Del Bene confirms the popularity of produce grown in Michigan, including downtown growers. His company recently signed a distribution deal with Recovery Park Farms, an urban grower in Detroit that uses high tunnels and glass structures to grow all year. “It’s a huge market for local chefs,” he says.
Like everyone else, Riggio is always happy to provide local product, grown in the field or as protected agriculture. “We distribute locally grown product for as long as the season will provide, and hoophouses can extend those seasons,” he explains. “We also have year-round supplies on certain commodities grown locally, in greenhouses.”
Retail Scene: Urban
Detroit’s retail scene is thriving with new neighborhood additions focused on urban communities. One local entrepreneur, Raphael Wright, is working on Detroit’s only black-owned supermarket franchise, Us Food Market, hoping to bring more diversity to the area’s retail landscape.His mission-driven grocer is as much about healthy food and great fresh produce as it is about fostering community, offering recipes, and sponsoring events. Earning money from GoFundMe and local ‘Make the Hood Great Again’ campaigns, Wright hopes to fill a gap and serve the community with fairly priced food and topnotch customer service.
Michigan-born and bred Meijer is also capturing opportunities to help satisfy demand for smaller, urban-focused grocery stores. Bridge Street Market is a community-inspired neighborhood store first opened in the retailer’s hometown, Grand Rapids.
Another is set to open in downtown Detroit in fall 2019. Meijer is also revamping its online capabilities to better compete in the grocery delivery and curbside pickup arena. For its part, Aldi is remodeling locations rather than opening new, investing $28 million to renovate 20 Detroit stores by 2019, which will focus on bolstering fresh options and implementing energy-efficient operations. Another innovation came to Michigan State University, which opened Sparty’s Market, a mini grocer to offer students more fresh food options on campus. Product mix was based on market research and focus groups at the university; if the grocer succeeds, it could be the wave of the future for the state’s colleges and universities.
Due to Detroit’s 45-minute proximity to Leamington, Ontario, greenhouse-grown “product is very accessible most of the year and we can fill short-notice orders very easily,” continues Riggio. As the leading greenhouse producing area in North America, suppliers from throughout the United States want to source from Leamington. Riggio says many suppliers “have distribution in the Detroit area, but we also sell product to many of these producers because of how close we are,” he says.
Roscoe & Horkey Farms focuses predominantly on conventional mainstays like potatoes, sweet corn, cabbage, and peppers, along with molokhia (Egyptian spinach). “We planted a few less acres of potatoes and more sweet corn this year,” comments Horkey, but cites no other major changes.
