The 120-year Alberta family farm that went certified organic in 1989, then built a cold-pressed flax oil pantry brand in 1996

A 120-year farm decides to put its name on a bottle

The Highwood Crossing story does not start in 1996, the year Highwood Crossing Foods Ltd. was incorporated as a packaged-goods business. It starts somewhere in the early 1900s, with the Marshall family settling and farming land near Aldersyde, in the Highwood River basin south of Calgary. According to the Rural Roots Canada feature on the brand, the farm has been in Tony Marshall's family for nearly 120 years. The Alberta on the Plate producer profile puts the farm at over 120 years and notes the family has been recognized with the Alberta Century Farm and Ranch Award.

The inflection point happened in 1989. Tony and Penny Marshall, running the farm after taking over from Tony's father, transitioned the operation to certified-organic farming practices. That decision is documented in the same Rural Roots Canada feature and in the Sunnyside Natural Market producer profile, which states plainly that "Tony and Penny began using organic and sustainable farming methods in 1989." The decision came at a time when organic was still a fringe category in Canadian agriculture and certified-organic infrastructure was thin on the prairies.

In 1996, the Marshalls did the second non-obvious thing. Instead of continuing to sell certified-organic grain and oilseed as commodities into the organic wholesale market, they launched Highwood Crossing Foods Ltd. as a packaged-goods business. The founding date is documented in the Alberta on the Plate producer profile. The bet was simple. If the farm could grow the grain and press the oil, then build the brand, the value-add step that normally gets captured by processors and distributors would stay on the farm.

From a single bottle of cold-pressed oil to a full pantry shelf

The flagship category from the beginning has been cold-pressed organic flaxseed oil. The Organic and Non-GMO Report supplier directory describes the company's output as "certified organic and non-GMO: cold pressed flax and canola oil, whole grain flours, all purpose flour, artisan bread and pizza flour, baking mixes, hot and cold cereals, granola, whole grains, gluten-free oats." The flax oil sits at the front of that list because it is the SKU the brand was built around, and because cold-pressing flax requires the kind of low-heat, low-throughput equipment that small Alberta processors run and large commodity refiners avoid.

What is unusual about Highwood Crossing in the Canadian organic pantry aisle is not any one product. It is the breadth. The brand site at highwoodcrossing.ca currently lists four connected product families: oils, oats and granola and cereals, flours and mixes, and raw grains and seeds. That is a multi-category pantry presence run out of a single facility, all grown and processed from the same certified-organic farm and certified-organic processor. Independent organic pantry brands at this scale usually anchor on a single category. Highwood Crossing carries four.

The category expansion was deliberate and slow. Cold-pressed flax oil established the model. Cold-pressed canola oil followed, pressed from non-GMO canola grown on the same farm and partner organic farms in the region. Granola and muesli came next, built on the oats the farm was already growing. Stone-ground flours brought the milling side of the operation online and added the bread and baking aisle to the catalogue. Gluten-free oats were added as a distinct SKU once gluten-free certification on a shared-equipment facility became operationally viable. The lineup grew the way a farm grows: one harvest at a time.

120 years on the same Alberta ground

Highwood Crossing is the kind of brand that benefits from being read against its own backdrop. The Marshall family farm is, by Alberta on the Plate's count, over 120 years old. Tony and Penny Marshall are the operators running the farm now, taking it over from Tony's father, with a multi-generational continuity that is unusual in Canadian primary agriculture and rarer still in Canadian CPG.

That continuity has been recognized on the record. The Sunnyside Natural Market producer profile lists the brand's formal awards: the Innovation in Agriculture Award in 2000, the Habitat Steward Award in 2002, and the Slow Food Canada Canadian Food Heroes designation at the national Slow Food conference in 2014. Alberta on the Plate adds the Alberta Century Farm and Ranch Award and notes Highwood Crossing's inclusion in the ACE Bakery project's list of best artisan food producers in Canada. None of these is a self-administered brand claim. Each one is a recognition from an outside body, year-stamped and verifiable in the cited primary sources.

That recognition matters because the brand's entire positioning rests on continuity. The pitch on the front of a Highwood Crossing flax oil bottle is not a marketing story assembled in a creative agency. It is the same family that has been farming the same ground in southern Alberta since the early 1900s. It is the same operation that converted to certified organic in 1989 when organic was a hard sell. The brand exists because the farm was already there. That is the same farm-to-shelf model Three Farmers built on Saskatchewan pulses, executed a province west and well over a decade earlier.

What is actually in the lineup

The current Highwood Crossing range at highwoodcrossing.ca sits across four connected product families, all certified organic. Cold-pressed organic flaxseed oil is the flagship SKU. The brand also produces cold-pressed organic canola oil from non-GMO canola. Both oils are pressed at the High River facility in small batches and bottled on site.

