Energro Greenhouses repurposing former cannabis facility to grow produce

A cannabis growing facility sat empty for two years before it was purchased and repurposed to grow vegetables.

The town of Crossfield north of Calgary had a failed cannabis grow facility that sat vacant for two years until Energro Greenhouses took it over in August 2025.

The greenhouse came complete with high quality irrigation, HVAC and lighting systems in place that just needed cleaning before growing could commence.

“The cannabis industry definitely built state of the art facilities,” said Ronan Mackey, Energro’s director of cultivation. “And for us to be able to repurpose something into sustainable food production, it definitely was very exciting to me and I feel there’s a lot of potential.”

Mackey says each room can be individually controlled with temperature, irrigation and lighting schedules to accommodate a variety of produce. Touring the nursery, he says there are 16,000 plants getting their start with leafy greens, lettuce, char and many types of herbs. He says strawberries will be one of the staples for the greenhouse with 6,000 seedlings taking root.

“You’re able to mimic the conditions that each plant would like,” he said. “So at this stage, you want to really help these plants along, they have very small leaves so high humidity, higher temperatures really helps that leaf transpire and start to bring the nutrients up and get them from that seedling stage into the plant bloom stage.”

One of the biggest expenses for greenhouse operations in this part of the world is energy costs to heat a facility in the dead of winter. Energro has found an economical way around that and actually generate revenue.

Energro president Brad Murray said the company will use locally sourced natural gas to power electrical generators that will create enough power for the operation and then some.

“We’re going to make enough electricity for ourselves, we’re also going to supply electricity back to the grid to help feed the whole grid,” he said. “When we make our electricity, we use the heat (generated in the process) for the greenhouse and we’re going to have extra heat so we’re talking to the town and we’re talking to people around us (asking) would you like some heat to lower your operating costs?”

He said the waste products from generating electricity will also be used in the greenhouse.

“We’re going to capture the exhaust, we’re going to treat it and we’re going to feed that exhaust into our greenhouse,” he said. “What happens is the plants will absorb the carbon dioxide and nitrogen.”

“What our model is, is let’s do things right in the local area,” he added. “We’re going to put electricity on the local grid, we’re going to grow produce for the local (community) and create jobs.

There are six founders with Energro, all with different business backgrounds who are using their skills to create a viable operation in the community. They looked at other facilities in southern Alberta including one in Olds, but settled with the Crossfield greenhouse.

“We kind of honed in on this one,” said Greg Miller, Energro system automation lead. “It’s close to Calgary so we can get product to major markets a lot quicker, we’ve got access to natural gas with the gas plant being close by, we’ve got good access to the grid so as we start putting more power onto the grid, it’s got all the right boxes checked being right here.”

The operation is just five months in and the focus is on managing costs right now until revenue starts flowing then more staff will be hired as the business grows.

“I mean really what we want to do is create a template that can be recreated, it’s a lot of work but it’s not rocket science really,” said Glenn Wilde, project coordinator. “I think a big push that we’re trying to promote to the town is that incorporating power generation and food production in a community application setting is just a common sense thing and Alberta is a perfect place to be doing it.”

Learn more about Energro here: Energro