CALGARY -- Calgary's first mobile grocery has arrived. It's called ‘Fresh Routes’ and will bring fresh produce directly to Calgary communities where affordable, nutritious food may be difficult to access.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re low income or a millionaire,"said Fresh routes co-founder Anna Johnson.
"We just want this to be a good experience for everyone and the more people that shop, the better.”
A retrofitted City of Calgary bus will stop at selected locations around the city to bring nutritional choices into neighbourhoods that may face transportation or economic barriers.
“What’s unique about Fresh Routes mobile grocery store is that we’ve really prioritized making it fully accessible,” said Johnson. “So we’ve worked with an architecture firm Mason Studios out of Toronto to design it so that’s it’s completely accessible for people who have limited mobility.”
Fresh Routes is a social enterprise with a mission to ensure everyone, especially those in need have access to affordable, nutritious food and information to make healthy decisions and live a healthy life.
“We purposely structured our model to be revenue generating and sustainable so through the sale of our produce we’re able to basically put that right back into the non-profit,” said Johnson.
The bus will operate 12 months a year and only stop at communities where it’s been invited. Fresh Routes believes food is vital to the health of individuals and communities, and that access to good, healthy, and affordable food is a basic human right.
The organization will operate over 60 routes per month in 20 communities throughout Calgary and Edmonton.
Learn more about the initiative here: www.freshroutes.ca
