City of Birmingham Hopes to Partner with County Transit Authority for Mobile Food Market

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In recent months, Birmingham, Alabama has been fostering conversations around affordable, healthy food access. One way other cities get food into underserved areas is through mobile food markets—re-purposed vans or buses that carry fresh fruits and vegetables into neighborhoods that don’t have a full service grocery store nearby.

Creating a mobile food market was one of several recommendations from a study of the city of Birmingham provided by IBM’s $500,000 Smarter Cities Challenge Grant,  and the City wants to try it out.

The Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority’s (BJCTA) board now will consider an agreement with the City of Birmingham to give a set of decommissioned MAX buses to the program and provide fuel and maintenance.

The mobile market concept, presented September 17th to BJCTA’s program development committee, is to serve as a vehicle for getting fresh produce and other healthy foods to the city’s “food deserts.”

The city is looking at a solid four-year commitment in the beginning to get things started.

The memorandum of understanding with BJCTA would allow for at least four decommissioned MAX buses. The city would facilitate the program, which would likely be run by a nonprofit, and the city would provide necessary insurance coverage for the vehicles.

BJCTA would provide fuel and preventative maintenance for the buses under the agreement.

Read more about the proposed plan here.