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About Us |
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Knol Farms is
located in the heart of the Maritimes near Oxford, Nova Scotia,
in the River Philip Valley. We are ideally situated for both the
processing and shipping of high quality products.
The Knol Family moved to Nova Scotia from Holland in 1953. Henry
Sr. started his own farm in 1954 by purchasing a dairy farm.
Strawberries were grown shortly after, starting with one acre
and peaking at about 50 acres in the 1980’s. Strawberry
processing began in 1980, eventually becoming the main focus of
the business. Due to declining volumes of locally grown
strawberries in recent years, we have been forced to discontinue
the processing of fresh strawberries. We now use imported
berries which guarantees us a steady, year-round supply of only
the best quality strawberries.
Rhubarb production began in the mid 1990’s and we now produce 20
acres of rhubarb. We also purchase rhubarb for processing from
several other growers throughout the Maritimes. Fresh rhubarb is
harvested in June and processed and frozen in our facility for
shipment to our customers year round.
We also produce two to four acres of field tomatoes annually.
These are sold to grocery stores in Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick, while the #2 tomatoes are sold direct to the public
from the farm.
Our modern facilities include 25,000 sq. ft. of packing and
processing space, 15,000 sq. ft. of dry storage space and 80,000
cu. ft. of freezer space. For maximum quality our products are
blast frozen immediately after processing and kept in the
freezers which can store over one million pounds of frozen
product.
Knol Farms became a fully certified HACCP organization in the
year 2000. HACCP is the world-wide industry standard for food
safety and represents a pro-active approach to providing the
consumer with safe food. Knol Farms is one of only two HACCP
recognized establishments under processed products in the
Atlantic region and was the first to be recognized.
In 1998 we hired a research and development technician to
develop more efficient ways to harvest rhubarb. Since then we
have developed many different ideas with the most recent being a
tractor mounted harvesting head. We are currently working on the
third prototype with testing to take place in 2007. We are
fortunate to have an in-house technician as most companies of
similar size do not. |
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