Sioux Falls to pilot mobile market in neighborhoods lacking grocery stores

A new mobile market will be piloted as a strategy to bring healthy, affordable food to neighborhoods without easy access to grocery stores.

The Eat Well Mobile Market is being coordinated by Sioux Falls Thrive with support from an advisory board and funded with a city grant for $250,000.

The idea is to “address the critical transportation barriers,” said Michelle Erpenbach, president of Sioux Falls Thrive. “It is difficult to get to a grocery store if you don’t have access to your own vehicle.”

The market also will serve as “an advanced scout” for places that might be able to host potential permanent neighborhood grocery stores

“This is also a great way to create and build on relationships we have in the community with neighborhood residents who can help us understand what are the needs in those communities, what’s the local food culture.”

That can include determining what healthy food looks like in that neighborhood as well as affordability.

“We’ve looked at a new business model that uses a stocking option using reclaimed grocery items,” Erpenbach said. “Those products subsidize the prices of more costly items.”

Fresh produce, meat, dairy products and other staples will be in the mobile option, she said.

“It’s a proven concept,” Erpenbach said, adding it also is working in the Twin Cities and Kansas City.

The mobile market will use a similar model to Fair Market, which sells overstocked groceries, and also will include freezers and coolers.

The target startup date is around Sept. 1. The initial target area will be the neighborhood around Cliff Avenue and Benson Road. There are about 6,000 people in that neighborhood, including a diverse population and about 2,000 occupied housing units.

“Subsequent neighborhoods, places that will go after that, will be determined a lot by what the neighborhoods ask for, what we prove and what that advisory board learns from the data,” Erpenbach said.

The mobile market will pull into identified neighborhoods to provide “a dignified, fun and healthy shopping experience for people who are hampered by distance from grocery stores, income and transportation limitations to get healthy food,” according to the city of Sioux Falls.

Shoppers will pay for the food as they would in any grocery store, which can include using SNAP benefits for payment.

“We believe that people’s, income, age, occupation, what they do, where they live in our community shouldn’t determine whether they have access to healthy and affordable food,” said Dr. Charles Chima, the city’s public health director.

Sioux Falls Thrive has looked at what the vehicle will be, potentially a decommissioned bus designed to function as a small store with one aisle and food on each side.

The grant resulted from a community needs assessment that last year identified food deserts and lack of access to affordable food as an increasing concern in Sioux Falls.

The Eat Well Mobile Market program was developed by a community coalition led by Sioux Falls Thrive. Others include Fair Market/Empower, First United Methodist Church, First Presbyterian Church, Church on the Street, Augustana Research Institute, Active Generations, Sioux Falls Food Co+op, Feeding South Dakota and Thrive’s Food Security Action Team.

The idea is to create both a respectful place to buy food as well as hopefully a fun environment that will encourage community, Erpenbach said.

“At some point, it might feel like a block party around the bus,” she said. “It’s exciting to nurture those neighborhood relationships.”

 The Sioux Falls Health Department intends to award $250,000 to Sioux Falls Thrive to pilot the mobile market. The contract to formally award the grant to the organization will be on the consent agenda at the Sioux Falls City Council meeting Tuesday. Projections show the effort could be self-sustaining within 18 months.

In underserved neighborhood, more affordable food helps fill critical gap