The first Black-owned grocery store, Fresh Houwse Grocery, was recently established in Houston, Texas, by former farmers Ivy Lawrence-Walls and Jeremy Peaches. The company’s mission is to offer local produce to its neighborhood’s residents.
Lawrence-Walls said that food insecurity in Sunnyside is a present issue within their area. According to the USDA, it is an urban place that lacks affordable and high-quality goods, and the government has been taking steps to fight it, according to Black Enterprise.
How It Started
The two have been preparing to open a grocery 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.
They opened Fresh Houwse Grocery after nearly a year of preparations, particularly selecting the ideal location off the main road and reachable in the Metro.
They were able to open Fresh Houwse 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 area where they grew up producing and distributing food through a grocery store.”
Farmers-Turned-Entrepreneurs’ Good Deed
Peaches and Lawrence-Walls have expertise in business; they developed the Black Farmer’s Box, which gives people of food desert neighborhoods access to boxes of locally sourced vegetables. Initially offering delivery, they now let customers pick up their boxes on specific days directly from Fresh House, the Houston Chronicle report said.
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.
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