Canada’s only supermarket rooftop vegetable garden in full bloom in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent

The IGA extra Famille Duchemin team in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent have maintained the country’s largest and only organic vegetable garden on a supermarket rooftop since the summer of 2017.

This year, they’re partnering with the non-profit organization, La Ferme de Rue Montréal, for its eighth season.

The non-profit and their team of CEGEP students, newcomers, and young people, oversee vegetable production on the roof, preparing the produce for the market and ensuring a direct supply from the rooftop to the grocery store.

“At Street Farm Montreal, this project also gives a chance to young people from 12 years old to a student finishing in agriculture to take a first job in agriculture and to be inspired,” said La Ferme de Rue Montreal owner, Réal Migneault.

Everything is cleaned, packaged, and brought downstairs to the supermarket – it’s as local as it gets.

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“As a retailer, the most important thing is it’s local, but not just local, it’s hyper-local. So for the customers, that means we can grow in a city, we can grow something like very, very close,” said IGA extra famille Duchemin co-owner, Richard Duchemin.

Duchemin told CityNews that they are making sure customers are aware of the fresh vegetables in the store, but the promotion does come with its challenges.

“It’s not every customer that knows that we grow on the rooftop, but we do marketing on the floor, we advertise, we have a monitor,” said Duchemin. “So the customer can just lift their eyes and see the camera and see the farmers working on the roof.”

“It’s a very good demonstration of the possible solutions that can be articulate to face not only food production but also environmental issues, mental health issues.”

When you thought their contribution to the community couldn’t get any better, the non-profit will donate 15 per cent of the production to various non-profit organizations in the region that help people in need.

Migneault also said that starting a project such as the garden is possible to do in the city, and that partnering with the people who are actively in the food business can benefit our communities.

“With this collaboration I think that in terms of solution, communities can go much further and can be much more resilient,” said Migneault.

The garden occupies 29,000 square feet where 40 different organic vegetables and herbs grow such as tomatoes, eggplant, salad greens and, for the first time, Quebec garlic.

For the 2025 season, La Ferme de Rue Montréal has several projects in store, including recovering vegetable wash water, cultivating berries and edible flowers and installing beehives.