Back in 2014, we began delivering fresh produce to 8 small, independently-owned stores in Minneapolis. Our founders, Deedee and Adam, wanted to find healthy foods in the stores that their families shopped–often the only option in their neighborhood. Corner stores are walkable to folks in the surrounding communities, who may not have larger retail chain grocers around, but rarely stock anything fresh. Not because owners don't want to, but because the math doesn't work in their favor. Junk food, cigarettes and candy have a longer shelf life, lower overhead and better margins, while fresh produce is perishable, harder to source in small quantities and easy to lose money on. We wrote about why junk food is so cheap here if you want the full breakdown.
That math is exactly what we built our program to change.
Take Penn Market.
Penn Market has been one of our longtime corner store partners, and it's a good example of what this program actually looks like on the ground: a small, family-run store now stocking fresh fruits and vegetables alongside everything else its neighbors count on it for. That's not a given for a store this size. It's the result of a model built specifically to make fresh produce possible for stores like this one.
No minimums. No advance orders. No risk.
Corner store owners are busy running a business, not managing a produce supply chain. So we made our program as low-friction as possible: no minimum orders, no advance ordering required, and — maybe most important — our Buyback Program means we purchase back whatever doesn't sell. That takes the financial risk off the store owner entirely, and results in increased availability of fresh produce for neighborhoods who need it. Here's more on how the Buyback Program works, and how unsold produce becomes DarkSide Snacks instead of going to waste.
Without BrightSide’s Healthy Corner Stores, most of these stores either wouldn't carry fresh produce at all or it would be prohibitively expensive. This is the reality in food deserts across the Twin Cities, where the nearest full grocery store can be miles away. We've written before about what food deserts actually look like here, and why they exist.
The news: 2 new stores
We just added Speedy Market on Regent Ave in Brooklyn Park and Marathon on Broadway in Northeast Minneapolis to our weekly route. Both are in neighborhoods without easy access to a larger grocery store.
Every new store is a neighborhood that didn't have a reliable source of fresh produce, and now does. That's not a small thing. It's the difference between a corner store being just a place to grab chips and a place where a family can actually build a healthy meal. Read more about why we focus on corner stores specifically.
How this connects to you!
None of this runs on its own. Our Healthy Corner Stores program is funded entirely by the Online Farmers Market and community donations. Every time you support our work, that goes directly toward getting fresh food into neighborhoods that need it most.