Agric Organics offers mobile grocery store to help with food access

Date: 2/27/2024

After announcing a store opening in early 2024 at 10 Chestnut St. at Sky View Tower in Springfield, Agric Organics will also be taking their products and more on the road with the introduction of the 99 Farm Mobile Store.

The year-round, full-service mobile grocery store will offer fresh fruits, veggies, bread, milk, eggs, rice and more in Chicopee, Springfield and Holyoke.

The routes can be found at www.farmstore99.com/mobile-market.

The 99 Farm Mobile Store will be at RiverMills Center Chicopee Council on Aging, 5 W. Main St., every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

“While these are the central locations, it’s open to everyone,” Agric Organics Co-owner Hameed Bello said.

Agric Organics LLC is a sustainable urban farm in Wilbraham and Bello discussed the idea for starting the mobile farm store.

He said, “The farm store was born just out of the needs assessment that we did about the needs of our community after going to multiple farmer’s markets over the years. It is basically a grocery store on wheels.”

This mission of the mobile market is to serve food-insecure neighborhoods and the underserved population including but not limited to seniors, veterans, community health center patients and students.

Bello said, “We are trying to basically be the solution and remove that barrier of access. That is why on the side of our truck it says Farm Store 99, a rolling food access solution.”

Besides offering their own grown products, Bello said there will be other produce and toiletries available for purchase.

“Beyond being able to get all their vegetables, they can also get other household items like juice, milk, cheese, a can of beans, even toothpaste. What it will allow us to do by going to the same location weekly, we will start to get to know the customers and the relationship we build with them allows them to be able to then request other things,” he said.

In term of prices of the product, Bello said he expects the cost to be similar if not cheaper than shopping at other grocery stores.

He added, “Our main goal is to make sure that we price things affordable. Compared to other groceries, we are not overly expensive, it’s around the same and depending on the product it is probably cheaper. Affordable prices is one of the things we took into consideration from the beginning.”

Once the weather gets warmer, Bello also talked about collaborating with other local farms to sell their produce on the truck.

Bello said, “We have a farm, and we do our job in growing some of those crops. The goal as we continue to go, and then the weather becomes better we will be able to get certain things and partner with other local farmers that we have identified and continued to refine and increase what we grow also to meet the community demand.”

“We think it is going to have a very, very great impact and a lot of community members are already so receptive to us being in their community. We want food access to no longer be an issue and offer everything in terms of grocery needs right in your community with good quality food,” Bello said.

He added, “Going forward, we hope that it starts to have a positive influence and positive impact on people’s health and overall well-being because they can now have the opportunity to make their own informed decision.”