Village Farms International Inc., headquartered in Heathrow, FL, is a pioneer in exclusive and uniquely wonderful greenhouse-grown tomato, pepper and cucumber varieties.

The company recently launched its “Cabernet Estate Reserve,” an exclusive little deep flavored cherry tomato, as well as  “Cherry no.9,” a sweeter than sweet cherry tomato. Both are new to Village Farms’ mix.

“Packed on-the-vine, these tomatoes make an outstanding addition to every customer’s tomato quiver,” stressed Helen L. Aquino, director of brand marketing and communications.Bret Wiley, senior vice president of sales and sales operations, and Douglas Kling, senior vice president and chief marketing officer for Village Farms, displaying the company’s products at the 2015 Southeast Produce Council Southern Exposure event. “Consumers want our greenhouse products because they are full of flavor. ‘Heavenly Villagio Marzano,’ ‘True Rebel Mix’ and ‘Sinfully Sweet Campari’ are just some of our signature collection tomatoes that are available in pack sizes to suit every customer’s needs.”

Village Farms had strong representation at the CPMA Convention & Trade Show in Montreal. In addition to Aquino, in attendance were Bret Wiley, senior vice president of sales and sales operations; Rob Jackson, regional director of retail sales; Aman Chatha, Northwest District sales manager; Andrew Sable, manager of sales support; and Chef Darren Brown, corporate chef.

Aquino said Village Farms wants to make Garden Fresh Flavor a priority for its customers in 2015.

“Our growing is good for the earth and we deliver on freshness 365 days a year,” she pointed out.

In its online video at villagefarms.com, President, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Village Farms Michael DeGiglio stated that producing food for human consumption comes with a great amount of responsibility.

“There is a lot of passion in what we do,” he said. “It’s rewarding and special and we’re very proud. We’re a vertically integrated company — from the greenhouse design and structure, financing and ownership, growing the crop, sales and marketing, fulfillment and delivering to the end user — we do it all. It takes a great team of people to execute on this every day.”

He said it was easy for Village Farms to differentiate the quality and taste of a tomato grown hydroponically from one grown in a field.

“In the early 1980s, greenhouse tomatoes in the United States represented 1 percent of the retail market,” explained DeGiglio. “Today [they represent] 80 percent, and it was the quality and taste of the tomato that drove that. We look at products to grow where we can make a difference.”

When the company began, a five-acre greenhouse was considered enormous. Today, Village Farms’ Delta, British Columbia facility is 60 acres, and that’s part of a 110-acre facility on its footprint; and indication that the massive scale expansion of greenhouse production in the past 25 years has been enormous.

Village Farms, DeGiglio added, is highly sustainable, and is, in fact, one of the most sustainable production forms of farming.

“We produce a tomato that requires only 20 percent of the amount of water needed to grow in a field,” he emphasized. “There is no evaporation, water is recirculated and production does not remove nutrients from soil because the produce is not grown in soil.The market is in tune with what we’re doing and very accepting of what we grow.”