Ivy Lawrence-Walls and Jeremy Peaches, two farmers turned business owners from Houston, Texas.
They founded Fresh Houwse Grocery, a Black-owned grocery store, with the goal of offering locally produced fruit to locals in their neighborhood, according to a report from Black Enterprise.
The food insecurity in Sunnyside, the area where Lawrence-Walls of Ivy Leaf Farms and Peaches of Fresh Life Organic Produce grew up, has long been a concern for them. It has been classified as a food desert by the USDA, and efforts are being made to identify solutions.
The two have been preparing to build a food store in Sunnyside since October 2021. The “Black Wall Street” companies on Cullen Boulevard, which were previously prosperous in the 1960s, have mainly been shut down. Nowadays, the majority of Sunnyside’s residents must travel more than a mile to reach even food stores.
Fresh House Grocery
They were able to open Fresh House Grocery after almost a year of planning, including locating the ideal site that is off of a major road and reachable in the Metro.
Peaches told the Houston Chronicle, “It’s almost like history.” It’s unusual to see farmers in the neighborhood where they grew up producing and distributing food through a grocery shop.
In the past, the two created the Black Farmer’s Box, which offers local products to those living in food-insecure areas.
Along with the $27,000 they gathered through a neighborhood fundraiser and the $50,000 grant they received from HGTV “Fixer Upper” stars Chip and Joanna Gaines, they set aside their revenues to utilize for the business.
Products from fresh vegetables, cereals, spices, canned foods, daily necessities, and home goods are all available at Fresh House. The business is well located to serve those in Sunnyside and the surrounding South Park neighborhoods.
It is a grocery shop that caters to your lifestyle, according to Lawrence-Walls. “You have to be available, consistent, and handy to make healthy eating a (lifestyle),” she said.
Effect of Change
Following the publication of a recent University of Houston research, which revealed that lettuce bought in lower-income areas had greater levels of E. coli and other gastrointestinal germs than lettuce bought in better-income areas.
Ivy and Jeremy realized they could no longer watch from the sidelines as everything continued to go wrong.
The spark for opening Fresh Houwse Grocery was lit during a lengthy discussion to explore how they might continue to effect change.
