Kaiser Permanente supports innovative "mobile farmers market" program

Nutritious and affordable fruits and vegetables are being offered in underserved areas of Silicon Valley, delivered in a large, boxy white truck named Clara.
Clara the Truck was purchased with a Community Benefit grant from Kaiser Permanente Medical Centers in Santa Clara and San Jose. It is operated by Fresh Approach, a Bay Area non-profit, which buys discounted produce from farmers markets, and resells them at a discount in underserved communities. A second Community Benefit grant from Kaiser Permanente supports the service that Fresh Approach provides.
“It’s a kind of a mobile farmers market,” said Dr. Susan Smarr, Physician-in-Chief of the Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Medical Center. Dr. Smarr was wearing a whimsical straw hat decorated with vegetables and fruit at a recent ribbon-cutting at the Santa Clara Library, a ceremony to introduce Clara.
Fresh Approach has a similar truck operating in Contra Costa County. Fresh Approach works with the Pacific Coast Farmers Market group, which operates the farmers markets at most of Kaiser Permanente’s Northern California Medical Centers.
Leah Smith, the Executive Director of Fresh Approach, described how it works: the truck and its crew go to one of those farmers markets, buy a selection of produce at a slight discount, then take the fruit and vegetables to a local neighborhood center and sell it, again at a discount.
So far, Fresh Approach has set up five locations in the Silicon Valley where the truck will be selling fresh produce: St. Paul’s Methodist Church in San Jose, the Sunnyvale Public Library, Gavilan College, Life’s Garden Retirement and San Miguel Resource Center, both in Sunnyvale.
“This truck can solve most of the challenges to healthy eating, “said Dr. Smarr. “It provides easy access to farm-fresh nutritious fruit and vegetables, at a lower price, and it comes to your location. I’d say it’s like the Triple Crown.”
Clara the Truck has a generator and a built-in refrigerator for fragile produce, plus shelf storage in the back of the truck for more sturdy fruits and vegetables. When the truck opens for business, a large side panel swings up to display grocery shelves with the produce nicely arranged in baskets. There’s a portable scale and cash register, and the operators accept cash, credit cards or EBT cards.
After the ribbon-cutting ceremony, after the speeches and picture taking the Clara the Truck opened for business. The library users started buying produce.