WKRC: Ohio city launches mobile grocery store to fight back against food scarcity

AKRON, Ohio (WKRC) - An Ohio city launched a mobile grocery store to combat food scarcity.

According to WEWS-TV, the City of Akron has launched the Summit Fresh Mobile Market, a converted bus that's filled with fresh produce, meats, dairy products and other food products.

The outlet reported that the bus was borrowed from a similar program in Mahoning Valley, with Akron's Director of Sustainability and Resiliency, Casey Shevlin, telling reporters with WEWS that the idea was conceived early in 2024.

“We thought it was pretty brilliant,” Shevlin told the outlet. “The mission of the mobile grocery store is to bring the grocery store to where people most need it. Like a lot of cities, Akron has these pockets in the community where there might not be a brick-and-mortar grocery store. It's a pretty common problem across the country."

The mobile market is available to all people in Akron, but city council members said they are hoping it will assist with five zip codes that are known as "food deserts":

• 44302

• 44305

• 44306

• 44307

• 44314

Shevlin told the station that the mobile market accepts the following methods of payment:

• Cash

• Credit cards

• Debit cards

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits

• Women, Infants and Children (WIC) benefits

At a city council meeting on Monday, $175,000 was approved for the mobile market, according to WEWS, which noted that funding will come from a grant from the American Beverage Foundation for a Healthy America and the United States Conference of Mayors.

"They need their own bus. They'll have big sort of startup expenses like that, that this money will go towards,” Shevlin told the outlet, adding that the details of the program will be worked out in the coming weeks.

Read the original article here.