May 30th, 2018 Huron, Ohio — Mucci Farms announces that they are officially harvesting out of Phase 1 of their 60-acre greenhouse facility in Huron, Ohio. “After years of hard work and strategic planning, we’re excited to hit another milestone in the Mucci Farms story,” said Bert Mucci, CEO of Mucci Farms. “We’re very appreciative of the strong partnership we’ve developed with The City of Huron, Huron Township and Erie County officials to get the first 24-acre project off the ground.”
The entire 60-acre facility will be growing primarily Tomatoes On-the-Vine with some snack sized specialty tomatoes. The company also announced that the entire 60-acres will be equipped with supplemental High Powered Sodium (HPS) lighting in order to grow through the winter months allowing them to harvest Ohio grown tomatoes 365 days per year. “We chose tomatoes on-the-vine because of its high demand year round, particularly in the winter months,” said Joe Spano, Vice President of Sales & Marketing. “With grow lights in the entire facility, it was important to have a product that was always in demand.”
Headquartered in Kingsville, Ontario, this is Mucci Farms’ first expansion into the United States, where the majority of their product is distributed. “Expanding into Ohio allows us to reduce the food miles for our US retailers and gives US consumers their own locally grown vegetables,” explained Danny Mucci, President of Mucci International Marketing. “With such a high volume of our product already being shipped to the US, expanding into Huron was strategically done to improve efficiencies with logistics and food safety. Our proximity to market and avoiding a border crossing improves our opportunity to offer consumers with fresh, flavourful products with maximum shelf.” In addition to the remaining 36-acres of greenhouses being built in two remaining phases, Mucci Farms Ohio will include a 272 000 square foot distribution facility that will be operational this summer. Harvesting from the final two phases will begin in the spring of 2019 and 2020.
Owning and Operating over 200-acres of tomato, pepper, cucumber, lettuce and strawberry greenhouses in Kingsville, Ontario, Mucci Farms also markets on behalf of 700-acres across the continent. An active community partner for initiatives focused on health, fitness, and education, the company plans to extend these commitments into Erie County. “We are looking forward to getting familiar with Huron and Erie County over the next several months to find ways that we can be effective members of the community,” said Emily Murracas, Director of Marketing. “Once we are fully operational, we’ll be setting up a grand opening week to welcome city officials, media members, educators and residents of Huron to tour our facility, learn about what we do, and share their ideas on ways we can be helpful to the local community.” The Company is confident that there are a number of inspiring things to come with this investment in Ohio and Mucci Farms looks forward to growing with the City of Huron, Huron Township and Erie County.