The oats, granola, and cereals line is the most visible to consumers in independent grocery. The brand site catalogue lists rolled oats, quick oats, steel-cut oats, oat groats, oat bran, cream of oat, granola, muesli, and a power-grains hot cereal. The hero granola SKU is Highwood Crossing's Sunflower Flax Seed Granola, which appears on Spud.ca's Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton service area as a 1 kg bag. The granola category is also where the brand's gluten-free oats program shows up, with specific SKUs labelled gluten-free and others labelled standard.

The flours and mixes line is the milling side of the operation. The brand site lists all-purpose, whole wheat, gluten-free all-purpose, dark rye, muffin and pancake mix, pastry, red fife, and spelt flours, plus baking mixes. Red Fife is a heritage wheat variety with a strong following in Canadian artisan baking, and Highwood Crossing is one of the certified-organic millers documented as carrying it. The grains and seeds line covers flax seed, canola seed, hulled millet, hulled sunflower, popcorn, and wheat berries, which is the back-of-pantry inventory that bakers and home millers reach for.

For an Alberta sibling on the breakfast side of the same pantry aisle, see Highwood Crossing's Alberta counterpart in oats, Stoked Oats out of Calgary. Different go-to-market shape, same Alberta-grown oats roots.

How Highwood Crossing stacks up in the Canadian organic pantry aisle

The Canadian organic pantry aisle is dominated by a handful of brands working at different scales and on different verticals. Here is how Highwood Crossing reads against the comparison set:

Formats and sizes reflect each brand's publicly listed range as of June 2026. Retailer availability reflects Canadian market presence as of June 2026.

Reading across the row, Highwood Crossing's position becomes distinct. Nature's Path and One Degree Organic Foods are the big Canadian organic pantry players with national grocery shelf placement, but both source ingredients from independent certified-organic supplier networks rather than running the farm. Bob's Red Mill is the US flour and baking benchmark with strong Canadian distribution, but it is a US brand. Manitoba Milling Co. is a Canadian cold-milled flax specialist with depth on a single ingredient, which is the closest comparison on the flax axis. Highwood Crossing is the brand that runs the farm, presses the oil, mills the flour, and bakes the granola on the same Alberta ground.

Why on-farm processing actually matters here

On-farm processing is a phrase that gets used loosely. Many CPG brands describe themselves that way and mean that they buy ingredients from a named supplier and finish the product in a co-packing facility. Highwood Crossing means it more literally. The crops come off the Marshall family farm and partner organic farms in the same region. The cold-pressing of the flax oil and canola oil happens at the brand's own facility at 810 Centre St SE in High River. The stone-grinding of the flours happens at the same facility. The granola and baking mixes are blended and packaged on site as well.

What that integration buys the brand in practice is two things. First, it gives Highwood Crossing a defensible position in a category where most of the value-add is captured downstream. A commodity flax grower selling raw seed into the oilseed market is a price-taker. A certified-organic processor pressing flax oil under a brand name from its own crop is a price-setter. That is the same farm-to-shelf logic Three Farmers built around Saskatchewan pulses, applied to Alberta oilseeds and grains well over a decade earlier.

Second, it gives consumers a real answer to the two questions organic shoppers ask. Where did this come from, and is anything else in it. The certified-organic chain runs from a known Alberta farm to a known Alberta processor to the bottle on the shelf, and the ingredient list is short by design. That combination is what organic grocers and bakers actually pay for, and it is why Highwood Crossing has been featured by CBC News and by producer directories at Alberta on the Plate, Rural Roots Canada, and the Organic and Non-GMO Report rather than only by marketing channels the brand controls.

Sources

Highwood Crossing's primary social presence is on Instagram at @highwoodcrossing. The feed leans into the farm itself: harvest shots, the cold-press in operation, granola coming out of the oven, the High River facility. The brand also publishes recipes built around its own flours and oils, which shows shoppers how to actually use the catalogue and reinforces that Highwood Crossing is a working food business, not a CPG storytelling exercise.

Where to actually buy it

Each link below goes to a Highwood Crossing brand page, producer spotlight, or direct catalogue rather than a generic homepage, so you can find the actual product without hunting:

For the full catalogue and shipping options, visit highwoodcrossing.ca.

Bottom line

The Highwood Crossing playbook is one most Canadian organic farms never attempt. Grow the crop, build the certified-organic processor, run the cold-press and the mill, blend the granola, print the label, and ship from the same Alberta address as the farm. The Marshalls have been doing it since 1996, on land that has been in the family for roughly 120 years and certified organic since 1989. The result is a multi-category pantry brand that lives on the same kind of organic and specialty grocer shelf where shoppers actually go looking for products like this. If you are in Canada and want to see what they have built, the catalogue at highwoodcrossing.ca is the fastest entry point.