Northern Orchards Inc. was started by Leo Visser, a Dutch immigrant, in the late 1960’s.  Working with local farmers, he started a business selling fruit and vegetables door-to-door in downtown Toronto.  Seeing an opportunity to sell larger volumes, he started selling wholesale to retail stores at the Ontario Food Terminal in the early 70’s.  He built up a business supplying carrots, potatoes, eggs, onions, cabbage, lettuce and finally apples to the food stores of Ontario. Over the years the apple sales slowly became the main product until the early 1990’s when the decision was made to sell only apples.