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Grower Profile: Freeman Herbs

Thursday, September 15, 2022 | Susan Parent

Over the past few years, Premier Tech Horticulture has worked closely with organic herb and vegetable growers across Canada and the U.S.A to provide a professional grade, certified organic growing media. The goal was to develop organic growing media products that would provide our customers and ultimately the end consumer, with a quality product for healthier eating and food enjoyment. This has led to the release of two new organic products in the PRO-MIX professional product line of growing media.

Freeman Herbs organic planting facilty. Source : Freeman Herbs.

A few years ago, Premier Tech Horticulture partnered with Freeman Herbs of Beamsville, Ontario  to develop a custom organic medium that would meet and exceed their customer expectations. Freeman Herbs, which was started in 1979 by Tim Freeman on the family farm, is now one of the biggest herb growing facilities and distribution in Canada. It all started with Tim Freeman who began with growing four trays of herbs and gradually grew the company to become the premier herb growing operation of Freeman Herbs. Over the years, the company’s success attracted the attention of other companies that made offers to acquire ownership of the business. This was not a reality until 2004, when Tim’s neighbor and business associates, the Hendricks family acquired full ownership rights of Freeman Herbs. Tim was confident that quality and service, combined with a strong work ethic would remain a key component of the Freeman Herb name, long into the future with the sale to the Hendriks family.

Since acquiring Freeman Herbs, the Hendriks family has expanded the size of the operation and product offering. Today Freeman Herbs grows over one hundred varieties of herbs along with the recent introduction of their Organic Herbs and Vegetable line. This recent addition of organic herb and vegetable production served as a great opportunity for Premier Tech Horticulture’s Grower Services Team to work closely with Freeman Herb’s Plant Specialist to develop an organic growing medium that would serve their growing market.

Freeman Herbs basil crop produced with a customized organic growing medium developed with Premier Tech. Source : Premier Tech.

Our Grower Services Team worked with Freeman Herbs to evaluate various ingredients to find those that would provide proper nutrition for uniform crop growth and longer shelf life customers were expecting. The final product and production process also had to meet Canada’s strict organic agricultural standards. Once the trials were completed and a final growing medium formulation was determined, Premier Tech Horticulture was able to provide Freeman Herbs with an organic growing medium that best suited their needs. Now they can concentrate their efforts on other aspects of the business to continue to improve quality and efficiencies within the operation.

Premier Tech Horticulture is happy to say that our partnership with Freeman Herbs has been and continues to be mutually beneficial. We are proud to supply Freeman Herbs with their organic growing media and look forward to helping them expand into new markets in the future.

Their website: www.freemanherbs.com/

For more information, contact your Premier Tech Grower Services Representative:

Ed Bloodnick Horticulture Director US-South East	JoAnn Peery Horticulture Specialist US-Central, Canada-Central	Lance Lawson Horticulture Specialist US-West, Canada-West
Troy Buechel Horticulture Specialist US-North East	Susan Parent Horticulture Specialist Canada-East, US-New England	Jose Chen Lopez Horticulture Specialist Mexico, Latin & South America