It all began with Jan and Johanna Streef, a seven acre mixed vegetable and  flower farm near Oxford Centre, and Jan encouraging his five sons – Martin, Peter, John, Albert and Jack – to think about getting into business together as they got out of high school in the late 1970s because the job market wasn’t great at the time.

The Streef brothers, with the support of their parents, bought a 100-acre farm in 1977 near Princeton and by the early 1980s, they were supplying 15 local markets a week with potatoes, sweet corn, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli. From there, they expanded into the wholesale business.

A big step came in 1998 when Streef Produce bought a wholesale commission house at the Ontario Food Terminal to better focus on serving the growing wholesale business.

Today, we grow, pack, and distribute produce from our farm near Princeton, and run a full-scale wholesale business out of the Food Terminal, offering produce from all over the world. We raise crops on about 2400 acres, where we grow our own beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes and asparagus, but we have also built strong relationships with local Ontario farmers who trust us to market their crops for them.

Jack and John continue to run the company – Martin passed away several years ago and Albert and Peter have retired – and the next generation has taken an active role in the business. This includes Martin’s son Chris, Peter’s son Jaidin, Jack’s sons Nathan and Dylan and John’s kids Mikayla and Jonathan.