“The story of Vertical Roots starts back in 2018 when now owners, Mike and Becky Newhook visited their friends in the Philippines. Mike shared with them the idea of Aquaponics as a quicker way to grow leafy greens, with larger profits. Within a few weeks, our friends had torn down their chicken coop and had started to build an NFT Hydroponics system. In March 2020, when the world shut down, Mike decided to play around with Hydroponics in the back of a garage. After much testing, budgeting, and planning the concept of Vertical Roots was born and Mike and Becky began to slowly test the waters for local sales and spread the word about their product. Our Canadian farm was born in September 2020, with a bridge loan from family along with land and a building to rent, Vertical Roots first prototype farm was launched! In less than 1 year we had over 300 customers and we were averaging 300 heads of lettuce a week! With the first year being such a huge success we knew we had to expand. We have a passion to see high-quality, year-round, locally produced food, using technologies such as hydroponics, spread across Canada.”