Toulouse: these funny ladies create vegetable gardens on the roof of supermarkets
Two engineers and an architect have pooled their knowledge to create “Les maraîchers du ciel”. Their goal: to grow vegetables on the roofs of supermarkets.
With their start-up “Les maraichers du ciel”, Laurie Battini (23 years old), Clotilde Latieule (25 years old) and Marine Rivon (27 years old) have the ambition to create and install vegetable gardens on the roofs of supermarkets. Respectively a civil engineer, an agricultural engineer (from the Purpan school) and an architect, the three young women did not know each other before the launch of this project.
The idea came to them in Clotilde during a stay in Canada. “I saw a supermarket, the IGA, doing that in Montreal,” she says.
After having incubated for a year at “1Kubateur Toulouse”, their start-up continues to grow at the Pépinière du MIN. “Our objective is to offer more virtuous production solutions to large retailers by inviting them to put on the shelves products from an ultra-short circuit”, continues Clotilde.
In their project, “Les maraichers du ciel” take care of everything, from A to Z: installation, maintenance, harvesting of the vegetable gardens but also the display of the products. For the moment, an Intermarché de Ramonville has lent itself to the experience. Rather than the roof of his establishment, he lent a vacant lot to the “Maraîchers du ciel”. “As early as spring, we planted vegetables 200 m from the store which were sold on its shelves,” explains Marine.
“No competition
with local producers”
To install vegetable gardens on the roofs, “Les maraîchers du ciel” call on design offices who carry out skill calculations, “but not that the roof collapses. We create large rows of vegetable beds which can also provide insulation,” says Marine. Each time, it is a matter of doing it on a case-by-case basis in order to adapt to the constraints of the building.
“To complete the fruit and vegetable offer that is already on the shelves, our goal is to add value such as old varieties of tomatoes and not to compete with what already comes from local producer partners,” says Laurie. “The market gardeners of the sky” are always looking for large areas ready to try the experiment. The first vegetable garden should be installed next year, in the east of Toulouse. “In the long term, we envisage that consumers can go to the roof to see what they are doing and offer them entertainment and training. Around this project, we want to get people to rethink their diet,” Laurie discovered.