A great health benefit of the railway boom of the 1800’s was the ability to have cost effective vegetables brought to the great northern cities 12 months of the year. With today’s rail and truck infrastructure we take this type of convenience for granted but climate concerns are challenging the long-term transport of vegetables and other food stuffs.

Enter Venlo greenhouses, state of the art designs that deliver a trifecta: carbon neutral, fully automated and footprint efficient. VegPro International saw the benefits clearly when it invested $135,000,000 in its new 550,000 square foot greenhouse project in Southern Quebec. Every step from seeding and watering to harvesting are fully automated.

Steel is a great choice for all involved in this project. The unbeatable cost-weight-strength nature of steel results in minimal cross sections maximizing light penetration and thereby growth speed and yield. Precision manufacturing insures easy and quick “Meccano set” like erection. The only weakness of steel in this type of application is corrosion.

Enter hot-dip galvanizing! With an unbeatable durability to cost equation, HDG is a natural for the corrosive high humidity challenges of greenhouses. Apart from this evident suitability the robust surface hardness that prevents erection damage to the surfaces and the computer assisted systems of the modern automated galvanizing plant ensure that every one of the 75,000 steel components is in this project are properly identified and bundled for ease of assembly.