Photo by Alex McCuaig - Spearmint farmer Dale Thacker holds one of the plants at his farm on Aug. 17, 2019.

By Alex McCuaig

Spearmint farm

The sweet smell of success

Aug 18, 2019 | 11:44 AM

Bow Island, AB – You may have never heard of Thacker Specialty Crops located just outside Bow Island but you’ve likely tasted the product it produces.

The farm is one of the country’s largest producers of spearmint and supplies industry giants such as Colgate and Wrigley’s for use in toothpaste and chewing gum.

And the crop is one of the most fragrant with the sweet smell of the essential oil-laden spearmint leaves wafting through the air, hitting the nose long before you see the fields of the perennial plant with its small purple blooms.

Spearmint has been cultivated by humans for 2,000 years and its use in toothpaste goes back at least 500 years.

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For Dale Thacker, who runs the spearmint and dill farm with his family, he is continuing that tradition of harvesting his spearmint crop but in a manner very much rooted in the 21^st century.

About 40 per cent of the North American market for spearmint is grown in Canada, said Thacker, adding he deals with brokers who then provide the product to companies like Colgate and Wrigley’s.

“But it is a small crop. Right now it’s over supplied and prices are quite low right now. But it’s something that you make a commitment when you get in mint,” he said. “There is no seed with mint. It’s all done with root cuttings and plants.”

Thacker said the process involves planting an acre or two with around 10,000 plants each, letting it grow for a season and then propagating the initial planting into 40 to 60 acres.

“It takes a long time to get involved. . . It’s expensive to get in and you have to have long-term contracts to justify those costs,” said Thacker.

And harvesting isn’t a straightforward process.

Once taken off the field, the spearmint requires distillation utilizing two giant boilers to inject steam to break down the leaf into an essential oil which can then be transported in stainless steel drums.

But while the cultivation of the crop is ancient, Thacker utilizes a sophisticated computer system to manage both the crops and distillation process.

Computers project on a large screen ariel views of the crops to track the health of the fields while schematics of the distillation process keep track of the production of the oil from the leaf.

And it was another technology which allowed for crops like his and others in southern Alberta to thrive.

“We’re one of the earliest irrigators in Canada. We quite often start seeding in March here,” said Thacker. “This crop needs a long season. They’ve tried it other areas of Alberta and Saskatchewan but it seems to have done best right here.”