RG Foods Inc.
The Healthy Community Store Initiative (HCSI) has grown into a full family of programs now known as RG Roods Inc., which is dedicated to changing the way Tulsa eats by addressing barriers along the food supply chain and providing solutions from the farm to distribution, retail access, and food reclamation.
Looking for our Mobile Store?
R&G Family Grocers is a program with a 44-foot-long, mobile grocery store that brings fresh, healthy food to people and communities on our regular basis though a routine bus-stop schedule.
Our Mission...
To enhance the health of Oklahomans by providing access to quality, fresh food through healthy community stores, nutrition education, economic opportunities and community revitalization.
14
The number of weekly stops R&G Family Grocers currently provides to serve those we are unable to get to groceries.
$45,000
The amount of free fruits and vegetables given away to our snap customers in 2018.
17,700
The Number of people we were able to provide better food access to via our residential markets and mobile store in 2018.
Providing over $45,000 in free fresh produce in 2018, we have seen a significant improvement in mental and physical health for all participating community members. With access to fresh fruits and vegetables, many of our customers have reported they have been taken off medication for preventable diseases. Kathy Barnes is one such customer. Her critical numbers improved dramatically and her doctor asked her what she had been doing different. She told him she had access to fresh, affordable produce because R&G Family Grocers came to her each week. He took her off her blood pressure medicine and her cholesterol medicine.
“A happy and healthy community is not a fairytale. All you need is a seed.”
— NADIA Shabaz
Our Beginning...
HCSI, Inc. was formed in 2010 by Steven Eberle, Scott Smith and Katie Plohocky to address the food desert problem in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Each brought a different perspective and expertise to the issue. Horticulture, community gardening, nutrition and cooking demonstrations, retail operations, policy advocacy, and community projects. The Healthy Community Store Initiative intends to integrate programming and solutions from farm to landfill, to rebuild the bridges linking the distribution points of our local food system. Today, we have six programs built on that integration piloting viable solutions and working with partners to create economic opportunities in vulnerable communities.
Our first project was a mobile grocery store, a nine horse-horse trailer built out into a one aisle, full service grocery store. R&G Family Grocers was designed to address food access by residents living in food deserts. Providing healthy choices was our number one priority. Building partnerships with local farmers to harvest seconds and produce that hadn't sold was our solution to keeping fresh produce on the store at an affordable price. Seeing the amount of produce that was going to waste in the field, we began taking volunteers to the farm with us and taking the excess to the Food Bank, providing to partner agencies to give away, and preserving for future use. Hands 2 Harvest was born. We also started R&G Family Farm to provide verticle integration of supply to the mobile store and control some of our supply. Cooking For Health was created to focus on the food preservation, prepared meals, nutrition education and healthy catering using the excess food recovered.
Learn more about all our programs here...
Get Involved...
RG Foods relies on volunteers and the generous financial support of others to keep our programming in place, as well as expand our reach to even more people.