August 2, 2006 – Mobile Grocery?

O.K., the biggest thing that is missing from a local food system is a distributor. Someone to gather the product from farmers who don’t have time/inclination to market and ramp up quantities and sell to local outlets, like grocers, hospitals, etc.

We got to thinking about the 2,000 people or so who work in my building – wouldn’t it be great for them to have a stand of locally grown stuff waiting for them outside the door at 5:00 on their way home? Wouldn’t it be even better if you had a small truck – like a bread truck or so and filled it with veggies/frozen/ and refrigerated stuff and were mobile so you could be in a different location each day?

I did a quick search for “mobile grocer” on google and the only thing I came up with was an organic store in Oakland that had a mobile grocer that sold organic produce at wholesale cost in low-income sections of Oakland as part of their mission to make good food more widely available.

Ideas? Suggestions?