Foundation for Healthy Schools – Making Canada Healthy Again

By: Christian Fuller

Gregory Bundschoks, a rural Alberta native, believes that food security is the future. and it has to start with the next generation. "When you start to look at how the brain actually develops, the sooner do you start getting kids into a nutritional and health kind of a mindset. That's actually the only way, in my opinion, you're going to create generational change." This is exactly why Gregory has dedicated his life to developing comprehensive systems for optimizing everything from finances to materials needed when it comes to building vertical farming systems, and staying profitable while doing it. 

He says the passion for feeding people started when he was young. He grew up as the son of German immigrants on a hog farm deep in the heart of rural Alberta, and when one day his family decided to sue the government over toxic feed, that’s when he knew that this would be his mission. "Essentially for 40 years I've made the direct connection between what goes into the human body and the health of the actual organism." he says. If the feed is toxic at the source, what is that doing to the humans that consume it? 

All of this led Greg to found The Foundation for Healthy Schools, a non-profit aimed at doing just what its name entails, making health become a priority in schools. He’s built a board brimming with talent from numerous sectors, academics to business. With this combined expertise, Greg is aiming to get his vertical farming programs in schools across Canada and the USA. He says that it’s a cyclical system. Grow food at the University for horticulture students, use the food for culinary programs within the schools, and let the culinary programs provide food for student athletes. It’s a self-sustainable system that Greg believes is the future. 

As for growing his business, Greg is in talks with a University in New York to implement his program, as well as some other schools in Canada. He also hopes that Robert Kennedy's MAHA movement in the United States will spark a larger movement globally, a movement that prioritizes health and a deeper understanding into how food is produced. 

Something that Greg says sets him apart from other, similar models, is that he brings a way for potential investors to be profitable within a year, something that is often unheard of in the vertical farming industry. It often takes years to be profitable in any venture, so it's quite an attractive prospect for potential business partners. His structures are almost completely self-sufficient, and he has even developed a specialized patent-pending glaze for greenhouse glass that helps optimize the growing process.

He hopes that these modular growing systems can be implemented all over the country, hopefully spearheading a movement that prioritizes health over profit.