Viridian BotanicalsA youth-owned single-product operation growing certified fresh spirulina on Treaty One Land. The first of its kind in Manitoba. Culinary herbs and edible flowers are grown on the Harvest Today demonstration walls as part of the community program.
Better for all.
Viridian BotanicalsViridian Botanicals began as a greenhouse business. It became something larger. A tensile membrane growing pavilion on Treaty One Land. A structure that does not look built. It looks like it arrived.
Organic, fluid, draped in architectural fabric that moves with the wind and catches light differently at every hour. The exterior is a canvas proposed for Indigenous art rooted in Treaty One, river imagery, and food sovereignty. At night it glows viridian green from within. From the riverbank at The Forks it is unmistakable.
This is not a greenhouse. This is a landmark.
Viridian BotanicalsIn May 2026, Oishii closed a $150M Series C, bringing total raised to $370M. SPARX, Nomura Real Estate, and Mizuho called it the blueprint for indoor vertical farming's next phase.
Oishii did not succeed because strawberries are special. It succeeded because it identified a technically demanding, locally irreplaceable crop, built the only supply chain in the market, and charged a premium no one could compete with.
Fieldless Farms proved the same model works at the community scale - selling out 2 to 5 times faster than conventional supply, nearly hitting $2.2M in a single crowdfunding month. A Calgary container farmer demonstrated that premium restaurant pricing fully offsets energy costs even at small scale.
Viridian is applying the same playbook to the most underserved specialty crop market in Western Canada. Fresh spirulina. Zero local competition. Zero certified fresh supplier in the entire province. The window is open. It will not stay open.
The opportunity is not purely commercial. Winnipeg has no certified fresh spirulina supplier, no community-rooted urban growing landmark, and no youth-led agricultural operation with a formal Indigenous food sovereignty mandate. Viridian is building all three simultaneously. The window is open. It will not stay open.
Viridian BotanicalsFresh spirulina does not exist as a local product in Winnipeg. A visit to Vita Health confirmed shelves of imported powders and pills: no fresh supplier, no local grower, no alternative in the province.
Restaurant outreach confirmed two distinct buyer segments in Winnipeg's food scene: chef-driven establishments actively seeking local provenance, freshness, and story - and volume-first operations that buy on price and convenience, whoever shows up cheapest. Viridian targets the former exclusively. This is a segment with documented unmet demand, strong willingness to pay a premium, and no current local supplier to satisfy it.
Live consumer poll distributed across 1,000+ LinkedIn connections, the North Forge network, and direct restaurant contacts (n=20):
Viridian BotanicalsArthrospira platensis: 60 to 70% protein by dry weight, complete amino profile, plus phycocyanin, a rare natural blue pigment chefs pay a premium for. NASA-tier nutrition. The first certified fresh spirulina operation in Manitoba. Zero local competition.
A full-wall installation of Harvest Today vertical growing systems. 720+ plants per section. Multiple sections. Culinary herbs and edible flowers grown here for community use, education, and live public demonstration. Not a primary revenue line. A primary statement of what farming in Manitoba can look like.
Operates as a rentable conference room and studio outside of scheduled community programming hours. Public-facing live production data display. Direct access to the Harvest Today wall. A third revenue stream from a single footprint.
Viridian BotanicalsTensile membrane pavilion. Sculpted steel and timber hybrid frame draped in ETFE film or high-performance architectural fabric. Organic, fluid, no hard corners. The membrane moves with the wind. Designed for disassembly, expansion, and seasonal operation (May to September). Minimum footprint 20ft x 24ft, scalable to site dimensions. Foundation: reinforced concrete pad, 6-inch minimum depth. Utilities: 200-amp electrical service, 2-inch municipal water supply, closed-loop recirculation.
10ft x 20ft oval, 200 sq ft surface area, 20 to 25cm operating depth. Total volume approximately 3,720 to 4,650 litres. HDPE food-grade liner on reinforced concrete base with fully rounded corners. Motorized paddlewheel at 16 RPM for laminar flow. Automated inline pH monitoring targeting 9.0 to 10.5. Active supplemental heating maintaining 28 to 35°C supplemented by passive solar gain. CO₂ injection. Natural light primary with supplemental viridian LED grow lighting. Closed-loop water recirculation. Membrane filtration harvesting. All product-contact surfaces SS316 stainless steel. Output: 13 to 20 lbs fresh spirulina per month.
Full wall installation of Harvest Today vertical growing systems. 720+ plants per section, multiple sections. The centrepiece of the interior. A live demonstration of what the future of farming in Manitoba can look like. Available for community use, education, and public programming. Herbs and edible flowers grown on this wall.
120 sq ft minimum, capacity 10 to 15 people. Multipurpose: community workshops, rentable conference room, studio rental, public programming. Public-facing live production data display. Direct access to the Harvest Today wall. The workshop space operates as a rentable conference room and studio outside of scheduled community programming hours.
