A New York based firm Bright Farms has a green plan that will turn the rooftops of supermarkets into urban farmland.

The company has cut a deal with 10 supermarket chains to build and operate hydroponic greenhouses on their rooftops, supplying the chains with enough home grown fruits and vegetables to stock their shelves.

It’s an unusual concept that costs the supermarket nothing, explained Benjamin Linsley, vice president of business development and public affairs for the company.

Bright Farms puts up the $1.5 million to $2 million to build the greenhouse. It maintains and operates it and sells 500,000 pounds of produce to the supermarket per year.

Or in other words, Bright Farms takes on all the work in exchange for the supermarket signing a 10-year contract agreeing to buy the produce grown on their rooftop.

The company says it has letters of intent with 10 supermarket chains in the United States with the first of the greenhouses expected to open in 2012.

Linsley said the company is also exploring options in Canada, but declined to say which grocery chains Bright Farms has contacted because the companies have requested anonymity. “We’ve had a lot of conversations and those are going well in Canada,” said Linsley. But we’ve only started focusing on Canada in the last month or so.”

The Star contacted Loblaws and Metro about the idea, but Loblaws did not respond to the query. Metro said it hadn’t contemplated any such project.

The hydroponic greenhouses aim to do three things, Linsley said. The greenhouse will produce better produce – produce that is fresher and grown for quality, taste and nutrition and not shelf life. The other goals are to make sure the produce is not expensive and to reduce carbon emissions.

For a head of lettuce in New York, up to 50 per cent of its value goes to the cost of transporting it, Linsley said.

According to stats provided by Bright Farms, each greenhouse will generate $1 to $1.5 million in revenue per year; will mitigate around 740 tons of Co2 emissions per year from each greenhouse and will use up to nine times less water, saving around five million gallons a year.

Bright Farms has been consulting on a demonstration greenhouse at Whole Foods in New Jersey.