Produce store opens in food desert of East Chattanooga

Staff photo by Doug Strickland
Jannie Lowe, right, and Denise Lowe bag fresh green beans Wednesday, July 1, 2015, at the recently opened Scarbrough's Produce on East 3rd Street in Chattanooga, Tenn. The produce store provides fresh produce and other grocery items to an area of Chattanooga which is labeled as a food desert.
Staff photo by Doug Strickland Jannie Lowe, right, and Denise Lowe bag fresh green beans Wednesday, July 1, 2015, at the recently opened Scarbrough's Produce on East 3rd Street in Chattanooga, Tenn. The produce store provides fresh produce and other grocery items to an area of Chattanooga which is labeled as a food desert.

For more than a decade, the East Chattanooga neighborhood of Churchville has not had a grocery store.

That changed this summer, when Michael Scarbrough opened Scarbrough's Produce at 2001 E. Third St., bringing fresh fruit and vegetables to one of the city's worst food deserts.

"There [were] no stores in that area. Nowhere," he said. "I want to supply a little bit of everything."

Refrigerators line the back wall of the Third Street store, stocked with sliced watermelon, bell peppers, celery, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers, eggs, milk, juices. Another stand includes peaches, apples, oranges, yellow squash and onions. Home-grown green beans, turnip greens and cabbage also are for sale.

Still, the store isn't a full-scale grocery yet because it has limited fresh meats.

Scarbrough said he'll add more meat in the future, and he plans to open a deli inside the store that sells sandwiches and hot dogs.

Chattanooga's food deserts - areas where affordable, nutritious food is difficult to find - stretch from St. Elmo near the Georgia border through Avondale and encompass nearly 40,000 people, according to a 2012 report from the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies.

Until the mid-1990s, two full-service groceries operated on East Third Street within walking distances of residents living in Orchard Knob, Glenwood, Bushtown and Churchville. East Chattanooga had groceries on Glass Street and on Wilcox Boulevard. But all four of them have closed over the past 20 years.

The Wilcox Boulevard Food Lion was the last to close, in 2012. That left more than 15,800 people in East Chattanooga, Bushtown and Highland Park with no full-service grocery in their communities, according to the latest Grocery Store Density chart released by Tennessee Department of Health.

Many who live in the city's food deserts have limited incomes and no cars. That forces some to rely on taxicabs to get food because it's difficult walking or catching the city bus with grocery bags, said Scarbrough.

"We wanted a store the elderly people could get to," he said.

Scarbrough's Produce opened June 11.

Jannie Lowe came for the first time last week.

"We've got enough beer stores around here. We need more vegetables," she said after buying potatoes, squash and green beans.

East Chattanooga and the Alton Park areas share one of the highest obesity rates in the city. In 2010, more than 70 percent of the predominately black residents in East and South Chattanooga were overweight or obese, local registered nurse Mildred Moreland said.

When people can't get to fresh produce and vegetables, they buy fried foods and pastries available at neighborhood convenience stores, she said.

Chattanooga City Councilman Yusuf Hakeem and a coalition of residents are advocating for the city to provide tax incentives for a grocery store to operate in East Chattanooga.

The YMCA is trying to answer a need for fresh fruit and vegetables in Alton Park by partnering with corner store owner Mahmood Abdullah.

As part of a three-year partnership, the YMCA will put produce in his store and train workers on how to choose and maintain it. YMCA officials hope to bring in three more corner stores before the end of the year.

But J.T. McDaniel, who owns the Scarbrough's Produce building, said it's possible to open a store without assistance from government or nonprofits. He said he's owned businesses since 1972 and hates hearing people say that Chattanooga has no business opportunities for minorities, because he knows that's not true.

Scarbrough's Produce operates with no assistance from the city or the YMCA, McDaniel pointed out.

McDaniel knew Scarbrough had worked for 18 years at Pruett's, where he was the former night manager, and called him about opening the store on Third Street.

Scarbrough is already thinking of expansion, looking to open another store in Alton Park.

Sherita Alexander said she appreciates the store being open so much that she comes almost every day.

"Yesterday I got watermelon," she said. "It was so good, I stood at the counter and ate it all."

Contact staff writer Yolanda Putman at yputman@timesfreepress.com or 757-6431.

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