North London independent retailer Andrew Thornton has started growing vegetables on the roof of his Budgens store in Crouch End.
‘Food from the Sky’ is the brainchild of Thornton and Azul Thome of the Positive Earth Project, and makes Budgens the first supermarket in the world to grow food on its roof.
Thornton was inspired some time ago to build an organic food garden to really take his philosophy of focusing on local food one step further.
He said: “We need to grow more food in cities; with millions of square metres of suitable growing space on the roofs of London, we want to inspire others to follow suit.”
The project really came to life when Thome designed the sustainable garden and created a community project to build it. Thome said: “It’s such an exciting and inspiring project that we have had a huge amount of interest and support from volunteers, businesses and the council.”
‘Food from the Sky’ will go on sale in Thornton’s Budgens soon and ‘offer real food for today’s communities’ to Budgens customers. All proceeds will be put back into the garden. As one of the key reasons for the project is to inspire and educate people on growing their own food, Thome will be running workshops on the Budgens roof garden in the near future.
