VEGGIE MOBILE
Capital Roots celebrates mobile market’s 10th anniversary
TROY, N.Y.>> The Capital Roots’ Veggie Mobile is celebrating 10 years of bringing fresh food to local neighborhoods.
The Capital Roots crew threw a 10th birthday party for its Veggie Mobile on Thursday afternoon at Troy’s John F. Kennedy Towers Senior Housing, which was its very first stop exactly a decade ago to the day.
Sponsored by CDPHP, the Veggie Mobile is a mobile market that travels to innercity neighborhoods throughout Albany, Rensselaer and Schenectady counties. It’s been delivering a large variety of fresh, affordable and local produce to residents with limited access to this type of food since 2007.
The Veggie Mobile operates year-round, five days a week, offering produce at wholesale costs.
Rolling in with lively music, the Veggie Mobile visits more than 30 area locations, delivering fresh produce to the public, health and child- care centers, senior and low-income housing facilities. Regular stops are in Troy, Cohoes, Rensselaer, Watervliet, Albany and Schenectady.
“They’ve got the best
stuff,” said shopper Daryl Freedman, who purchased pineapple, lettuce and pears on Thursday during the Veggie Mobile’s birthday party.
“What I like is the black plums, and the watermelons,” said customer Ann Kremnitzer, who moved into the apartments the same year that the Veggie Mobile started coming there.
“It helps me out a lot,” said Laura Forette, a Brunswick resident who often comes downtown to the Kennedy Towers to shop on the Veggie Mobile. Forette also appreciates that the staff members are al- ways nice and friendly.
At each stop, the Veggie Mobile team provides customers with a sample of a recipe utilizing produce that can be found right on the truck. Customers are then given a bag containing the recipe along with some of the fresh produce used in the dish, so that they can head home and try making it themselves.
The Veggie Mobile accepts cash, checks, EBT cards, Veggie Rx, WIC fruit and veggie checks, Farmers Market Nutrition Program Checks and Capital Roots sponsored certificates.
Designed for energy efficiency, the box-truck runs on biodiesel fuel and has been retrofitted with solar panels, which power the market’s refrigerators.
“We really had no idea how big this idea was going to be,” said Capital Roots CEO Amy Klein. She recalled people lined up at the Kennedy apartments on the Veggie Mobile’s first visit. “People flocked to it.”
After that, it didn’t take long for the concept to catch on. “We knew we had something on our hands,” she said.
Klein explained that the Veggie Mobile aims to provide easy access, affordable and top quality products, along with helping to support the local farming economy.
Since 2007, this Veggie Mobile model has been adopted in other regions around the country.
In 2001, the Troy-based organization introduced a second mobile market called Veggie Mobile Sprout, also sponsored by CDPHP. A farm stand on wheels, The Sprout specifically travels to elderly and low- income housing establishments throughout Rensselaer County, serving the same purpose as the original Veggie Mobile. Operating in a Ford Transit Connect Utility Vehicle, The Sprout manages difficult, inner- city traffic conditions with ease, helping Capital Roots connect even more local residents with fresh produce.
Looking ahead, Capital Roots’ goal is to have a third Veggie Mobile on the road within the next few years, Klein said, “because they really work.”
For a full schedule of Veggie Mobile stops, or to learn more about Capital Roots, visit www.capitalroots.org.