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A Brief Introduction

At Lufa Farms, we’re on a mission to change the way people eat by growing food where people live and growing it more sustainably. To accomplish this, we built the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse in 2011 and three more greenhouses since then (built in 2013, 2017, and 2020). With each new greenhouse, we hold ourselves to an ever higher standard of sustainability and technical ingenuity growing dozens of vegetables, greens, and herbs hydroponically. All of our greenhouses run following our five principles of responsible agriculture: using no new land, recirculating water, conserving energy, reducing waste, and using biocontrols instead of synthetic pesticides. We also partner with local farmers and food makers to provide our customers with hundreds of products through our online Marketplace. Every week, we assemble 20,000 customized baskets filled with fresh, local, responsible food and deliver them to our network of pick-up points across Quebec, or straight to customers’ doors. As we grow we aim to continue developing an economically and ecological sustainable model of food production.

2009

Founded

600+

Employees

25K

Weekly shipped baskets

50+

Varieties of rooftop grown vegetables

4

Active Rooftop Farms

300K

Sq. ft. of growing space

400+

Sustainable partners

2500+

Products on the marketplace

400+

Pick-up points

Timeline

2021

After another year of growth, our community reached 100,000 Lufavores. We delivered over 20,000 baskets each week throughout Quebec while adding more electric vehicles to our fleet.

2020

In the spring we finished construction on our largest greenhouse to date in the Ville Saint Laurent borough of Montreal. This 163,800 square foot greenhouse is our most efficient in terms of energy and water consumption. It reached full production in August, doubling our production capacity going from feeding 1% to 2% of Montreal families.

2019

We outgrew our Ahuntsic location and moved our distribution centre and main office to the Ville Saint-Laurent neighbourhood of Montreal. Once settled, we completely reinvented our packing system for better, faster, and fresher deliveries. In September, construction began on our fourth and world’s largest rooftop greenhouse at this location.

2017

We harvested the first crop from our third, largest, and most technologically advanced greenhouse in the Montreal borough of Anjou. With this latest greenhouse, Lufa Farms boasted 138,000 square feet of growing space.

2016

We went through a growth spurt reaching over 10,000 Lufavores and our team nearly doubled in size to keep up. We also launched home delivery by electric car, and the company became cash-flow positive. A big year.

2013

We built a second rooftop greenhouse in the Laval suburb of Montreal and got hundreds of local producers involved with the launch of our online farmers’ market, the Marketplace. The weekly baskets became fully customizable with the innovation of our own e-commerce platform and warehouse logistics software.

2011

We planted our first seedlings in February and harvested the first veggies later that year. We grew 15 varieties of vegetables and delivered roughly 200 baskets each week, without the ability to customize orders.

2010

After knocking on many doors and being turned down by several building owners, one finally said yes. We started construction on the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse in the Ahuntsic borough of Montreal with funding from the founders and their friends and family.

2009

Mohamed Hage, an entrepreneur and engineer at heart, brought together and built our innovative founding team: Lauren Rathmell to manage plant science and farming, Kurt Lynn to lend decades of marketing experience, and Yahya Badran to supervise construction and engineering projects.

Meet the founders

Lauren Rathmell and Mohamed Hage are co-founders of Lufa Farms. They built the world’s first commercial rooftop greenhouse, with the vision of changing the way cities eat and creating an ecologically and economically sustainable model for urban farming.

With a biochemistry degree from McGill University, Lauren serves as Greenhouse Director, where she oversees all farming and plant science activities for the company's rooftop greenhouses. She took on the challenge of developing Lufa Farms’ sustainable farming practices, growing food commercially in a polyculture setting using no synthetic pesticides. She’s also responsible for the Communications Department and safekeeping of the Lufa Farms vision, mission, and voice.

Mo, an engineer at heart, is the CEO of the company. With a natural talent for creating connections with experts in various fields, Mo has worked to build Lufa Farms from the ground up and actively oversees the day-to-day operations of the distribution centre, logistics, and expansion projects. He’s out to innovate and automate by leading the charge to build a self-sufficient and highly scalable local food engine, with custom software and logistics tools for everything from auto-ordering and inventory management to basket assembly and customer service.

Together, they're leading Lufa Farms to continued growth in and beyond Montreal through a shared belief that technology, efficiency, and sustainability can provide true solutions to global problems.

Latest News

Lufa Farms breaks ground on their fourth greenhouse

2019-11-21

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