Canada: Atop a Walmart, Lufa’s latest greenhouse is almost ready to harvest

The 127,000-square-foot urban greenhouse in Marché Central is bursting with cucumbers and peppers, and is its most efficient yet.

By Bill Brownstein
Montreal Gazette
Mar 19, 2024

Excerpt:

So Mohamed Hage simply snaps a Lebanese cucumber from the vine and sinks his molars into the mini-cuke for a sampling.

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“It’s ready,” pronounces a beaming Hage, the founder and CEO of Lufa Farms. “It’s so sweet. I’m happy.”

I’ve never served in a Lebanese cucumber taste test before and, truth be told, have never been a big fan of this particular veg, but it’s hard to disagree with Hage after taking a bite of another cuke. I could almost have it for dessert.

The official opening of Lufa’s fifth rooftop greenhouse takes place Tuesday atop a seemingly incongruous setting, the Marché Central Walmart and Decathlon shops in the Ahuntsic borough. This 127,000 square-foot urban farm may not be Lufa’s largest — that honour goes to its 164,000 square-foot, St-Laurent borough facility sitting atop a former Sears site. But Hage insists this latest greenhouse is its most efficient, anticipated to generate 20 per cent more yield than conventional greenhouses of similar size.

It is now chock full of Lebanese and its longer English cucumber cousins as well as peppers. Even prior to Tuesday’s opening, the Lebanese cucumbers were being harvested and popping up in the baskets of Lufavores — Lufa’s members. The English cucumbers and peppers will be ready for picking shortly.

It’s hard to believe that six months ago this rooftop site was little more than a mass of glass and metal and that it’s now the largest cucumber-and-pepper farm in town. More than that, though, Hage cites the fact that with its state-of-the-art Ultra-Clima concept and its three-times more LED light intensity, insulated double-paned perimeter glass, diffused glass roof and double curtains, it is by far Lufa’s most tech advanced. (And with its temperature fixed at a balmy 27 degrees Celsius, it could also double as a tropical-like vacation spot year-round.)

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