{"id":41013,"date":"2025-04-22T12:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T12:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/41013\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T12:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T12:02:08","slug":"from-horse-racing-to-honeybees-and-lettuce-how-this-family-run-business-is-pivoting-for-future-generations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/41013\/","title":{"rendered":"From horse racing to honeybees and lettuce: How this family-run business is pivoting for future generations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Left to right: Greg Willmot and brother Jay Willmot have transformed Kinghaven Farms from a Canadian thoroughbred racehorse mecca to a renewable energy producer, honey producer, egg farmer and \u2013 new this year \u2013 a greenhouse lettuce grower.Peter Power\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

If you know anything about Canadian thoroughbred horse racing, you know the name Kinghaven Farms and its owner, the Willmot family.<\/p>\n

But now, when you walk into the main office at Kinghaven Farms in the rolling hills of King City, Ont. just northwest of Toronto, photos of top race winners such as With Approval, Izvestia and Alydeed share space with jars of honey and flavoured honey spreads and a fridge of freshly cut greenhouse lettuce.<\/p>\n

Horse breeding and racing is an unstable and fickle business. As Kinghaven\u2019s chief executive officer \u2013 and part of the third generation of Willmots at Kinghaven \u2013 Jay Willmot has taken the mantra \u201cinnovate or die\u201d to a whole new level with Kinghaven\u2019s transformation from Canadian thoroughbred racehorse mecca to a renewable energy producer, honey producer, egg farmer and \u2013 new this year \u2013 a greenhouse lettuce grower.<\/p>\n

Haven Greens, the farm\u2019s new five-acre, state-of-the-art, automated lettuce greenhouse operation, started producing fresh lettuce in recent weeks just as the \u201cbuy Canadian\u201d sentiment gained momentum in reaction to recent U.S. announcements.<\/p>\n

The launch came at the right time since Canada imports most of its lettuce from California or Arizona, Jay explains.<\/p>\n

\u2018He could read the writing on the wall\u2019<\/p>\n

Kinghaven\u2019s business activities have changed drastically since its inception. Donald \u201cBud\u201d Willmot, a businessman and former Molson Industries Ltd. chairman, bought the 185-acre Kinghaven Farms in 1967 and started a thoroughbred breeding and racing empire. His son, David, joined his father in his love of horse racing, managing the farm\u2019s racing and breeding programs starting in 1974.<\/p>\n

Kinghaven had huge success in the 1980s and 1990s with a slew of homebred horses, including both With Approval and Izvestia winning the Queen\u2019s Plate and Canada\u2019s Triple Crown in 1989 and 1990. The farm won countless awards as top Canadian breeder and owner and at one point owned nearly 200 breeding and racing horses.<\/p>\n

David joined Woodbine Entertainment Group (WEG) as president and CEO from 1995 to 2010, and chairman from 2001 to 2012, revitalizing Woodbine Racetrack into a top-notch North American thoroughbred racing facility by expanding broadcasting and wagering options. But being WEG\u2019s leader meant less time to run his horse breeding and racing operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was the beginning of the end for our racing success as his focus went to running the track,\u201d Jay says.<\/p>\n

The industry was also changing and, in 2004, David announced that Kinghaven Farms would no longer be a breeding facility. While the family still owns some thoroughbred and standardbred horses, Jay says it\u2019s more of a hobby.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe could read the writing on the wall,\u201d Jay says. \u201cThe business was not doing well at that time, and it became readily apparent that we needed to make a course change or else we were not going to be a farm anymore. He was sad, of course, and probably still is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next-generation pivot<\/p>\n

Jay, who has degrees in business, environmental science, and law, says he got more involved in the business, \u201cand that\u2019s where we started to reimagine everything that was happening here,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

In 2021, his father formally tapped him as farm president.<\/p>\n

Today, there are solar panels on all the buildings, a growing apiary and food processing operation, a flock of egg-laying chickens in one barn and a massive greenhouse in place of the farm\u2019s covered racetrack. The old racehorse barn has been converted to offices and greenhouse staff facilities.<\/p>\n

A leader\u2019s ability to be open-minded and understand the changing business world is vital for a company\u2019s survival from one generation to the next, says Jeffrey Tannenbaum, partner in EY Canada\u2019s private company services group.<\/p>\n

David\u2019s \u201centrepreneurship and his ability to lead people comes through astoundingly in what he did to allow his family to grow and to pivot the business into different directions,\u201d Mr. Tannenbaum says.<\/p>\n

It almost didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

Someone tried to buy the farm years ago, says Greg Willmot, Jay\u2019s younger brother and vice-president of operations. The buyer didn\u2019t see the value of the newly installed solar panels and the deal didn\u2019t go through.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe solar panels were, in that moment, the one reason that we kept the farm, and then later became the sort of indirect reason why we started looking at [the greenhouse],\u201d which uses the solar power, says Greg, who focused on being an actor earlier in his career.<\/p>\n

He credits Jay for demanding they keep the farm and find a way to make it thrive.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou introduce new stuff, and first people think you\u2019re funny, and then they think you\u2019re crazy,\u201d Jay says. \u201cIt was the same with our first solar project. At first, my dad was like, \u2018oh, that\u2019s nice son, way to dream.\u2019 Then I kept doing it. He was like, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re serious.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Jay says his dad encouraged him to \u201cgo out and do your thing,\u201d putting a lot of faith in his decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes he puts a little too much faith in me, but it\u2019s probably a good thing, because it means I get to go out and make my own mistakes and try to learn from those,\u201d Jay says.<\/p>\n

Greg was director of operations in Chicago for telehealth company Maple as Jay was starting Haven Greens. As Jay got excited about the greenhouse operation, he told Greg all about all the new developments \u201cevery step of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI started to realize that exciting things were happening at home and maybe I should start to pay more attention and I started getting more involved,\u201d Greg says.<\/p>\n

Greg says his skill set is in operations, human resources and building great teams, and he was happy to let Jay take the business-planning lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bet that he was intending on placing on this \u2018lettuce box\u2019 impacted my future as well, so we wanted to make sure that I was brought in before we made any of those choices,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe balance each other well,\u201d Jay adds. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve got a really good, diverse set of skills sets across the entire team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether succession is carefully laid out or happens organically, it\u2019s key for families to talk about the future, EY\u2019s Mr. Tannenbaum says.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving open and honest communication and getting family members aligned in various different aspects is really what would allow a succession to be successful versus possibly unsuccessful,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

With this in mind, the brothers are working hard to make Kinghaven Farms successful, Jay says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about continuing to farm and delivering on that mission to provide clean, healthy food to our local communities \u2026 and combat food insecurity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Left to right: Greg Willmot and brother Jay Willmot have transformed Kinghaven Farms…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4107],"tags":[23270,9884,23269,1071,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-41013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-racing","8":"tag-adveditorial","9":"tag-appwebview","10":"tag-ordid3718999323te","11":"tag-racing","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114381517185554261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}