St. Louis MetroMarket Finally Ready to Roll

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A new mobile food market is rolling into neighborhoods in St. Louis without easy access to fresh, affordable food.

Washington University graduates Colin Dowling and Tej Azad and Saint Louis University medical student Jeremy Goss teamed up to create the St. Louis MetroMarket, a mobile farmers’ market.

The mobile farmers’ market is designed to combat the health problems associated with food deserts by bringing fresh produce, fish, meat and other staples to low-income areas that don’t have grocery stores. The food will be sold on a sliding pay scale.

St. Louis MetroMarket recently received a $75,000 grant from the Incarnate Word Foundation to launch the grocery-store-on-wheels, and the local metro transit company has donated the bus.

Part of St. Louis MetroMarket’s plan for sustainability is to sell corporate memberships to the mobile farmer’s market as well as memberships inside food deserts. That way some of the groceries can be sold at market price rather than at or just below cost.

Training in farming and cooking, as well as taste-tests and food prep demos will be features of the new market. The hope is that market will help the community eat healthier and lower rates of obesity and diabetes that have been plaguing the area.

St. Louis MetroMarket starts this summer in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood, which no longer has a full-sized grocery store.

Read more at St. Louis Public Radio.