Food deserts, or more accurately food apartheid or food oppression, means a lack of physical access to fresh wholesome food near you. In reality, food accessibility is much more complex. It is reflected in the urban segregation of underrepresented communities, putting them at a disadvantage over affluent communities. It is also the lack of proper public transportation and the vulnerability of our low-income/working poor communities.
In many parts of the United States, there is a crisis caused by people having limited access to healthy & affordable food options. This in turn is creating a host of health and social problems. What exactly is a food desert? What causes a food desert? What are the secondary and tertiary problems that are created by a food desert? How can this problem be solved? Who are the leaders helping to address this crisis?
In this interview series, called “Food Deserts: How We Are Helping To Address The Problem of People Having Limited Access to Healthy & Affordable Food Options” we are talking to business leaders and non-profit leaders who can share the initiatives they are leading to address and solve the problem of food deserts.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Frederic Laforge, Co-Founder & CEO of The Farmers’ Truck.
Fred was raised on a small farm, where fresh food was always in abundance. He made a career as a product designer and founded his design agency early on. Throughout the years, he fell in love with social entrepreneurship and now dedicates his life to making the world a better place increasing access to fresh healthy food all over America.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
My pleasure! I was always a curious kid tinkering with my inventions, I even had a whole journal dedicated to all my ideas and, funny enough, I still do that today. I always had a very creative mind and that led me to study graphic design. A few years later, I started my design agency, specializing in product design and that started my entrepreneurial journey.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I was motivated to start my design agency after being fired from my 9–5 job for not being “productive enough”. Six months later, after putting everything into the start up,, I am broke, my credit cards are full & I owe money to my family and friends… it wasn’t pretty.
I was so desperate, I would scavenge the Yellow Pages for bad advertising and call them to offer my services. One day, someone on LinkedIn was looking for a web designer and I reached out. I had no idea how to do web design at that moment, but I was willing to learn anything to make it work. When I met with him, it turned out there were four other people supposed to come to meet with him but I was the only one who showed up. I landed the contract and that ended up being our biggest client for well over 5 years.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
I realized early on that when you work for someone else, they are the primary decision makers when it comes to your career direction. Running my own business ensures that my priorities remain aligned with my ethics and as a social entrepreneur, I am able to feel like I’m making a difference.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My father was a farmer. He taught me, the most important thing a farmer can do is take care of his people, his community. Share the harvest. With that upbringing I became a community builder, mentor and dedicated volunteer for many causes. I know that it’s faster to go alone, but you get much further together. There are so many entrepreneurs and champions in my community who helped us get where we are today. I am grateful for them and their support!
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
- Selflessness : Fall in love with the problem you’re tackling, don’t fall in love with your solution. Solutions are dime a dozen. Listen to understand and not to answer.
- Optimism: The startup grind is real, and it takes its toll. I keep three things in mind that I aim to execute in the day: Be kind, do good and always look for the silver lining in every mistake you make. Being open to learning from your mistakes allows you to get up and continue every single day.
- Passion: The peaks and valleys of entrepreneurship can come fast and frequently. When it gets tough and you’re not passionate about what you’re fighting for, money will not change that. Money is a tool, not an end goal.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“The less you need, the more you have.” If you embrace a simple life, you won’t have to worry about losing everything since you don’t need much to be happy. The entrepreneurial journey can be very hard and you should be ready for anything.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about Food Deserts. I know this is intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to expressly articulate this for our readers. Can you please tell us what exactly a food desert is? Does it mean there are places in the US where you can’t buy food?
Food deserts, or more accurately food apartheid or food oppression, means a lack of physical access to fresh wholesome food near you. In reality, food accessibility is much more complex. It is reflected in the urban segregation of underrepresented communities, putting them at a disadvantage over affluent communities. It is also the lack of proper public transportation and the vulnerability of our low-income/working poor communities.
Can you help explain a few of the social consequences that arise from food deserts? What are the secondary and tertiary problems that are created by a food desert?
