A Little Grocery with a Big Heart
story by Donna Hecker | photography by Talitha Schroeder
A good friend shared a story recently. Today she’s a well-known advocate for food access but she grew up in a California home where food, especially fresh food, wasn’t exactly plentiful – a situation we would now call food-insecurity – and she was sometimes pulled from her regular classroom for additional health education.
One day they were learning about locally grown fruits and vegetables and the college-aged instructor handed her half of a kiwi and a spoon. As our friend took her first bite, the young teacher told her something she’s never forgotten.
Anytime you have the opportunity to eat fresh, healthy food, you should, because you are worth it.
It’s a sentiment that is at the heart of the new FoodChain Neighborhood Green Grocery, 15 years in the dreaming, and now open to the public five days a week. At just under 2000 square feet of retail space, the grocery manages to pack in just about all the essentials that can be found in stores many times its size, plus extra treats like homemade stocks and pickles and popsicles.
There are snack foods and cleaning supplies and canned goods and hygiene products; but most importantly, arrayed along the entire back wall are freezer and cooler cases filled with local meats and eggs and cheeses, and bins full of fresh fruits and vegetables delivered straight from Central Kentucky farms.
Best of all, the FoodChain Green Grocery is a Kentucky Double Dollars store. Kentucky Double Dollars is a project administered by the Community Farm Alliance and supported by a GusNIP grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.
Here’s how it works – when a customer purchases fresh produce and pays with their SNAP/EBT, the first $10 spent nets them a voucher (in the form of their receipt) which they can then spend on an additional $10 worth of fresh produce. Not only is the customer’s spending power doubled, so is the payoff for the local farmer who grew the produce.
Just a few of those farms are Rootbound in Oldham County, Stepping Stone and Eggleston in Harrison County, Woodford County’s Salad Days, Vern’s Farm & Orchard in Gravel Switch, and Bunny’s Purple Sweet Potatoes in Raywick. And the list goes on, including FoodChain’s own aquaponic gardens, just beyond the grocery’s back doors.
Grocery manager Malik McCalpine says the community support has been tremendous. We’ve got positive feedback on our customer surveys, telling us that this place is needed. Things like – it’s within walking distance; it’s just up the street from my house. Or the farmers market is a little chaotic so I’d rather go here and support my local farmers.
We’re so new that we’re still understanding what the community would appreciate but we had to pick up our seasonings for sure at first; that’s very important to a lot of people, including myself!
Malik’s especially proud of the kids corner and the fact that the grocery fulfills a need for a third space where folks can drop in to work or study. There’s free wi-fi and a long countertop with stools for guests as they relax with a $2 cup of coffee or container of ramen noodles, or browse one of the free cookbooks under the checkout counter.
The day we were there, we watched a steady stream of kids and grownups stop by for free samples from the slushy machine or a bag of fresh-popped popcorn. We realized that FoodChain’s Neighborhood Green Grocery is a bright, welcoming spot in a community where wholesome food isn’t always easy to find. And we thought about what our friend learned many years ago – that everyone should have the opportunity to eat fresh, healthy food because they are worth it.
FoodChain
Neighborhood Green Grocery
501 W. Sixth St., Suite 105
Lexington, KY 40508
August Hours
Tuesday: 10-4
Wednesday: 10-4
Thursday: 10-6
Friday: 10-6
Saturday: 10-5
Sunday: closed
Monday: closed
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Farmers Market Panzanella
Here’s something to do with that great summer produce from FoodChain’s Green Grocery! A panzanella recipe inspired by Marcella Hazan’s “Bread and Vegetable Salad with Anchovies” from The Classic Italian Cookbook, published in 1973.
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