Community canvas surface for Indigenous artists, elders, students, and Winnipeg residents to contribute artwork throughout the operating season. QR code linking to live production data. At night, interior viridian green lighting visible through the translucent membrane. The pavilion glows.
Viridian's route to market is not speculative. Direct weekly subscription supply of fresh spirulina to chef-driven restaurants, eliminating distributor margins entirely. The chef relationship is the moat. Once a kitchen builds a menu around a locally grown ingredient they cannot source anywhere else, the switching cost is the menu itself. Viridian compounds this with a story no competitor can replicate: youth-owned, Treaty One grown, 30% giving pledge, a landmark pavilion as the storefront. In a market where 96% of Canadians prefer Canadian-grown produce and consumers tolerate a 9.7% price premium for sustainably produced goods, the product sells the story and the story sells the product.
Viridian BotanicalsCal's Crops, Winnipeg's leading local vertical farm, generates approximately $100,000/yr growing microgreens, a lower-margin product than ours. They started with $4,000 and no outside funding.
Viridian launches with active grant applications, direct equipment supplier relationships, a biosystems engineer as a consultant, two lenders competing for the file, and documented restaurant demand before a single plant has been grown.
The Oishii principle: difficulty creates a moat. Fresh spirulina is the hardest product in Winnipeg's local food market to produce. Once operational, Viridian is not a supplier; it is the only supplier.
Grounded in verified revenue of a comparable Winnipeg operation. The workshop space operates as a rentable conference room and studio outside of scheduled community programming hours, compounding the single-product spirulina revenue line.
Viridian BotanicalsADM Robert Ermel of Manitoba Agriculture, writing formally on behalf of Premier Wab Kinew and CC'd to Minister of Agriculture Ron Kostyshyn and Deputy Minister Scott Sinclair, commended Viridian's industry engagement and restaurant outreach, identified four specific grant pathways including the Local Food Infrastructure Fund - a program designed for Indigenous and equity-deserving food communities, directly aligned with Viridian's giving pledge - and closed with an open government invitation to continue the relationship. Minister Jamie Moses called Ranveer personally.
SCAP Research & Innovation LOI submitted April 20, 2026 ($22,500 of $30,000). Farm Credit Canada agent assigned and active. Farm Lending Canada introduced personally by William Aitken.
William Aitken (CEO, Harvest Today Canada). Trina Semenchuk, MSc Biosystems Eng., U of M. Alex Kohut (Cal's Crops).
13 chef-driven restaurants contacted. 5 problem interviews completed across Winnipeg's restaurant and food service sector including Peasant Cookery, Sous Sol, Rudy's, and Tabula Rasa. Nonsuch head chef replied within a day. Block & Blade confirmed price-and-convenience sourcing model - independently validating Viridian's premium local positioning. Fusion Grill, one of Winnipeg's longest-running farm-to-table establishments, replied within 24 hours and requested a direct call.
Formal outreach submitted to The Forks North Portage Partnership, a federally, provincially, and municipally owned landmark attracting over four million annual visitors with an explicit mandate for reconciliation and partnership with Indigenous communities. Proposed as the site for Viridian's growing pavilion.
Accepted into one of Winnipeg's premier accelerators. Active customer discovery, problem interviews, and value-prop modules with real Winnipeg food businesses.
Two podcasts engaged including On Air With Priyanka, a Winnipeg-based entrepreneurship and storytelling platform with an established regional audience.
Formal proposal submitted covering the 30% giving pledge, joint grants, community supply, speaking, and media collaboration. Under executive review.
Logo, printed cards, live branded site, Supabase-backed consumer poll, 1,000+ LinkedIn connections. All built by a 14-year-old founder.
Viridian Botanicals30% of all proceeds go to Food Matters Manitoba, a Winnipeg-based Indigenous food sovereignty organization and registered charity. This is not a marketing line. It is a non-negotiable founding commitment written into this business before a single dollar has been made.
Viridian BotanicalsDirect weekly subscription supply to Winnipeg's chef-driven independent dining scene. Premium pricing justified by local scarcity and freshness.
Farmers markets and health food retailers, including Vita Health (Operations Manager interest noted pending launch).
Online sales, broader Manitoba distribution, and a planned University of Winnipeg campus supply partnership.
One professional architectural design attached to a grant application changes everything. SCAP, AgriInnovate, and the Clean Growth Program all increase in credibility and funding potential with a fully specified facility plan attached.
Every major Canadian agricultural grant stream Viridian is pursuing requires a fully specified facility plan. A professional architectural design is not a formality - it is the document that converts active government relationships, two competing lenders, and a submitted LOI into a fundable, buildable, fully realized facility. The foundation has been built. This is the piece that makes it real.
We have the vision. And considerably more than nothing else.