BrightSide Produce

BrightSide Produce builds a more equitable food system by expanding access to affordable produce in underserved Twin Cities neighborhoods. Through interconnected programs, designed with iterative community engagement, we target different aspects of healthy food access, namely investing in small grocers in local food deserts and delivering directly to food insecure families. Our work ensures that healthy and culturally relevant food is accessible to all, regardless of income or neighborhood.

BrightSide Produce builds a more equitable food system by expanding access to affordable fresh produce. We address the structural causes of food insecurity by 1) helping small grocery retailers (i.e., corner stores) in underserved neighborhoods stock produce, 2) delivering fruits and vegetables to food insecure folks (including our volunteer-run Pay What You Can program and Food as Medicine partnerships with community health centers) and 3) managing urban farmers markets.

BrightSide advances the priorities of Food Access, Agriculture, and Environment in the following ways:
Food: We tackle food insecurity by supplying corner stores in food deserts with affordable fresh produce and offering sliding-scale and free home deliveries, removing financial and transportation barriers to food access.

Agriculture: We support local agriculture by operating two urban farmers markets that increase market access for small growers.

Environment: We are a zero food waste organization; our past-peak produce is either upcycled into produce-forward snacks or composted.

A Seedlings donation would support BrightSide’s Pay What You Can program where we deliver a $23 bag of produce to food insecure families for an amount they choose, including $0. We are reliable, convenient, and overcome food access barriers like cost and transportation. Demand is high, and we are fund limited. This program is volunteer run, so there is little administrative overhead. Seedlings funds would pay for the produce, bags, and mileage reimbursements for volunteer delivery drivers.

BrightSide is small but mighty! Just last year we provided about 4,995 deliveries to food-insecure families, totaling over 18,000 pounds of produce. Over 80% of Pay What You Can households have annual incomes under $30,000 and are primarily Hispanic and/or Black. One recipient shared, “I always know there is going to be a fruit or vegetable we can add into our meals. If we were shopping, we'd get this once or twice a month. But with this program, it’s weekly.”