Organic vegetable garden on the roof of a grocery store

Frederick T. Muckle / 24H
The harvested products of the vegetable garden on the roof which are then sold in-store where customers can even watch live coverage of the garden work.

Frederick T. Muckle

Wednesday, 19 July 2017 20:36

UPDATE
Wednesday, 19 July 2017 20:41

Look at this article

The customers of a grocery store in the borough of Saint-Laurent can now eat organic vegetables grown on the roof of the trade.

A vegetable garden that is urban has taken up residence on the roof of the IGA extra Famille Duchemin where more than thirty kinds of vegetables, fruits and herbs grow in all seasons.

Frederick T. Muckle / 24H

More than thirty varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs organic are cultivated on the green roof of the grocery store.

The company The green line has installed the green roof, and rents the space to the IGA in order to cultivate the vegetable garden and selling his vegetables at the grocery store as well as the Atwater market and the market of the Suburb.

The green roof has required an investment of approximately$ 250,000 from the IGA.

For Richard Duchemin, one of the owners of the grocery store, this urban farming initiative gives the grocery store the opportunity to offer products that are actually local to their customer base since now 1 month.

Frederick T. Muckle / 24H

Richard Duchemin, one of the owners of the grocery store, is happy to be able to offer its customers products that are as local as those of the garden city.

“The trend is to the local and then we do it even more than all the world, as it is on the roof,” he explains.

A project ” large-scale “

When the grocery store of the family Duchemin moved to 2016 in the local area that it currently occupies on the boulevard Henri-Bourassa, the borough has requested that the trade adopts a green roof at 50% according to requirements of urban planning.

Rather than stick to a roof with a half green, the directors of the grocery store in collaboration with green line has decided to carry out the ambitious project of the vegetable garden urban centre, which is now the largest of its kind in the country with its area of 25, 000 square feet, the equivalent of a third of a football field, in addition to being the only canadian example of a merchant power selling of products growing on its roof.

For Tim Murphy, the project manager and one of the two gardeners working for The green line on the vegetable garden, it is good practice to work in collaboration with a grocery store.

Frederick T. Muckle / 24H

Tim Murphy is in charge of project and market-garden for The green line and the project of urban garden in the IGA.

For example, the garden does not have to ask to have their knives harvest skillfully sharpened by the butcher from the supermarket and it is the department of ready-to-eat, which has provided the containers in which the farmers have poured the concrete and planted the necessary materials to the plants rising.

Patrice Godin, one of the founders of The green line explained that they expected to have losses on the financial side this year since they have started the project later than expected, but believes that the project will be profitable from next year.

According to Pierre St-Laurent, the executive vice-president, Quebec of the company’s Sobeys, which owns the trademark to IGA supermarkets, it is not impossible that other projects of urban vegetable gardens see the light of day elsewhere in the country.