In the heart of Duluth, Minnesota, Ecolibrium3 (Eco3) has been a driving force behind neighborhood-based development, fostering sustainability and economic strength in the Lincoln Park (LNPK) community.
Farm Link Hawai’i, an O’ahu-based company, was founded in 2015 by once software engineer, Rob Barreca. Rob made a career pivot driven by his passion to address the nation’s inadequate food system under the training of GoFarm Hawai’i, which helps people pivot towards farming mid-career.
The 2014 Flint Water Crisis, compounded by the closure of two major grocery stores by 2015, left North Flint residents exposed to dangerous levels of lead and without access to affordable, fresh food.
When the small “farmers market” style store that served the Oxford, Mississippi community for over 30 years closed in 2016, the neighborhood was left with limited access to fresh foods. Chicory Market, a full-service community grocery store, took over the space in 2017.
Across the country, the shameful reality of limited access to healthy food plagues historically marginalized communities. It is an issue that is rooted in discriminatory policies and disinvestment, and is reflected in the 27.6 million people living in places with inequitable and inadequate access to healthy food, according to our research on supermarket access disparities in the contiguous United States. In cities like Atlanta, supermarket development has notoriously followed patterns of redlining, a discriminatory lending practice beginning in the 1930s, as retailers concentrated development in wealthy, white communities while avoiding low-income neighborhoods and communities of color.
MARSH Grocery Cooperative will sell locally grown produce, bulk dry goods and other organic food on a sliding scale, based on what each customer can afford. The nonprofit’s employees are also partial owners who live in the surrounding neighborhood and help manage the organization.
Multiple speakers at the groundbreaking spoke about Peathon Massey, a 70-year Flint resident who wanted to see the opening of the city’s first co-op grocery store but died shortly before its opening at age 93.
The California Indian Museum and Cultural Center is using a significant USDA grant to reconnect these tribal community members to traditional knowledge and practices, including foodways.
With new funding, African Economic Development Solutions hopes to foster culture and community with a Pan-African immigrant cooperative market.
While grocers struggle amid consolidations, a coalition supports innovative ways to deliver fresh food to underserved rural areas.