It was a few years in the making, but St. Louis MetroMarket is scheduling grocery stops in the city for shoppers that need affordable healthy food closer to where they live.
A donated city bus was converted into a traveling grocery store for urban areas with less access to affordable, nutritious food and produce. The bus was the brainchild of then SLU Medical School student Jeremy Goss and two students from Washington University, Tej Azad and Colin Dowling, who studied food access and social entrepreneurship.
“These are places where there are far more fast food restaurants than anything and where there is access to food, it’s typically a convenience store,” founder Jeremy Goss told the American in the 5/2/2013 issue. “And the selection isn’t ideal.”
Goss is currently a medical research fellow at Harvard. Azad is studying biomedical informatics at Stanford, and serves as board secretary and helps oversee grant writing for the market . Dowling, who helps oversee day-to-day operations, is an operations manager for a software startup in St. Louis.
Serene Bugett, director of Community Engagement for St. Louis MetroMarket, said the group held listening sessions with community members to see what types of foods they would be interested in purchasing.
“They wanted fresh produce at a good price, so we made sure that was the first thing we looked at, but we made sure we had your basics that everybody wanted – we have onions, potatoes, sweet potatoes; we have an awesome selection of greens, collards, kale, mustards, things like that,” Bugett said.
The choices include a variety of vegetables, fruit, some refrigerated dairy products and frozen meats.
Interestingly enough, while organic products did not resonate with prospective shoppers – buying locally grown items did.
Bugett said, “Organic produce and fruits really were not a ‘must’ from the community. I think they were more excited about the fact that the majority of the fruits and produce are local.”
Local in this case means, Missouri and Illinois.
“They were really excited to find out we were using local farmers to stock the bus with what we sell and that includes a lot of the fresh and frozen meats,” she added.
The bus officially kicked off May 14 at the intersection of MLK and Compton in the Jeff Vanderlou neighborhood, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Going forward, it will be at 3117 Thomas Street every Saturday, year round.
In addition, the MetroMarket will service the Hyde Park neighborhood at Holy Trinity Catholic Church from 1p.m. to 4 p.m., the first Saturday of every month.
On weekdays, the bus makes stops on Thursday afternoons at SLU Hospital and Friday afternoon at Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital.
Bugett said feedback has been positive, much like that of shoppers during a bus visit to the Renaissance Place Apartments on N. Compton.
“A lot of those residents came out and visited the bus and they were very pleased with the products and they were really pleased with the prices we have to offer,” Bugett.
The market is looking toward added value for customers while combining a bit of community service.
“We helped a lot of clients back with their groceries, so that’s something that we can do,” Bugett said. “We plan to have the volunteers – most likely students, come out and volunteer to help the elderly carry their groceries back.”
In addition, there is a mobile market bus in the works to expand into other areas in St. Louis.
For more information, visit http://www.stlmetromarket.com.
