Growing with Deeply Rooted Produce

We have been growing at an exponential rate the last two years and are increasing the amount of produce we deliver to the Metro-Detroit. We were able to raise a series of different amounts of money from different sources including $10,000 from the Black Food & Justice Alliance and quickly learn that it wasn't enough to sustain our operations thus we would like to raise matching funds + for this year's operations and strategically position ourselves to double the revenue generated. 

Because of the pandemic, we realized how important home delivery is for people who have became home-bound, work from home and didn't have consistent access to freshly grown fruits & vegetables. Many small businesses & black owned businesses also struggled with the ability to distribute their products to restaurants and wellness establishments.  We found that we could fill these gaps and are learning how to scale appropriately and price with people & profit in mind. 

Last year was the first year we operated our own farm in addition to aggregating produce from other local growers. We learned that we must create ways to have funds available for aggregation in addition to the purchase of produce (that would have otherwise been wasted) from other farms.

Our operations are cyclical & regenerative, we distribute produce boxes throughout the week and any leftover produce is then given to chefs to make into Sunday Dinners for a donation, each and every week throughout the season. In 2022, we are hosting educational classes to orient children back to the soil and they will learn why it is important to grow your own food & love the earth. Any completely inedible food is then put into our compost pile to become healthy soil for the following year's crops as we will also be continuing our neighborhood composting program as community members can help us create soil for our farm operations. One huge expense is purchasing soil for our farm operations (one-30-yard load of soil is $450 peak season!) Other neighborhoods have successfully created composting programs and we believe we have the means to provide the services as well. 

We are already in operation and simply need the capital to aid our existing operations! We first must finish building and securing amentities at our farm and securing more land to cultivate a community space for all to gather--including a place to host Sunday Dinners, yoga, events, and more. Additionally we need to properly irrigate our farm, all while possiblily aggregating and distributing produce in the process. 

We will purchase and wrap another delivery vehicle along with a trailer that will serve at our mobile market to attend farmer's markets and one-time events. We found it difficult this year, using just one vehicle and having a desire to be in more than one place at once. Additionally, farmer's market set ups take a lot of time & energy. With a trailer, we would not have to unload similar to how ice cream trucks work. With more vehicles and more staff, we can be in more than one place at one time! 

Once we make sure our vehicles and operations are sustained (in the midst of our partnership with The Neighborhood Grocery) we will continue to operate our produce business at a larger scale: taking delivery orders from value-added product makers, grocery delivery customers from Neighborhood Grocery in addition to our regular Community Support Agriculture (CSA) and Fresh Prescription box customers.  

We are doing this because Detroit needs an internal food chain that is facilitated by food makers, food growers, and food distributors of Detroit.