi’s hydroponics systems but with only artificial light and indoor buildings.

So far, the company has invested more than $3.4 million in the project. Although it remains in the research stage at present, management expects to take it to market within the next few years. At that point, it could spark a minor revolution by applying the local food concept to large cities.

“The whole environment here is huge,” Darden said. “The idea is to produce food in urban areas—perhaps in buildings no longer being used, with totally confined environments and artificial light. Say you can produce food in Detroit right next to a distribution center; you would save on fuel for food transport.”

Using less fuel would plainly help to save the environment. And the reduction in time between greenhouse and store shelf would increase the shelf life of fresh fruits and vegetables. Yet another benefit would come from the extra job opportunities in inner cities made possible by TerraSphere-style projects. Mastronardi “feels that this concept is the new wave of food production in the future,” the award entry stated, “especially as fuel, packaging, and transportation costs continue to rise in years to come.”

No to GMO, Yes to Organics

Last year the company demonstrated its sensitivity to environmental issues with two other decisions. It joined the Non-GMO Project, which allows it to give definitive proof to its customers that its produce is not tainted by genetically modified organisms (GMOs); Mastronardi listed 34 non-GMO verified products in 2010 and has added eight this year. The company also chose last year to have some of its products certified as organic.

Those decisions came in response to customers’ requests, many of them presented through the corporate website. “Early in 2007-2008, we noticed that one-third of the inquiries on the customers’ section of the site asked if we produced genetically modified products,” Darden recounted. “People assumed that we were using GMOs to create such appealing products. We felt we needed to address that. So we got on board with the non-GMO organizations starting early in 2009.”