Lufa Farms is using greenhouse technology in an indoor farm setting to maximize year-round local food production

Lufa Farms, a company dedicated to creating a more direct and local food system, has announced the opening of its first indoor farm. Located in the Saint-Laurent borough of Montreal, the former Sears headquarters have been transformed into a unique urban food ecosystem that combines the world's largest rooftop greenhouse, a distribution centre, and now a new indoor farm to feed thousands of customers each week.

Featuring the green automation technology that is typically used in greenhouses, this urban farm is equipped with a single-level hydroponic growing system and a thousand energy-efficient LED lights. The site is designed to demonstrate the viability of low-cost indoor agriculture, providing optimized light, energy, and nutrients to a variety of crops without fossils.

With more than 20,000 portions harvested a day at full potential, this polyculture farm is currently growing lettuce, spinach, celery, basil, kohlrabi, fennel, and watercress.

"Having over a decade of experience in urban agriculture, we realized the importance of providing plants with ideal growing conditions," said Lufa Farms Co-founder & Co-CEO Mohamed Hage. "Our challenge was to build a simple and energy-efficient indoor farm that compares in cost to traditional greenhouse growing."

Products from Lufa Farms' indoor farm are currently available exclusively to subscribers through its online Marketplace.