James T. Austin rolled his cart down South Hoskins Road, walking from his house just up the street. He hangs a left at the Mr. Quick Mini Mart, where a concrete building rises up from a large gravel lot.
The nonprofit Carolina Farm Trust pop-up produce stand greets him by the loading dock. CFT opened a distribution center and pop-up market stand in the Hoskins community over the summer.
It was Austin’s first visit, and he said he liked the produce stand. He was particularly interested in the selection of mushrooms offered.
For Austin and others in Hoskins, the pop-up stand is now the closest source of fresh produce. Much of the community is considered a food desert, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Food Lion is the nearest grocery store, about two miles away on Tuckaseegee Road. That’s a far trip for car-less residents in Hoskins, many of whom are older.
Carol McLean visited the stand after Austin. She said she heard about the farm stand from Beverly Knox Davis, a local community organizer.
“She said it was coming up,” McLean said. “When she said that, I automatically came.”
Beverly Knox Davis, president of the Historic Hoskins Coalition Group, had led the original push for Carolina Farm Trust to come to Hoskins. Her organization wrote letters of community support to help secure funding for the project.
“We were just wanting something, an outlet for the children,” Davis said. “We got to feed them. There's no grocery stores. There's just nothing.”
About 12% of communities in Mecklenburg County lack adequate food resources, according to data from nonprofit Feeding America. That’s about 1.5% lower than the national average.
Behind the pop-up produce stand, the 20,000-square-foot building has been transformed. It used to be an egg-processing plant where many Hoskins residents worked.
“It's been locked down for many, many, many years,” Davis said. “Nothing at all was just the old eggplant warehouse back behind the yellow store.”
Now, it houses a bakery, kitchen and office space. Of the nearly 25 employees that staff the distribution center, seven were hired from west Charlotte.
Michael George Bowling, CFT’s general manager, opens a door to one of three walk-in coolers. He pointed out lettuce, watermelons, Asian pears, nectarines and peaches — all from farms in the Carolinas.
This first part of the project received $11.5 million in federal, county and city funding to open. The remaining $500,000 came from private sources.
Inside the bakery, executive pastry chef Leressa Rucker and her team have already started preparing for their fall menu. The chefs have to adapt to the ingredients farmers supply.
Pastry assistant Da’Maria Hodges slices hundreds of apples from near Winston-Salem to make apple pie. Rucker will cook down Asian pears into a confit to fill tarts. She said these pastries will serve catering events, expositions and the nonprofit’s food trucks.
The distribution center is also about propping up local farmers, according to Carolina Farm Trust CEO Zack Wyatt.
“If we want to save farmland, then our farmers need to make money,” Wyatt said. “If we care about climate change, then we need to farm the right way.”
Wyatt said eating local produce goes beyond reducing the miles your food travels. The ratio of transportation to production emissions depends on the type of food being farmed. For example, the production of meat produces significantly more carbon dioxide than its transportation. However, the transportation of fruits and nuts accounts for nearly one-fifth of their carbon footprint.
Wyatt pointed to food waste as another. Food waste in the U.S. accounts for 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s like running 42 coal power plants.
“We've got almost zero waste kitchen,” Bowling said. “We try to use everything, even if it’s just making a stock.”
CFT composts what the chefs don’t use at an urban farm at Aldersgate in East Charlotte.
The nonprofit is raising $17 million to build out a grocery store, teaching kitchen and meat processing facility. The pop-up market sells local produce every Friday, 4 p.m.- 8 p.m. on South Hoskins Road.
