Tener la oportunidad de obtener productos frescos, saludables y a buen precio! Este es solo uno de los objetivos de un proyecto que está llevando a cabo Carolina Farm Trust al oeste de Charlotte. La primera fase del proyecto estará listo en mayo 2023, según nos dijeron.
Peake was raised across the street from 511 S. Hoskins Rd., the site where Carolina Farm Trust, a nonprofit working to strengthen local food systems, will develop their local foods distribution and production center in west Charlotte.
Why it matters: Food insecurity in west Charlotte has been an issue for decades, and a lack of access to healthy food has directly affected the community’s well-being.
What’s happening: Carolina Farm Trust CEO Zack Wyatt told Axios the site will offer wholesale, retail and delivery options, a studio kitchen, community and event space, plus an urban farm. It’ll also help address supply chain issues.
Aimed at tackling food insecurity, the center will be a place where community members can come to purchase affordable fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy.
Carolina Farm Trust CEO Zack Wyatt kicks our interview off with a simple phrase: “Every major geopolitical issue we have is coming from the dirt, in one fashion or another.”
In some ways, one could argue that his nonprofit’s latest project, a local food production and distribution center in west Charlotte’s Thomasboro-Hoskins neighborhood, worked in reverse. After all, it was due to COVID (a geopolitical issue) that city leaders were able to see the need for this project, allowing Carolina Farm Trust to secure the funding needed for the warehouse, located on what is currently just an abandoned lot (the dirt).
Wyatt says a global pandemic is, for many, what it took to recognize how important local foodways are.
“Once you start realizing that the average grocery store has about two and a half days of regular buying patterns before it’s empty … no one could ignore how fragile our [food] systems are.”
CHARLOTTE — An old egg production plant will soon be transformed into a grocery store and food distribution center in a west Charlotte neighborhood now considered a food desert.
Carolina Farm Trust, a nonprofit aimed at tackling food insecurity, has secured a 25,000-square-foot space in the 500 block of South Hoskins Road near Brookshire Boulevard as the site for its retail endeavor.
The neighborhood where the store will reside in west Charlotte is known to have a shortage of sources for fresh food — there are no official grocery stores within a mile radius of the area.
“There’s never been a grocery store over here,” said Jean Rogers, a resident of the area for 48 years.
Chris Peake, general manager for Carolina Farm Trust’s local foods distribution and production center, grew up four blocks away from the grocery store’s future site.
With financial support secured from Mecklenburg County and the Charlotte City Council, Peake said the nonprofit will raise the remaining funds from donations. Carolina Farm Trust hopes to debut the store by the spring of 2023.
“We’re really pushing forward, because the seriousness of this is now,” Peake said.
WFAE | By Nick de la Canal
Published February 14, 2022 at 5:46 AM EST
What’s now a vacant warehouse off Interstate 85 near Brookshire Boulevard in Charlotte could soon become a bustling food market and distribution center with a rooftop garden, test kitchen, meat processing facility and a grocery store.
The nonprofit Carolina Farm Trust is developing plans for the facility at 511 South Hoskins Road. The site includes 25,000 square feet of existing building space and 60,000 square feet of green space.
The nonprofit already partners with many local farmers, helping them with land, equipment and other farming essentials. The group also purchases many locally produced foods to distribute to people in need, as well as local nonprofits, food trucks and restaurants operating in underserved areas of Mecklenburg County.
Carolina Farm Trust’s president and CEO, Zack Wyatt, said the new center could help the group expand its partnerships with local farmers and distribute more locally produced fruits, veggies, dairy products and meats around the county.
“Then we can make it easy for the community to actually participate in the local food economy because right now, it’s just very difficult to do that,” Wyatt said.
Mecklenburg County has already given $3 million in COVID-19 relief money to the new center, and the Charlotte City Council on Monday will consider giving the project an additional $1.5 million, also in COVID-19 relief money.
The total cost of the project, including renovation of the warehouse, startup costs and the first three years of operations, is $14 million.
Wyatt said the group plans to fundraise the remaining $10 million for the project. With the city and county money, Wyatt said work on the new facility can begin, with the center starting up some operations and opening its retail grocery store by […]
By Jason Huber
February 02, 2022 at 6:06 pm EST
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QC Life) – To make sure people in West Charlotte have easier access to fresh, healthy food, Carolina Farm Trust is working to open a distribution center.
It will be off of Hoskins Road, near Rozzelles Ferry Road and Interstate 85.
According to the organization, just three percent of homes in that area are within a half-mile of a full-service, chain grocery store.
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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”22px”][vc_column_text]Article from UNC Charlotte Urban Institue by Jonathan McFadden
Mecklenburg County leaders are trying to find solutions for a worsening food crisis in the county’s poorest neighborhoods.
Nearly 15 percent of the county’s population lives in what the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls food deserts — low-income communities where most residents don’t have access to a full-service grocery store or supermarket carrying nutritious food. That figure exceeds the national average of 11 percent and North Carolina’s statewide average of 13 percent.
“Population density probably has a lot to do with” the higher number, said Mecklenburg County Public Health Director Gibbie Harris. “If you look at Mecklenburg County, it’s mostly city. In rural communities, people can have gardens. People need cars to get around. They can get to the grocery store.”
But that’s not reality for many living in the county’s low-income neighborhoods, where poverty, lack of transportation and race intersect with poor diets, health problems and gaps in resources. Despite spending $160 million last year to help feed needy families, the problem persists in Mecklenburg.
“When I hear stats (about food deserts), I know it’s true because I lived there,” said Ashanti Selassie, who manages an urban farm intended to fight food insecurity in east Charlotte. “I know what availability of food people have in the east, west, north and south of the city. I know what they don’t have access to.”
So does lifelong west Charlottean Brenda Campbell. When she was a little girl, she […]
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:19 — 45.8MB)
As our metropolitan areas grow, they gobble up the farmland that used to feed them. Our next guests are trying to keep the food you eat local, by supporting the agriculture that can keep farmers growing when cities expand. Zack Wyatt and Tia Wackerhagen work with Carolina Farm Trust, whose goal is to help small, local farmers stay in the business of bringing food to your table.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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Guests from recent dialogues include (top left) Peter Gwaltney – NC Bankers, Linda Brown – Asheboro Chamber, Larry Appel – Fresh Market CEO, Zack Wyatt – Carolina Farm Trust, Joe Waters – Capita, Eric Davis – NC Board of Ed. Chair, Bernie Mazyck – SC Asso. of Community Dev., Catherine Truitt – Western Governors Univ., Brian Etheridge – Leadership NC and Chris William. — with Carolina Farm Trust, Capita, Western Governors University, South Carolina Association for Community Economic Development, Asheboro/Randolph Chamber of Commerce, Leadership North Carolina and The Fresh Market.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
