A welcome wheel in the fight against the growing food desert crisis in Memphis rolled out into the Klondike neighborhood Wednesday, Oct. 12.

The Works, a local community redevelopment nonprofit, unveiled a mobile grocery truck at Shelby County General Session Court Clerk Joe Brown’s office at 1384 Jackson Ave. 

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The mobile grocery project grew from the notoriety received as a result of a 2019 docuseries by The Guardian chronicling the food deserts of Memphis. Naming Memphis the “Hunger Capital of the United States,” the documentary detailed grassroots relief efforts by The Works, which owns and operates the South Memphis Farmers Market at 1400 Mississippi Blvd.

According to the president and CEO of The Works, Roshun Austin, the mobile grocery was a long time coming. The organization purchased the trailer in 2020, but supply chain backups put the operation on hold.

“Every issue you could think of: aluminum, doors, windows,” Austin said. “On top of that, I had to find a (Ford F-450) truck during a pandemic.”

But, following some red tape, find it they did, along with a grocery supplier and longtime partner, Rick James, the president of Castle Retail Group, the operating company of Cash Saver grocery outlet stores in Memphis, High Point Grocery and South Point Grocery.

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“Small stores and corner stores usually supply at retail and sell at a higher retail,” Austin said. “We didn’t want to do that. We had low income families. Rick said, ‘I’ll supply you at my cost.’”

According to Austin, James has been supplying wholesale groceries to the South Memphis Farmers Market since its inception in 2010.

The goal of the mobile grocery store, said James, is to address the catch-22 of food deserts, which is a community’s inability to meet the overhead cost of the store’s infrastructure, despite the need and demand for goods from the food-deserted community.

“Unfortunately, the economics of that notion have gotten worse over the years,” James said. “Right now, a 30,000 square foot grocery store has a $4.4 million first-year footprint, and that’s before you put any groceries in it.”

The Works’ mobile grocery circumvents this conundrum through its ability to quickly drive through Memphis and get to the city’s most deprived neighborhoods. It is the first of its kind in Memphis since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and a welcome presence to the Klondike community on Wednesday.

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“Some people can’t get to the grocery store, like me for one,” said Gwendolin Johnson, a patron of the mobile grocery. “I don’t have transportation, but I can always walk down here.”

The truck — which is fully refrigerated and stocked with fresh produce, meat, dairy, eggs and more — will make 2-3 hour stops at least five days per week throughout various neighborhoods in North and South Memphis. It will also feature a reloadable incentive card which will include a $20-for-$20 match for SNAP recipients and a $10-for-$10 match for individuals over 60 years old. The incentive card is eligible to use for purchases of fresh and frozen foods, as well as fruits canned in their own juices.

The truck’s launch in Klondike was made in tandem with in-person services from the Tennessee Justice Bus, “a mobile law office that brings technology to rural and underserved communities.”

“One of our core neighborhood activities is to provide free, simple wills,” said Steve Barlow, who is vice president and general counsel of The Works. “We decided to co-locate the opening day of the mobile grocery to make it easier to get access to free legal services that will improve quality of life and the path for neighborhood housing.”

Barlow hopes that the legal team at The Works, as well as the Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts, will continue to partner with the mobile grocery at future locations.

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The exact stop locations and schedule of the truck have not yet been solidified, but it will be posted on The Works’ website when they do, Austin said. Individual donations, which make up a large portion of The Works’ funding, may also be made through this site.

“I believe that every person in Memphis deserves access to a good-quality grocery store, nutritional food and health for their families,” James said. “While (the mobile grocery) is no small economic investment, this will change the game in neighborhoods where brick and mortar groceries are not now and are unlikely to move.”

Note: Roshun Austin is on the board of Memphis Fourth Estate Inc., the nonprofit that owns and oversees The Daily Memphian.