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It’s fairly common for supervisors to stay in touch with their former PhD students. Many continue as collaborators in research, teach together, and maintain close friendships after their formal supervisor-student relationship comes to an end.

Less common? Going into business together.

But that’s exactly where Dr. Ernest Korankye (Class of ’13 and ’18) and Dr. Raj Lada have found themselves, over a decade after they first met.

“I never pictured myself as an entrepreneur,” says Dr. Lada, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Agriculture. “But I discovered in my retirement that staying at home was very difficult for me. Starting a new endeavour with Ernest felt like a natural fit.”

Ernest came to Nova Scotia from Ghana in 2010 after enrolling in the NSAC Master of Science program. Raj was not his original supervisor, but a twist of fate brought them together. Ernest would go on to complete both his MSc and PhD as part of Dr. Lada’s research program on Christmas trees,  focusing on balsam fir volatiles.

“Ernest is a very hardworking individual,” says Raj. “He took on a complicated project, in a subject matter that was new to him, doing research that had never been done before. I don’t know anybody else who would have taken that challenge on, and I congratulate him for it.”

As if grad studies weren’t enough, Ernest was also finding his path to entrepreneurship. Almost immediately after relocating to Truro, he found himself figuring out how to ship goods home to Ghana, and by 2012, he had established Asante Logistic Group, a business he ran on the side with his wife Anita while pursuing his MSc and then PhD.

“Asante was never something I planned to do,” says Ernest. “It didn’t start as a business at all. I simply spent time helping to ship vehicles to my friends and family back home.”

Although his first business may have started by accident, Ernest is clearly a natural entrepreneur. After much success with Asante, Ernest purchased the former Crossley Carpet factory in 2020, which has enabled even more growth and provided a home to test new ideas.

Coincidentally, 2020 was also the year Dr. Lada retired from the Faculty of Agriculture. Not looking to slow down, and with his retirement travel plans put on hold due to the pandemic, Raj reached out to Ernest to continue a conversation that had started a couple of years prior.

“I had been wanting to get back into plant science, and I specifically wanted to find a way to extend the shelf life of fresh crops,” says Ernest. “And once we had the warehouse, we had an opportunity to explore space use efficiency. I wanted to combine warehousing with science. It was Dr. Lada’s idea to try vertical farming.”

And so VerFa was born.

“VerFa was formed based on three main passions that we have,” Ernest explains. “Passion for people, passion for plants and passion for the planet.”

Now in its third year of existence, VerFa is focusing on microgreens, and introduced broccoli, purple kohlrabi, collards, radish, and red kale to market in May 2024. Additional products, including teas, snacks, beverages and freeze-dried produce are planned for the future.

Most of these things can already be found on the market, whether they’re produced locally or not. What’s unique about VerFa is not necessarily the product, but how it is produced.

“Conventional vertical farming is typically highly capital and resource intensive,” explains Raj. “We wanted to create something different. Our intention is not to replace field production, but to provide a niche product that will contribute to food and nutrition security across the country and at any time of the year.”

VerFa’s production system is fully custom-built and highly innovative, developed through intensive research and with a focus on the fundamentals of plant physiology. Part of the process involved deconstructing a typical production system and eliminating several steps to increase efficiency by massive amounts.

“We are mindful of every single step in our growing process,” Dr. Lada says. “Our design is a dry system, with no soil or free-flowing water in use. There is zero wastage, there is no borrowing from the soil nor nutrient leaching. It is also zero-touch, with each unit grown in its own self-contained, biodegradable package. When customers purchase the product the microgreens are actually still in their growing medium, so the shelf life is long – which is important from a food security perspective, especially in reaching remote communities.”

While commercialization of VerFa’s product is still fairly recent, Ernest and Raj have big goals. Once the demand is established, the hope is to get their product into grocery stores across the country. But the overarching goal is to contribute to healthy communities by providing a nutrient-dense, resource-efficient food product.

“We are committing ourselves to the health of humanity while contributing to the health of the environment through our unique science and technology-driven approaches,” Raj explains. “We want to address food and nutrition insecurity by providing 365 days of microgreen nutrition. There are no other edible plant products currently on this planet as powerful and nutritious as microgreens.”

Ernest and Raj are not just thinking about humanity as a whole, however. Locally, they are contributing to the Truro and Colchester economy by providing employment opportunities and providing a pathway for grad students completing their programs at the Faculty of Agriculture to stay in the region – which has been a challenge for as long as the graduate studies program has existed.

“There’s been a lot of conversations in the economic development boardrooms about creating industry in our region to keep these great scientific minds here,” says Ernest. “We see VerFa as a having major potential to absorb Faculty of Agriculture graduates and researchers as they complete their studies and projects.”

Not only that, but they hope VerFa will serve as a model for how AC faculty members and graduates may become entrepreneurs in a way that pushes science forward.

“We want our students to think not only about how they can get a job after they graduate, but how they can work for themselves,” says Raj. “VerFa is a great example of how this is possible. I think this is how we can add value to our community, our country and our civilization.”

Currently, you can find VerFa products at the Masstown Market, the Truro Farmers’ Market and the Halifax Seaport Farmers’ Market, but given the extensive shelf life and unique nature of the products, the impressive team behind them, and the entrepreneurial and scientific minds of Dr. Korankye and Dr. Lada, there is no doubt that VerFa will be on shelves everywhere before long.

Learn more about VerFa Agrifood Innovations Inc.