How can you perform in school when you’re always hungry? How will that affect your future? How can you get that raise when you can’t perform at work because your diet is lacking essential nutrients and you’re always tired? How does it make you feel if you can’t feed your children the nutrients they desperately need to grow strong and healthy?
There’s a lot of negative physical effects to experiencing sustained long-term food insecurity, but also a lot of mental health issues affecting self-esteem and self-worth.
Lack of access to healthy foods is one of the main reasons for the high rates of obesity. 155 million American adults are obese and at greater risk for serious health disorders. 90–95% of type 2 diabetes is caused by obesity.
Where did this crisis come from? Can you briefly explain to our readers what brought us to this place?
In many countries, food access is a priority as an essential part of healthy living. Farmers’ are subsidized to grow essential food, grocery stores are mandated to sell local food and even schools make sure they feed children healthy food.
We all eat, every day, multiple times a day. How can we argue that food isn’t essential? Here in America, we choose to capitalize on food when we should celebrate it. We grow and distribute food like no-ones business, but the free market is not taking care of the most vulnerable. Food banks are fighting against hunger, but feeding hungry people is the bare minimum, having communities eating and living healthy should be the real goal.
The root cause of food insecurity is poverty, but that is a whole other conversation.
Can you describe to our readers how your work is making an impact to address this crisis? Can you share some of the initiatives you are leading to help correct this issue?
The Farmers’ Truck is a social enterprise that started in 2015 as a means to bring fresh, locally grown food to our communities with a mobile farmers’ market. It turns out that mobile farmers’ markets are quite effective at increasing fruit and vegetable consumption in underserved communities. A lot of NGOs fighting food insecurity are looking at launching a mobile market program but they don’t know how to get started. We made it our mission to empower these organizations, sharing what we learned, offering a key-in-hand mobile market vehicle, training and much more. From California to New York, we are empowering change to food access for thousands of Americans.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
We have delivered 15 mobile market trucks to customers to date throughout the United States. With each one we learn of the non-profit, food bank or nutritional centre we are helping. To know that with the addition of The Farmers’ Truck, these organizations can expand their reach further, incorporate an additional route for deliveries, provide a stable schedule to a school nutrition program, we are simply in awe by the work being done on a daily basis and feel so thankful for being able to contribute.
A story like this from our customer is why we do this. https://www.communityfoodbankofsbc.org/the-mobile-pantry-increases-food-access-for-people-in-need/
In your opinion, what should other business and civic leaders do to further address these problems? Can you please share your “5 Things That Need To Be Done To Address The Problem of People Having Limited Access to Healthy & Affordable Food Options”? If you can, please share a story or example for each.
- Poverty is the root cause of food insecurity. Universal Basic Income would fix that.
- Incentivize corner stores to offer fresh, wholesome healthy food.
- Tax high sugar, highly processed food — Including fast food restaurants and use the money to pay for healthy food access programs.
- Make food literacy classes mandatory in school — Young people should know how to cook healthy on a budget.
- Support and fund food access initiatives such as farmers’ markets and mobile farmers’ markets.
Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address food deserts? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work?
Our customers are amazing leaders who are working hard to make healthy food more accessible and launching mobile market programs.
If you had the power to influence legislation, are there laws that you would like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
Being able to bring systematic changes to affordable and nutritious food access is our end goal. I would definitely fight for Universal Basic Income (UBI), which would remove a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering from our community.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would advocate for UBI, but also make mobile market programs accessible to food banks all over the world. Being able to empower food banks to expand their reach and eliminate the inaccessibility factor of access nutritious food would have such a ripple effect.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
I would love to have lunch with Michelle Obama. I think she’s fantastic, inspiring and would love to have her support on our mission. Also, MacKenzie Scott, to show her our work and impact, and to have her financial support to continue our work.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can visit our website: www.thefarmerstruck.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/thefarmerstruck
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefarmerstruck
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefarmerstruck/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwJTJZQdqOHS6Az1lRKWL0g
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.